"Thank you," he said.
His voice sounded distant, and he wondered if he was on some kind of pain medication.
"Is Silvia okay?"
"Yes," Shelly answered.
"She's over in Pediatric."
"Don't let anyone hurt her," he said.
Shelly gave him a long look.
"I won't," she said.
When she left, the room fell silent again.
He turned the volume up on the TV, watched an extremely overweight white man try to guess the price of a bottle of shampoo.
He thought he should be worried about what might come next - he was jobless, he had killed a man, he had been shot twice - but he wasn't.
For once, he just wasn't.
He got a lot of visitors at the hospital.
The cops wanted to know how he'd found Silvia.
He said he'd heard her screaming in the house, while driving past.
They didn't buy this - it was plain in their eyes - but he stuck to it anyway.
They asked him other questions, too.
Did he know Tim Kelton had been involved in Alex's kidnapping?
No, Ian answered, not until I saw Alex's backpack in his dungeon.
What was he doing in the Shakopee area?
Driving by the lake where Alex was found.
I do it once a month or so.
They asked him: You really expect us to believe you found Silvia Kalen by chance?
He didn't know what to say to this, so he started nodding off, and the nurse asked the police to leave.
Any one of the people he had questioned about "Kelly" could've ruined him - any of them could've called and reported his weird behavior earlier that day.
But despite the media circus, despite his picture all over the news, none of them did.
Jarrid Kalen was composed when he entered.
He was a hard man, wiry, but shorter in person than Ian had expected.
He gave Ian a strong handshake and said, "I can't thank you enough."
Then he proceeded to try.
He tripled the reward to 300,000 ("An extra hundred for each gun shot wound," he explained), promised Ian he would have his medical bills handled, and swore to defend him in court.
"You'll have the best legal representation possible.
There is no way you're going to jail," he said.
"Silvia says she screamed all the time.
You were in his house because you heard her, and she's safe because of you.
"You brought her back from the dead," he said, and then his composure cracked a little, and Ian caught a glimpse of the wreck that had been festering beneath for months.
He nearly told Jarrid about Alex, then, but held his tongue.
Instead he said, "Take care of her," and Jarrid swore he would.
Derek came, and Ian's mother.
Billi, from work, visited too.
But none of the visits - not the ones from the cops, not the one from Jarrid Kalen - mattered as much as Alina's.
She paused at the door when she entered, swallowed by her bulky winter coat, her head straddled by a pair of snowy earmuffs.
They looked at each other for a long time.
He read the pensiveness in her eyes and thought,
She's not sure she wants to be here.
"I didn't know if you'd come," he said.
He could've said
Hello,
or
How are you
, but the moment felt too fraught with consequence to risk empty pleasantries.
They both knew who they were and where they stood.
"I didn't know either."
Why did you?
he wanted to ask, but this felt too confrontational, so instead he said, "I'm glad you did."
She gave him a tight smile that didn't touch her eyes, and crossed to the chair at his bedside.
When she sat, she carefully pulled the gloves from her hands, peering into her lap.
"Are you okay?"
"The doctors say I was lucky.
There should be no permanent damage.
The worst thing was the blood loss.
They just want to keep an eye on me for a couple days, otherwise I'd be home already.
Or in jail, one or the other."
She looked up.
"So you really killed him?"
"Yes."
He held her eyes as he said it.
Words clamored at his tongue -
I had to.
He was hurting a little girl.
He had hurt our son. -
but he kept them back.
After a moment, she nodded.
"Good.
Are they going to send you to jail for that?"
He let out a breath.
"I don't know.
Jarrid Kalen says there's no way he'll let that happen."
"You've talked to him?"
"He came to visit."
"How is Silvia?"
"They say she's all right.
I'm sure she's a wreck, but at least she's home."
At least she's alive.
"I heard they were together for awhile.
Silvia and Alex.
They said on the news that they were both at Eston's house for a week or two."
Her tongue handled the word
Eston
like it was a jagged wood splinter.
"They were moving them to this other guy's house - Kelton? - when Alex got loose somehow."
"Yeah.
I heard that, too.
I think..."
He hesitated, wanting to tell her but not wanting to scare her off.
"I think Alex really cared about Silvia, even though he didn't know her long.
I think he'd be glad to know she's safe."
Alina nodded, tightly, and looked at the wall.
Ian reached for her hand, and she took it.
Through the window behind her, he saw snow falling.
Silence settled over them, but it wasn't one of those pits that he was always stumbling into.
It was tense and heavy, but it was also expectant.
And for those few minutes, he was too happy to be holding her hand to care.
"I got your letter," she finally said.
His heart jumped.
He'd known this was coming, but didn't know what to say, so he waited.
When she didn't say anything more, he asked, "What did you think?"
"Did you really go through Alex's boxes?"
"I went through enough to know that I'm okay with getting rid of them.
I think we
need
to get rid of them."
She nodded.
She still wasn't looking at him.
"It was hard to read."
"Why?"
"Because it sounded very familiar, Ian.
Because we've done all this before."
"We haven't done this.
It may feel the same to you, but it's not.
I'm different.
I'm looking at things differently."
She did turn to him then.
"How can I know that?"
"You can't, really, not without being around me.
But if you give me a chance - just one more chance - you'll see."
She gave a pained sigh and turned away again, but not before he saw her eyes glimmering.
"I'm sorry," she said.
"I shouldn't be here talking to you about this while you're..."
"No, it's okay."
"You're in the
hospital
, for god's sake."
"It's okay.
I don't care about that.
I just want us to be okay again."
"You make that sound so easy."
"I know it won't be, not after how much I hurt you.
I'm
sorry
, Alina.
You were strong for me, and I wasn't strong for you.
I want to be there for you, if it's not too late.
I know I really hurt you.
It won't happen any more."
"But you still think it was my fault, Ian.
You still think I -"
"
I don't
," he urged her.
"I swear, I don't.
I was mad, I was scared, I wasn't thinking straight, but I'm thinking straight now.
I was grieving and I said some really stupid things, and you put up with them for far too long.
There are only two people to be blamed for what happened, and now they're both dead."
Silence again.
She wasn't looking at him.
But she still had his hand.
"If this isn't going to work, we have to decide that now.
We can't wait until the baby is born.
If we divorce, I'll agree to equal custody.
You're a good father, Ian, and she should know her father."
A warm wind boiled in his chest: joy, humility, awe.
She.
"But I can't pretend with her.
And I can't stay with you just for this child.
I
need you,
Ian.
I can't pretend everything's okay when it's not."
"You won't have to."
He realized he was smiling.
"You won't have to, I promise.
I don't want that either.
Did you say 'she'?"
Alina looked down at him again, naked vulnerability scrawled across her face.
She looked as if she thought he wasn't listening.
But when she saw his face, she gave a small smile of her own.
"Yeah.
It's a girl."
"That is wonderful."
"Yeah."
She squeezed his hand.
"I want to name her after my mother."
"Teres?"
He tasted the name, found it beautiful.
"Perfect."
Her face pinched; she looked away again.
"I want to believe you, Ian.
I really do.
But people just don't change this fast."
"Maybe I'm not changing," he said.
"Maybe I'm changing back."
They went back to the house together.
The first day, Alina changed the bulb in Alex's room.
Ian called Derek and asked if he could help bring the boxes out to the car for a trip to Goodwill.
Derek agreed, and as he and Alina worked, Ian helped by holding the door, which was all he could manage while still recovering.
By sunset, Alex's room was empty except for a glowering stuffed elephant.
That night they laid in bed and talked.
By midnight they were fighting.
By two they were crying.
Their discussion roamed from the bedroom to the dining room to the living room, but finally, they fell asleep together on the couch.
The marker read:
ALEX ISAIAH COLMES
2005 - 2010
WE LOVE YOU
As Ian knelt by his son's gravestone, the brittle grass crunched beneath his knees.
He took off his gloves and rested one hand on the stone.
A frigid shock stole into his fingers, but he didn't flinch from it.
The sensation was welcome.
He owed it to Alex.
"I brought you something," Ian said.
"I was gonna keep it for your sister, but I don't think she'll need it anymore."
He set Mr. Tuskers on the grass, where the animal surveyed the surrounding cemetery with protective menace.
"I thought you'd like him here.
I would've brought Mowsalot, too, but I lost him.
I'm sorry about that."
He clasped his hands in his lap.
An observer might have thought he was praying.
"Mowsalot kept me just as safe as Tuskers, did you know that?
He might seem like just a snugglepot, but he doesn't screw around.
He keeps your back.
He did a good job.