Regan Wolfrom - After The Fires Went Out - Coyote

She started us off by barking out a list of ingredients for me to find.

“Now I’m mostly just an omelette guy, remember?” I said as I pulled down a bag of pinto beans. “I don’t really know what any non-omelette ingredients look like.”

“Nice try,” she said. “I’ve seen you find your way around just fine when there’s ice cream toppings involved.”

“Okay…so that covers red peppers and chocolate chips.”

I walked over to a small upright freezer to pull out some cheese.

“There’s none left up here,” Fiona said.

“So that’s why I’m here,” I said. “I’m just your basement delivery service.”

“It’s a crawlspace. But that’s not it, actually…you’re here because I need to talk to you.”

“About the cheese?”

She wasn’t smiling.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I’m not stupid, Baptiste. Just because I don’t live with you guys anymore doesn’t mean I don’t notice when almost everyone at McCartney Lake runs down to your barn for secret meetings.”

“Oh…”

“And yes, I know pretty much everything else you try and keep from me.”

“Like what?”

“Like everything, Baptiste. What happened to Marc Tremblay, what happened to those girls at Silver Queen Lake, what happened to the Girards…what you did to Sara.”

My heart started pounding. “What do you mean? What did she say to you?”

“She didn’t say anything…but I can still tell. I always knew when my father hit my mom, too.”

“Fuck.”

“Don’t you see what’s happening to you? You’re changing, Baptiste…all of this violence is…it’s poisoning you.”

“I don’t think it works that way.”

“It definitely does work that way. You’ve been around so much of it over the past few years. Being on the Protection Committee, and then The Fires and everything else…you can’t go through that without some of it seeping in.”

“You sound like Sara,” I said, trying to make it a compliment.

“Oh, no…I’m not Sara. She was just letting it happen. But I’m not going to sit by and let you turn into a monster. You killed someone last week, remember? And not by accident, either…you took him outside and you shot him.”

“I had to…”

“That’s not what I mean. When you had the accident with Marc…you felt so guilty that you basically shut down for two days. And you guys weren’t exactly close.”

“And I haven’t really thought about that kid at Helena.”

“His name was Rasheed. Maybe you’re telling yourself that you had no choice…maybe you didn’t…but you should still feel something about it.”

“I know.”

“What do you think will happen when you guys try to get Sara back?”

“Hopefully we’ll get her out of there.”

“You’re going to kill again,” Fiona said. “You know you will.”

I didn’t want to lie to her.

“Please, Baptiste,” she said. “Don’t go to New Post.”

“But what about Sara?”

“Sara will be safer if you don’t come for her. I think you know that.”

“I’m not sure about that.”

“Please, Baptiste.”

“We can handle this, Fiona. We can get Sara back and give New Post and the whole Mushkegowuk Nation a reason to steer clear of us.”

“Even you don’t believe that. If you attack New Post, Ryan Stems will come for you. But that isn’t what this is about. I know you can rationalize this rescue mission no matter what. I want you to think about what you’re turning into.”

“I’m one of the good guys. You said you trusted me, Fiona. Don’t you trust me anymore?”

“It’s not about trust. You can’t go to New Post.”

“I’m going to go down and get the cheese.”

I found the trapdoor and squeezed down into the crawlspace. I bent my head and made my way to the chest freezer they’d taken from our place.

It’s funny the way you can ignore something for a good long while, until the very second that someone points it out. Then it’s like it’s out there for the world to see, and you start feeling embarrassed about something that wasn’t troubling you at all before.

It was getting easier living with the tough decisions. At first you feel like that’s a good thing, because if you always regretted every choice you’d stop doing anything. But with time you end up too far out, where you start making mistakes and you don’t even care that you’re making them, when you start losing control simply because you don’t bother holding on to it.

That happened to me once before, on the other side of the world, when I started seeing the Afghans I was supposed to help as enemies I needed to brush aside.

That happened to a lot of soldiers I knew.

Fiona was right; it was happening again. I was losing perspective.

If I went down to New Post, I’d kill a lot of people. I’m not sure I’d even be able to bring Sara back with me. And I wasn’t sure if I’d want to be the man who’d come home after something like that.

I grabbed the cheese from the freezer and made my way back to the kitchen. I dropped the cheese off on the counter and leaned over to give Fiona a kiss on the forehead.

I walked out without saying anything. I checked my tablet for Lisa’s location and walked over to see her. She was out with Graham and Matt, strengthening the gate on Nelson Road.

“We’re not going to go through with it,” I said.

“Why the hell not?” she asked.

“Because I can’t do it, Lisa…okay?”

She nodded. “I’ll tell the others.”

Graham was staring at me, but he seemed more concerned than upset. I have a feeling that Lisa hadn’t really kept it a secret from him.

Something’s changed with the two of them. They were different before Christmas, on-again, off-again. That’s over now.

They’ll be the ones to outlast the rest of us.

Of course, this year will probably outlast me.

I made my way back to Fiona and Gwyneth’s cottage, hoping to make it in time for lunch.

I was relieved when Fiona told me that Gwyneth had sent her regrets.

Kayla was waiting for me when I got back after lunch. She was sitting on the couch, staring at her tablet, but the moment I stepped inside she stood up and walked over to me.

“You just called it off,” she said. “Just like that?”

She sounded angry.

“I thought you’d be happy with that,” I said. “No one gets hurt.”

“And I don’t have to share you with her…is that what you think of me?”

“Uh…what?”

“You really think I want Sara gone.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“I tried to get her back, Baptiste. I pleaded with Sky.”

“I know you did.”

“You say that…but you don’t want anything to do with me now.”

“What are you talking about?”

She started to cry. “You haven’t touched me since she was taken.”

It had been longer than that. I hadn’t touched her since the day we’d caught those kids, when Sara had let them go and then run away…the day when we’d finally talked about being together.

I’d been in a holding pattern. I hadn’t decided what to do. And with Sara being taken from me…

“I’m sorry, Kayla,” I said. “I love you.”

“That’s your stock answer, Baptiste. You love me…you love Sara…is there any woman you don’t love?”

“I can’t deal with this right now. I have shit to deal with.”

“You can’t blame me for this. It’s not fair. I didn’t do this to her.”

She turned away.

I grabbed her shoulder and brought her back to me.

I kissed her gently on the lips.