than depression, boredom, longing, even memories. Because at the root of regret lay helplessness—an inability to change a desired outcome.
If only …
Those, he’d come to believe, were the two most destructive words for the mind.
If. Only.
If only he’d told Maggie to run.
If only he’d passed a message to her.
If only he’d kept his mouth shut at his job.
If only he hadn’t gone to the Muddy Moose.
If only he appreciated his family more.
If only …
Glen kept hearing Maggie’s voice over and over in his head, sweet and unsure, and the sound crimped his heart anew. He had failed his family in a whole new way. He had one chance, one swing of the bat, and he had missed. Simon would never let him talk to Maggie again. He had made that abundantly clear.
Glen’s stomach rumbled with hunger. He’d been left with no food. He embraced the pain; he deserved it for his failure.
Swing and a miss …
But hours went by, and maybe even days; hard to track time down here.
All he knew was that Simon hadn’t visited the box, maybe for the longest stretch yet.
Is this how I’m going to die? Glen asked himself over and over. Left alone. Completely forgotten. If so, at least he wouldn’t have to bear witness to his family’s suffering any longer. At least he’d be gone.
His bathroom had a foul reek. The water he’d been rationing was running low. The batteries of his LED light were nearly out of juice, but it didn’t much matter. He couldn’t read even if he had wanted. His mind was elsewhere. Soon he’d be in the dark. Then he’d waste away. Maybe it wasn’t so awful. He considered it almost romantically. One day he’d close his eyes … and then all those regrets would be gone. Someday someone would crash through the wall of the box to find his bones shackled to a chain. Then, those who mattered to him most, assuming his family was still alive, would at last have some closure.
Glen was entertaining these thoughts when the door to the box flew open, and light flooded in. Simon was there, looming in the doorway.
“Did you say something to Maggie? Did you get a message to her somehow?”
“No,” Glen said, cowering, slinking away. His first inclination was always to move to safety, but there was no safe corner in the box. Simon stayed rooted and Glen quickly got the sense he didn’t come to hurt him; he came for answers.
“I think she was here, with her friend. Now, why would that be?”
Glen got anxious, too. Why would that be?
“She’s probably curious about you. She’s inquisitive. It’s her nature.”
“Hmmm…”
Simon appeared lost in thought. “Maybe so,” he said, rubbing his chin. “But if I find out you’re lying, Glen…”
He didn’t bother finishing.
“Nina’s been in contact with my ex-brother-in-law, Hugh,” said Simon. “Why?”
“Who is Hugh?”
“Emma’s brother. He’s a junkie. A loser. I decided to start checking Nina’s Facebook app on her phone. Careless girl never logs out. Sure enough, she and Hugh have been exchanging messages about me. He wants to meet her. Maybe they’ve already met. Now, why would Nina reach out to him? What’s she thinking?”
Glen was Simon’s best source for information. Knowing Nina the way he did, he could venture a guess.
“Obviously, she’s looking into you. Something’s made her nervous and she wants to know things about you. Things you might not be sharing.”
“The therapist?” Simon wanted the source.
“For sure, that.”
“I thought the same. But I also went to the Muddy Moose—see if Teresa Mitchell returned. That would be a problem. Remember her?”
Glen said nothing.
“Well, she is back. I bet you anything Nina went to see her. If she did, she’d have found out your love story was just a little one-night stand. Why, why, why does this all have to get so complicated?”
It sickened Glen to imagine what Nina must have thought of him all this time—a liar, a thief, an adulterer. His spirit lifted somewhat at the possibility she’d learned part of the truth.
Glen knew that Simon had carefully planned the setup with Teresa. He loved talking about his cleverness. At first he wasn’t going to use Teresa’s name in that text message he sent Nina. When Simon learned Teresa had taken off, leaving no forwarding address, and nobody counted on her coming back, he decided to add more detail, thinking it made the story more believable.
The pictures he’d sent, coupled with the lie, had served their purpose well. As long as Nina believed Glen had