Lee Child: First Thrills

As odd as it seems, when Dad sucks a breath, all I can think about is Chloe’s face when I told her we couldn’t be together any more. It was nearly the same look Dad had earlier in the car-face slammed shut, unable to believe what was happening. Normally, Chloe’s eyes were full of indiscriminate wonder. Within seconds, I’d erased it all.

I push the pen deep, until half disappears, and then twist sharply, roughly. Not taking so much care now. Dad grunts a warning. I yank my hand and the pen clear, and the echo of splashing water fills the stall, followed by the reek of fermented waste. I let him fall back onto the toilet seat, and then drop the soiled pen into his lap.

“Hurry,” I say, mimicking his earlier demand. His body trembles with effort.

Chloe had trembled, too, when asking for a reason. It was the first time she’d tried to pin me down about anything, the first time she’d attempted to divine a chain of precipitating events. I looked at her, my own face slammed shut, until she dashed away. I never saw her again. I’d let my soul mate go without a fight. How could I help her understand when I barely understood myself? Family members do as they’re told. It’s that simple and that complicated.

After letting Chloe go, I became an expert at letting other people go, too. At getting them let go, rather, as the family’s criminal defense attorney. I freed con men, wise guys, hitters. Too many to count. My imposed law degree and loyalty put to use.

I found out later-still many years ago-that one of the men I’d helped free had dealt with Dad’s “unacceptable risk.” On the day I’d said goodbye, Chloe had been shot once in the head, once in the heart, and dumped in the Red River. To do something about it would have meant disloyalty to the family. So I did nothing. Like I said, it’s that simple and that complicated.

I glance at the men’s room door. Part of me hopes an assassin barges in, guns blazing. The splashing stops. Finished, Dad’s commanding mien is all but gone. I tear free a few squares of toilet paper, yank him forward, and wipe him clean.

“Up,” he says, but it’s more of a question. He stares at his shoes. This time I support him with his left arm across my shoulders so we can both see. The pen clatters to the floor.

“This way,” I tell him as we shuffle forward. I yank his body closer to mine to better bear his weight, which has increased substantially somehow. “ This way.”

We bang through the door, and I keep a watchful eye. Still nobody around.

After I load Dad into the car, I climb into the driver’s seat. Dad twists away from me toward the door. I draw my gun and point it at the back of his head.

I can kill him right now, and make up any story I want. Ambush, what ever. I can kill him-something I’ve dreamed of doing-before the cancer inevitably does.

But I don’t. Instead, I slide the gun back under my seat, and crank the car into gear. In a way, I make the decision for Chloe. Better that Dad feels every agonizing moment he has left. Better that he continues to realize the waste our lives have become.

MARC PAOLETTIis the author of Scorch, a thriller that draws upon his experiences as a Hollywood pyrotechnician, and co-author of The Last Vampire and The Vampire Agent, the first two books of the Annals of Alchemy and Blood series. His acclaimed short fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies, and, as a journalist, he has interviewed such notable figures as Sting and Beatles producer Sir George Martin. He has also published comic books and written award-winning advertising copy. For more information, visit www.marcpaoletti.com.

Evennow, she could still feel the ice in her hand, a stinging, biting cold that dug into her skin like a set of sharp teeth. Had the flesh of her palm been that hot or the California climate so scorching that what had been frozen moments before had reverted so quickly to its original form? Standing outside his home, she had been shocked to feel the tears of moisture dripping down her wrist, pooling at her feet.

Jon had been dead for almost two years now. She had known him much longer than that, twenty-four years, to be exact-back when he spelled “J-o-h-n” properly, with an “h,” and would never have dreamed of keeping his curly black hair long, his beard on the verge of hermitous proportions. They had met at a young adult Sunday school class, then become lovers, then man and wife. They had taught high school chemistry and biology, respectively, for several years. They had a son, a beautiful, healthy son named Zachary after John‘s grandfather. Life was perfect, but then things had happened, things she tried not to think about, and the upshot was that in the end, the good life had called, and Pam had not been invited.

Her hair was too long for a woman her age. Pam knew this, but still could not bring herself to cut it. The slap of the braid against her back was like a reassurance that she was still a person, could still be noticed if only for the faux pas of being a fifty-two year-old school teacher who kept her salt and pepper hair down to her waist. While women her age were getting pixie cuts and joining yoga classes, Pam had rebelled. For the first time in her life, she let her weight go. God, what a relief to eat dessert whenever she damn well wanted to. And buttered bread. And whole milk. How had she lived so long drinking that preposterously translucent crap they labeled skim milk? The simple act of satisfying these desires was more rewarding than any emotional joy that could be had from buttoning a pair of size six pants around your waist.

Her waist.

She made herself remember the good things and not the bad, the first few years instead of the last seventeen. The way John used to trace his hand along the cinch of her waist-rough hands, because he liked to garden then. The bristle of his whiskers as his lips brushed her neck, the gentle way he would move the braid over her shoulder so he could kiss his way down her spine.

Wending her way through various backwater towns for the third-and hopefully last-time in her life, she made her way toward the western part of the country; she forced her mind to settle on the good memories. She thought of his lips, his touch, the way he made love to her. Through Alabama, she thought of his strong, muscular legs. Mississippi and Louisiana brought to mind the copious sweating when they first joined as man and wife. Arkansas, the perfect curve of his penis, the way it felt inside her when she clenched him, her lips parting as she cried out. Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico… these were not states on a map, but states of mind for Pam. As she drove across the Arizona line, she found herself suspended between the road and the heavens, and the only thing keeping her grounded was her hands wrapped around the leather steering wheel.

The car.

All she had left of him now was the car.

Two years ago, he had called late in the evening-not late for him, but the three-hour time difference put the ringing of the phone well into that block of time when a piercing ring caused nothing but panic. She foolishly thought of Zack, then the second ring brought more reason, and she thought of her father, a physically frail man who refused to live in a nursing home despite the fact that he could no longer do much of anything but sit in his recliner all day watching the History Channel.

“Papa?” she had cried, grabbing up the phone on the third ring. A fire. A fall down the stairs. A broken hip. Her heart was in her throat. She had read that phrase in so many books, but not understood until now that it was physically possible. She felt a pounding below her trachea; her throat was full from the pressure of her beating heart moving upward, trying to force its way out.