band. The whole thing knocked me flat. I’m in the backyard listening to the music and the friend says to me, Come on, there are some women who want to meet you. Don’t be standing there like a big idiot. So he takes me inside and there are three of them, all nice enough. I knew one of them a little from way back when. They’re talking away, some show on TV, gossip, the usual things. Normal, everyday things. I’m nursing a beer and listening to them when all of a sudden I realize I have no idea what they’re saying. Not the words themselves. What any of it meant. None of it seemed connected to anything else, like there were two worlds, an inside world and an outside world, and neither had anything to do with the other. I’m sure a shrink would have a name for it. All I know is, I woke up on the floor, everybody standing over me. After that, it took me about four months in the woods just to be around people again.” He paused, a little surprised at himself. “To tell you the truth, I’ve never told anybody that part. You would be the first.”
“Sounds like a day in high school.”
Kittridge had to laugh. “Touché.”
Their gazes met and held. How strange it was, he thought. One minute you were all alone with your thoughts, the next somebody came along who seemed to know the deepest part of you, who could open you like a book. He couldn’t have said how long they’d been looking at each other. It seemed to go on and on and on, neither possessing the will, or the courage, or even the desire, to look away. How old was she? Seventeen? And yet she didn’t seem seventeen. She didn’t seem like any age at all. An old soul: Kittridge had heard the term but never quite understood what it meant. That’s what April had. An old soul.
To seal the deal between them, Kittridge removed one of the Glocks from his shoulder holster and held it out to her. “Know how to use one of these?”
April looked at it uncertainly. “Let me guess. It’s not like it is on TV.”
Kittridge dropped the magazine and racked the slide to eject the cartridge from the pipe. He placed the gun it in her hand, wrapping her fingers with his own.
“Don’t pull the trigger with your knuckle, the shot will go low. Just use the pad of your fingertip and squeeze, like so.” He released her hand and tapped his breastbone. “One shot, through here. That’s all it takes, but you can’t miss. Don’t rush—aim and fire.” He reloaded the gun and handed it back. “Go on, you can have it. Keep a round chambered, like I showed you.”
She smiled wryly. “Gee, thanks. And here I don’t have anything for you.”
Kitteridge returned the smile. “Maybe next time.”
A moment passed. April was turning the weapon around in her hand, examining it as if it were some unaccountable artifact. “What the father said. Anta-something.”
“Anta al-mas’ul.”
“Did you ever figure out what it meant?”
Kittridge nodded. “ ‘You did this.’ ”
Another silence fell, though different from the others. Not a barrier between them but a shared awareness of their lives, like the walls of a room in which only the two of them existed. How strange, thought Kittridge, to say those words. Anta al-mas’ul. Anta al-mas’ul.
“It was the right thing, you know,” April said. “You would have been killed, too.”
“There’s always a choice,” Kittridge said.
“What else could you have done?”
The question was rhetorical, he understood; she expected no reply. What else could you have done? But Kittridge knew his answer. He’d always known.
“I could have held his hand.”
* * *
He kept his vigil at the window through the night. Sleeplessness was not a problem for him; he had learned to get by on just a few winks. April lay curled on the floor beneath the window. Kittridge had removed his jacket and placed it over her. There were no lights anywhere. The view from the window was of a world at peace, the sky pinpricked with stars. As the first glow of daylight gathered on the horizon, he let himself close his eyes.
He startled awake to the sound of approaching engines. An Army convoy was coming down the street, twenty vehicles long. He unsnapped his second pistol and passed it to April, who was sitting up now as well, rubbing her eyes.