Page 106 of My Cowboy Freedom
“You will never know what you would have done if he’d been alive when you found him at the bottom of the stairs.”
“Of course I know. I told you. I’d have killed him.”
“You don’t know that. You think you know, but because fate intervened, you can’t really know for certain. You may have been willing to kill. But maybe at the last moment, you wouldn’t have done it. Maybe you were only tested.”
Like Abraham, he meant. Would the biblical father who’d loved his son so dearly have gone through with it? Even for his God? “I wanted him dead. That’s the same thing as killing him.”
Rock shook his head. “No. If that were true, we’d all be guilty of murder at some point.”
“Is this a joke to you?’
“No, you idiot.” With a broken sound, Rock wrapped his arms around me. I accepted the solid warmth of his body. I breathed in the earthy, sunshine-and-shit scent of him. Someone should bottle that and just call ithome.“I’m deadly serious. You do notknowwhat you would have done for certain. Not then, and not now.”
“I would have fucking put him down, Rock. As if a deadly spider was crawling on my sister’s blankets, I’d have killed him. Please don’t make me out to be something I’m not.”
“So you took a plea, rather than—”
“My mother and Luna didn’t need the added shame of a humiliating trial.”
“Christ. As angry as I get with my dad—”
“I can never go home.” My mother made that crystal clear. “But Luna’s got a solid future. I took a plea and none of it came out. It’s up to her if she wants to tell her story.”
He took my hand. “You did what you had to do.”
“I was an idiot about it,” I admitted. “I’d have done far less time if I’d cooperated with the authorities. I should have turned myself in, but instead, I ran. I resisted arrest. All of that cost me. I should have—”
“You’ve done your time.” He gave me a little shake. “You’re out. You’re free.”
“Not quite, but someday.”God willing.“Someday. Can I ask you something? Do you think God will be satisfied with that?”
My question was for the preacher’s son. Not Rock, since he said he didn’t believe anymore. I was baptized Christian but I also had my share of jailhouse superstitions.
Divine retribution can’t be very effective. You only have to see how many times we incarcerate the same men over and over to know the truth about that.
I said, “Every con I know is innocent in their own mind.”
“Wish I was like that.” Rock laughed. “I don’t even have todoanything to feel guilty as hell.”
“The criminal mentality must be tough for a preacher’s boy.” I buffeted his shoulder with mine. “Nobody ever believes they’ll get caught. Or, if they get caught, it’s always someone else’s fault. Some other dude did it.”
“You’re not like that.” Rock’s expression was doubtful.
“Sometimes I am.” I admitted. “But I was mostly talking about my friend ’Nando.”
Rock’s expression was thoughtful. “I don’t think God’s an accountant tallying up this offense and that good deed on some big ledger.”
“People say murder is the only unforgivable sin.”
“Only God can judge you. Once you’ve done your time society says that’s that. My dad has a prison outreach, and–”
His watch alarm sounded, startling us both.
“’Scuse me.” Gently, he pushed me away, leaving a warm, sweaty Rock-shaped spot on my chest. “I have to take my meds at specific intervals. Timing them is important.”
“Sure,” I busied myself picking up Coke cans and crushing them into unnecessarily small aluminum pucks. I caught Rock peeking at my biceps so I posed for him, shamelessly, arms on the back of the chair, legs spread wide, package on full display.
That earned me a blush and a chuckle.
