Lisa Unger: Fragile

“What are you doing here, Crosby?”

He didn’t feel particularly alarmed to see this wanted man in his living room. In a way, Henry felt as though he’d been waiting for Travis, like they had some unfinished business they’d never gotten around to settling.

“I used to go to AA meetings. On the job, they like you to do that. Promise they’ll treat your addiction like a disease, give you your shield back when you’re cured. But that’s not the way it works. They’ll put you back on the payroll but not on the street. You run the desk or the equipment room, maybe the evidence locker if you’re lucky.”

Henry noticed a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s and a bag of chips by Travis’s feet. He’d obviously been there awhile, helped himself to things in Henry’s kitchen and liquor cabinet.

“I didn’t become a cop to file paperwork.”

“No,” Henry said. “You became a cop so that you could continue to bully people and get paid for it.”

Travis issued an annoyed little laugh, rubbed nervously at the sweat on his brow. “You never did know when to keep your mouth shut, Ivy.”

Henry noticed the gun in Travis’s hand then, a flat, black menace. Still, Henry didn’t feel any fear, just a kind of tingling awareness. He felt that same thing rear up in him that had caused him to beat Travis at homecoming. It was something ugly and raw, but not unwelcome.

“What do you want, Crosby?”

“I still think about that day, you know? When you beat me in front of the whole school?”

“So do I.”

“I feel like everything went bad for me starting there. That nothing good ever happened again after that.”

Travis stared at Henry with watery eyes, his face flushed, leg pumping. He looked bloated and filthy, with some kind of dark stain on his shirt and pants. Henry still remembered the lean, terrifying boy he’d been. He’d been all the more menacing for his beauty and charm. The man before him was a ruin.

“You’re kidding, right? You tortured me for years. I finally stood up to you. And now you’re going to blame me for ruining your life. That’s classic.”

Logic dictated that Henry should be talking Travis down, mindful of the gun in his hand. But Henry was tired of being quiet, of doing the right thing, the logical thing. That was what he’d been doing all his life. What had it gotten him, actually? What did he have to show for all that right action? If he thought about it, beating the crap out of Travis Crosby was the only honest thing he’d ever done.

“In rehab, they tell you that you have to make amends, to say you’re sorry to all the people you hurt with your addiction. But I kept thinking, What about all the people who hurt me, who fucked me over? My father, you, my ex-wife. When do they start to make amends?”

“Seems like you might have missed the point, Crosby.”

“I don’t think so.”

Travis got to his feet quickly, and Henry took an unconscious step back. He saw a predator’s satisfied smile turn up the corners of Travis’s mouth.

“And what really gets me?” Travis said. “What really kills me? My son talks about you all the time, like you’re some kind of oracle. Mr. Ivy says. Mr. Ivy says.” His voice turned into a nasty mimic. “You! The faggot I wiped the floor with for years. He looks up to you.”

Henry saw it then, that all the sadness, fear, and self-loathing that lived in Marshall had lived in Travis first. It had probably lived in the chief before that. And for the first time in his life, Henry felt compassion for Travis.

“He loves you, Travis,” Henry said. “He loves you so much, more than you know.”

But Travis didn’t seem to be listening. He was lost in whatever hurricane was raging inside him.

“Sometimes I think if it hadn’t been for that homecoming game, I wouldn’t have gotten so angry. I wouldn’t have chased her. She wouldn’t have fallen.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“It doesn’t matter now. It’s too late for her. It’s too late for me.”

Henry drew in a deep breath, keeping his eyes anywhere but on the gun in Travis’s hand. It was just surreal to see him in his parents’ living room, so broken and defeated, still intending Henry harm, even though a lifetime had passed. Henry found himself wondering why people held on to anger and sadness, gripped it tight, let it dictate the course of their lives, but found it so hard to find and keep love. He noticed that Travis was shaking.

“Look, Travis,” he said. “I’m sorry I hurt you that day.”

He wasn’t just trying to placate an angry man holding a gun. He truly was sorry. He was sorry he had let Travis bring him so low. He’d never forgotten how much it hurt to hurt someone else, no matter how much he deserved it.

Henry saw Travis soften a bit; his shoulders dropped from the tense hunch they were in.

“Christ, Ivy, even now, you’re such a fucking faggot.”

Henry felt nothing but pity as Travis raised the gun and put it to his own head. Henry backed away and closed his eyes as Travis pulled the trigger. But there was no concussive boom. Just a soft click-then silence.

Henry opened his eyes to see the look of shocked disappointment on Crosby’s face. It might have been comical if it weren’t so hideous. Travis collapsed in the chair, howling in pain, tears streaming down his cheeks.

Henry bent down and easily took the gun from the other man’s hand. He checked the barrel. It had fired on an empty chamber, but the gun still had three bullets. For an elastic moment, he thought about how easy it would be to shoot Travis. He could easily claim self-defense. Given the circumstances, their individual reputations, no one would doubt him for a moment.

But it was just a fantasy. He thought about Marshall, who’d lost so much. And he thought about himself, how he knew the folly of retaliation, what a hollow victory it was. But most of all, he thought about Travis Crosby, about how his life as it was and would be was a more exquisite justice than anything he could hope to dispense.

Henry turned from the weeping man and called the police.

Maggie stood in the doorway of the darkened hospital room and watched her husband. He didn’t look big and powerful, as he always had. He looked fragile, deflated. It was long past visiting hours, but the nurses all knew her and no one moved to stop her as she walked past their station.

When she got to his room, though, she didn’t know how to step inside. What was she going to say? How was she going to ask the questions she had? What would he tell her? And who would they be after all was said and done?

No one but Jones could have put those things in her mother’s attic. She knew that. Elizabeth hadn’t been up there in years, couldn’t even make it up the ladder when she’d wanted to. And beyond that, Elizabeth might have been guilty of not asking the hard questions, might have bowed for whatever reason to the fearful predictions of Eloise Montgomery, but she would never have concealed evidence that proved someone else’s involvement in the murder of a young girl. She could never have lived knowing those things were in her attic.

“Mags? Where have you been? We were really worried. Your cell went straight to voice mail.”

She came into the room, pulled up a chair to sit beside her husband. In the low light, he looked like his younger self, The Hollows’s heartthrob, the boy she had loved from a distance. She wondered how he had carried this load for so long, never even hinting at how painful, how heavy, it must have been.

“Jones,” she said. She put a hand on his arm.

“What is it, Maggie? Ricky okay?”

“He’s fine.”

“Because I’ve been thinking about him. I’ve made a lot of mistakes with that kid. I can do better.” He released a heavy sigh. “It’s not too late, is it?”