under the tree when you went inside. I took it and shoved it in my pocket. Kept it, all these years, until I left it for you to find again.
Inside, that other side of me, he is quieter than he has ever been.
How can he be angry at you, Rain?
You saved us. After all this time, you came back for us.
“You’re such a man-baby,” Tess says. “It was never her job to save you.”
No, it’s never our job to save anyone. It can’t be. At the end of the day, we must all save ourselves.
I watch as they roll Billy on his stretcher toward the ambulance, and I walk over to stand beside him. He’s so tiny, just the slightest bump beneath the white sheets, his eyes wide with fear. As I draw close he reaches for my hand and I take it.
“Will you come with me?” he asks.
He’s engaged, still looking for help. This is a very good sign; it bodes well for his recovery. I glance back at you, but you’re with Greg. He is wiping tears from your eyes, and you are looking up at him as if he’s the sun and the moon. There’s an energy around you both, a swirl—you’re a family, with a child—whole, growing, with a life ahead of you.
I know that I couldn’t have given you any of that. I am not the man your husband is.
“Of course,” I tell Billy. And he closes his eyes.
Agent Brower comes up behind me.
“Dr. Reams.” Her voice is sharp, official.
I wonder if she’s going to arrest me, and part of me thinks maybe she should.
The things I have done, they’re wrong. They are as evil as any crime ever committed, as arrogant and psychopathic. I have allowed my pain to turn me, part of me, into a monster. If she takes out her cuffs, I’ll offer her my wrists. I may not need to be jailed, but he certainly does.
We move away from Billy, who is being attended to by the EMTs.
“When I was a teenager,” she says and stops. She holds my eyes.
“Five minutes ago,” I joke.
She doesn’t smile but looks down at the ground. I know what she is about to tell me. I’ve done my research on Agent Brower. I wondered what drove her and dug around until I found out.
“When I was a teenager outside Boston, my younger brother was abducted and murdered by the Boston Boogeyman.”
Her voice is low.
“He and I—we had it pretty rough,” she says. “We suffered—various abuses, physical, psychological. My mother—she wasn’t well. My dad had a drug problem. My brother got addicted to meth, ran away a few times. One time, he didn’t come back.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say. I see the tension in her shoulders, the color drained from her face.
“Horrible things happened to my brother,” she says. “And it changed me. Changed the way I saw the world and the people in it.”
I want to apologize again but opt for silence instead.
“When Smith went free,” she goes on, “I thought I wouldn’t survive it, the injustice of it. It made me sick inside. I think—that’s why I went into law enforcement.”
“I understand that,” I answer. “It makes perfect sense. You wanted to fight on the side of right.”
The paramedics are about to lift Billy into the waiting ambulance. He’s watching me, and I nod to him. I won’t break my promise.
“When the Boogeyman was killed,” she goes on. “I was already at Quantico. I know what they say, that there’s no true justice. That even when evil is punished, it doesn’t undo the things that have been done. Only forgiveness can salve the wound.”
“But?”
“I was glad that someone killed him,” she says. Her voice has grown softer. “I was glad that the world was free of him and that he’d never hurt anyone else. I was relieved.”
I let her words float, drop a comforting hand on her arm. She’s small but muscular, an intense energy coming off her in waves.
“I know just how you feel, Agent Brower.”
She pulls away from me gently, moves back. She nods toward the ambulance, acknowledging that I have to go with the boy.
“Sometimes the wrong thing is the right thing,” she says.
I climb in beside Billy.
“Sometimes that’s true,” I say to her.
As the doors close, Agent Brower and I lock eyes past my reflection in the glass. Her face is grim, her eyes green and clear. Sometimes it is true. But not always. I want to tell her about