Heaven Should Fall - By Rebecca Coleman Page 0,136

what do you want me to do? The kid needs to eat. All he’s done is nurse all day. Everything in the pantry is dried stuff in those giant cans. Same in the cellar—”

“You’re not going in the cellar. No way.”

“Of course not, but I’m just saying, I need to get to the fridge.”

Cade gave the kitchen a long look. Then he said, “I got on the phone with them again—not the guy you know, but the first one. They asked about the condition of the hostage. I went down to take a look so I could tell them correctly.”

I waited for him to continue. “And?”

He gave a slow shake of his head, then looked up at me from where he sat. “Jill…this was Dodge’s idea. It wasn’t mine.”

I didn’t really believe him, but I nodded.

“If I go upstairs and put this gun in my mouth, you know what that accomplishes?”

“Cade.”

“Absolutely nothing. It’s the same thing Eli did. It’s like I put all this work and time and effort into doing right by him, and the whole time I was just circling the block. I can’t make any kind of grand statement now, like I meant to down in D.C. Can’t even kill Fielder with any fair reason, because Candy already did most of that job, so far as I can tell. That’d be like shooting puppies in a box.”

I winced.

“If I walk out of here with my hands up, they send me to jail. And Fielder, he’ll get the last laugh on that one, because I won’t make it two days before some big guy makes me his bitch. Basically I’ve got zero options.”

He took his phone out of his pocket. It was buzzing energetically, and turned in a slow spin against the wood once he set it on the coffee table. We both looked at it, and I said, “I think you should choose what’s best for TJ.”

He nodded. I walked into the kitchen and took an orange from the bottom drawer of the dark refrigerator. I sat TJ on the kitchen island and cut a small piece off the top of the orange with a kitchen knife, then pulled it in two and handed TJ a section before beginning to peel off the skin from the rest. He worked the orange section into his mouth, nursing out the juice, watching with interest as I peeled. His legs swung in a carefree way. It occurred to me that he was as oblivious to my anger and fear and sense of betrayal as I had been to my own mother’s suffering that day, but I loved him no less for it. I was glad he didn’t know, glad he could sit and eat an orange in the calm of the eye of the storm, and if I could have held things that way for him forever, I would have. For the first time since my mother’s death I forgave myself a little for walking past that television. I understood then that if her spirit could have guided me it would have marched me away from that scene, sent me about my business to keep the peace in my soul as long as possible.

And then a gust of air blew across the kitchen, light filtered in and I looked up to see the front door open. Cade racked the gun and stepped outside. The screen banged shut, and as I gathered TJ into my arms with a sense of great caution, several loud pops ripped the air. I dropped to the floor with TJ, holding him against my side as I crawled with the other arm toward the corner beneath the table. Shouts rang out, a chaos of voices peppered with more gunfire. I curled beneath the table, enveloping my son with my body in an embrace that all but crushed him. Boot steps crashed into the house, voices, the sudden sense of exposure and broken boundary. I squeezed my eyes shut tight and breathed in the cold smell of the stone floor, the muscles of my back steeled against the world beyond me.

That this was a rescue did not enter my mind. These were only strangers, Cade’s adversaries, invading our home.

A gloved hand fell against my side, and then I was dragged back against the stone, not moving from my position around the baby. TJ, his mouth no longer stilled by my sleeve, twisted his head upward and let loose with a furious cry. So close to my ear,