Page 62 of Redeem

Ciprian

I didn’t quite know how long the walk from Dana’s house back to the hotel was.

Twenty miles, thirty. It could have been a hundred. It wouldn’t have mattered. I didn’t even know why I was going back there. There was no reason to, nothing that held me there.

Nothing that held me anywhere, not anymore.

I started walking faster at that thought, maybe my attempt to outpace the pain, not that doing so was possible. Would ever be possible.

Deep inside, I felt the smallest kernel of relief. I had done what I had set out to do, had, for the first time in decades, kept my word, lived up to the honor that I’d once thought I had.

But that kernel was swamped in the sea of pain and regret, soul-numbing loss. Guilt that intensified with each step I took.

It didn’t matter. I tried to tell myself that I’d told her the truth, offered her what help I could. That I’d done what I’d intended. That it was enough.

A lie, but all I had to hold onto. Because if I let it go, I would be left with the stark reality that I’d lost Dana forever. A fitting punishment for me, but one I couldn’t yet accept.

So instead I walked, getting closer to the hotel. I’d leave eventually, but I wasn’t ready to think about that yet, still needed to be as close to Dana as I could be, and the hotel was it.

As night began to fall, I approached the building. The facade looked worse than I remembered, as wretched as I felt. But the hotel didn’t have my attention. No, that was fully focused on the shiny black SUV that was utterly conspicuous in the shabby parking lot.

I breathed deep, watched the vehicle’s doors opening.

Prepared myself for what was to come.

I’d lost much of my stomach for violence. Practicality had kept me from disavowing it completely, but I avoided it when I could, went out of my way to do so now.

Whoever had come here wasn’t a friend because I didn’t have those.

Four men emerged from the vehicle. They held guns, none of which were visible at first sight, all of which were pointed at me.

“Are you going to come without a fight?”

The person who spoke was the one who had driven, so I focused my attention on him.

Then I walked toward the car.

Dana

It was dark out, yet still I worked, couldn’t let myself stop.

Ciprian had been gone for hours, but it felt like only minutes had passed. I was still on the edge, still at risk of losing myself to the emotions that were ever-present, that threatened to overtake me.

I’d replayed this morning and the night before over and over again in my mind, wishing that maybe I could find some other interpretation, knowing that wish was futile.

“Fuck!” I screamed.

I’d been so lost in my thoughts, I’d kicked over the small can of stain, watched as the liquid seeped into the ground. Of all the things that had happened today, all the things that had been said, this was the one that pushed me over.

I sank down to the ground, uncaring of the darkness, the cold wind that had started to blow. None of that mattered, not when I had been gutted. All I felt was loss, sadness unlike any I had ever experienced, even as I’d held my husband as the life had drained out of him.

The years of loneliness that had been my life before, the years of loneliness after, none of them measured to this moment now.

I wanted to pretend otherwise, but I didn’t. Instead, sitting on the damp ground, the dirt cold against my skin, I gave myself to the sadness that filled me, and wept.

Twenty-Five

Ciprian

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