Dolores."
"She's Rachel."
"I know that. But we've got a deal. She'll be my Dolores. I'll be her Jim. It's a good deal."
"Uh-oh," Cawley said.
The three children came running back down the corridor toward them. They were soaking wet and they were screaming their little heads off.
"What kind of mother does that?" Cawley said.
Teddy watched the children run in place. They'd gotten past him and Cawley, and then the air changed or something because they ran and ran but never moved forward.
"Kills her kids?" Cawley said.
"She didn't mean to," Teddy said. "She's just scared."
"Like me?" Cawley said, but he wasn't Cawley anymore. He was Peter Breene. "She's scared, so she kills her kids and that makes it okay?"
"No. I mean, yes. I don't like you, Peter."
"What're you going to do about it?"
Teddy. placed his service revolver to Peter's temple.
"You know how many people I've executed?" Teddy said, and there were tears streaming down his face.
"Well, don't," Peter said. "Please."
Teddy pulled the trigger, saw the bullet come out the other side of Breene's head, and the three kids had watched the whole thing and they were screaming like crazy now and Peter Breene said, "Dammit," and leaned against the wall, holding his hand over the entrance wound. "In front of the children?"
And they heard her. A shriek that came out of the darkness ahead of them. Her shriek. She was coming. She was up there somewhere in the dark and she was running toward them full tilt and the little girl said, "Help us."
"I'm not your daddy. It's not my place."
"I'm going to call you Daddy."
"Fine," Teddy said with a sigh and took her hand.
They walked the cliffs overlooking the Shutter Island shore and then they wandered into the cemetery and Teddy found a loaf of bread and some peanut butter and jelly and made them sandwiches in the mausoleum and the little girl was so happy, sitting on his lap, eating her sandwich, and Teddy took her out with him into the graveyard and pointed out his father's headstone and his mother's headstone and his own:
EDWARD DANIELS
BAD SAILOR
1920-1957
"Why are you a bad sailor?" the girl asked.
"I don't like water."
"I don't like water, either. That makes us friends."
"I guess it does."
"You're already dead. You got a whatchamacallit."
"A headstone."
"Yeah."
"I guess I am, then. There was no one in my town."
"I'm dead too."
"I know. I'm sorry about that."
"You didn't stop her."
"What could I do? By the time I reached her, she'd already, you know..."
"Oh, boy."
"What?"
"Here she comes again."
And there was Rachel walking into the graveyard by the headstone Teddy had knocked over in the storm. She took her time. She was so beautiful, her hair wet and dripping from the rain, and she'd traded in the cleaver for an ax with a long handle and she dragged it beside her and said, "Teddy, come on. They're mine."
"I know. I can't give them to you, though."
"It'll be different this time."
"How ?"
"I'm okay now. I know my responsibilities. I got my head right."
Teddy wept. "I love you so much."
"And I love you, baby. I do." She came up and kissed him, really kissed him, her hands on his face and her tongue sliding over his and a low moan traveling up her throat and into his mouth as she kissed him harder and harder and he loved her so much.
"Now give me the girl," she said.
He handed the girl to her and she held the girl in one arm and picked up the ax in the other and said, "I'll be right back. Okay?" "Sure," Teddy said.
He w.aved to the girl, knowing she didn't understand. But it was for her own good. He knew that. You had to make tough decisions when you were an adult, decisions children couldn't possibly understand. But you made them for the children. And Teddy kept waving, even though the girl wouldn't wave back as her mother carried her toward the mausoleum and the little girl stared at Teddy, her eyes beyond hope for rescue, resigned to this world, this sacrifice, her mouth still smeared with peanut butter and jelly.
"OH, JESUS!" TEDDY sat up. He was crying. He felt he'd wrenched himself awake, tore his brain into consciousness just to get out of that dream. He could feel it back there in his brain, waiting, its doors wide open. All he had to do was close his eyes and tip his head back toward the pillow and he'd topple right back into it.
"How are you, Marshal?"
He blinked several times into the