Trying to catch my breath, I collapsed into the chair behind me, the gun still shaking as much as my voice. “Beth was going to have me killed! For money!” My voice was all screechy and croaky like puberty had arrived. “My own wife!” I broke down and sobbed while still pointing the wobbly gun toward Abbott.
I wiped the tears but they kept coming. I could tell Rosemary was about to pop out of her chair, not to tackle me and the gun, but to give me a hug. She had hug written all over her face.
“Mattie, I’m so sorry.” She could say no more. What was there to say? How do you comfort someone who just found out his wife was going to have him murdered?
“I truly have nothing left,” I said. “Nothing at all.”
“Me either,” Abbott said. He was so small and skeletal that it looked like he was sinking straight into the fabric of the chair. “Nothing at all.”
Rosemary lifted her face, like something extraordinary was hanging from the ceiling, and began mumbling. Abbott and I both looked up. I couldn’t see a thing.
“She’s praying,” Abbott whispered. “She does this a lot.”
It was like she forgot there was a gun in the room. She was pleading and whimpering and making some pretty strong statements,
imploring
the daylights out of the ceiling . . . or something beyond.
Then she looked at me. “Sometimes I don’t understand him.”
“Who?” I asked.
“God.”
I raised an eyebrow at her. “I thought you were unshakably loyal to him.”
“I am. It’s true. It’s just that sometimes I see what’s going on in the world and I wonder why so many people have so much unfairness to bear. Sometimes it just piles on and you wonder why it can’t be spread out a little more evenly.” She looked down at her clasped hands, then back at me. “Mattie, I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next—” she glanced at her watch—“thirty-two minutes, but if I can only say one thing to you, it’s that God loves you. And he forgives you. And there is something remarkably better on the other side.”
“Rosemary,” I said, my face all wet and sticky with tears, “I wouldn’t believe it if it weren’t for you. You make me believe that ‘remarkably better’ exists.”
There was silence after that. Abbott looked to be in pain again. Pain meds were doing him little good now. My knees were killing me. So was my heart. It broke into a thousand pieces, knowing the woman that I’d throw myself in front of a bus for hated me enough to kill me. I was worth only the insurance money to her.
I slumped in the chair and waited.
Then a numbness swept over me and the pain that was stabbing me through and through vanished like a mist. I pulled out the pocket watch because I was feeling so painless that I thought I might’ve died and not known it. But the watch was still ticking. Yet it was like someone had come along and scooped all the pain out of my heart. My head hurt with the knowledge but my heart sat peacefully in my chest, thumping according to its plan.
I stood and slowly walked to the window, gazing out as evening was setting in. The sun was lower and the bright-green grass now had long shadows cast across it. An orange hue bled into the soft-blue sky. The wind had calmed and the leaves on the trees hung motionless. I replaced the watch in my pocket but held the gun against my chest like it was some sort of life symbol and watched the air for a long time.
My life was literally running out. Either I had gone completely insane or I was actually going to die. Either way, my life was swirling around the sink, its substance sliding away in a vortex, slipping quietly into the drain.
I could almost feel death nearby, like it was watching me. Waiting for me. What had made Beth turn into a monster? And how could I stop myself from turning into one too? All the vengeance in my soul was waiting for an answer.
Abbott was watching me, his eyes hopeful. But for what?
Mrs. Cavington came into view, walking by once again, her cane leading the way, her back hunched like a tree under heavy snow. Her bright-pink outfit was like a beacon against the cold stone of the sidewalk and street behind her.
She looked peaceful but lonely. It was like she hoped that someone might stop and talk to her, that someone, just once, would notice her. She was so decked out for just a walk. She was even wearing pearls. And bright lipstick to match her outfit. Loopy earrings. A gold watch.
But cars drove past without a second glance. Not so much as a wave.
Suddenly she looked right at me as I stood framed by that enormous window, nicely visible without the glare of the sunlight. Her eyes grew wide, as if in anticipation that I might acknowledge her. I quickly waved, huge, so she knew that I saw her. I smiled broadly. That probably made her day.
It actually seemed to. She stopped walking completely and turned right toward the window, watching my big wave. I did it again. Like I was flagging down a friend across a room.
“Come on,” I whispered. “Crack a smile. I know you’ve got it in you.”
But she didn’t smile and soon I gave up the wave.
Mrs. Cavington drew something out of her pocket. A cell phone. She stood there watching me, not even a smile on her face, and—
“Oh, heavens,” I said suddenly. “Oh, dear . . .”
“What?”
I looked down, realizing my mistake. I had waved all right. I’d waved with the hand that was holding the gun. So basically I was waving my gun at Mrs. Cavington. And by the way she was pressing her mouth so close to the phone that it looked like she was going to eat it, I knew she had called the police.
“Oh no!” I yelled, causing Rosemary to jump up. I dropped the gun to the ground and quickly shut the curtains, but I knew it was too late. I already looked like a crazy maniac waving a gun and holding her neighbor hostage. “Oh . . .”
Rosemary bit her fingernail as she put the pieces together. “Okay, we can figure this out. Why don’t I call the police and tell them everything’s okay?”
“You can’t get involved, Rosemary. I won’t let you. You’re too nice to get caught up in this mess.”
“Don’t you see? I want to help you, Mattie. I
want
to.”
Distantly, I swore I heard wailing sirens. “They’re coming. . . .”
I peeked out the window and Mrs. Cavington was hurrying down the sidewalk, dragging her cane, the phone still pressed to her face.
“What do I do?” I turned to Rosemary and Abbott. “What do I do?”
“I can call the police, tell them it was a big mistake!” Rosemary shouted. We were both shouting like we were trying to talk at a concert.
“No, Rosemary! First of all, they’ll never believe you. They’ll have to assume you’re being held hostage and told what to say.”
She nodded, understanding. “Then just run, Mattie. Just go. Run out the back door.” She grabbed my arm. “Run.”
I put my hand over hers. “You are a sweetheart, but I don’t speak ‘run.’ I can’t even walk fast. I won’t make it down the back porch steps before they’re here.”
I heard screeching tires. The peace that had overtaken my soul was gone, and sheer panic seized me, like it was literally squeezing me in its fist.
“Mattie, sit down. Okay, just sit down for a second. You’re growing pale. I’m afraid you’re going to pass out.”
“That might be the best thing for everyone,” I said, but I obeyed.
Rosemary was taking my pulse again. She shook her head. “It’s not good, honey. Take some deep breaths.”
“What’s the worst that could happen, right?” The sarcasm dripped from my voice. The room closed in around me, as my options did too. I didn’t have very many. I knew I wouldn’t kill Abbott. But now what? Get arrested? Spend the rest of my life in jail?
The ticking of the watch filled my ear, even though it was in my pocket.
The rest of your life? The rest of your life is right here and right now in this room, with these people.
The voice was like a whisper, splitting all the noise of my head right down the middle—parting the raging waters, so to speak.
I looked at Rosemary as the sirens grew loud outside. “Who is going to save me? Not even time is on my side.”
Rosemary cupped my face and my two chins in her hands. “Time is on nobody’s side, Mattie. Time just is.” She swept sweaty hair off my forehead. “But there is a place where Time isn’t.”
I blinked and just let Rosemary hold my face. A place where Time couldn’t find me. Those beady eyes and that stupid hat and suit he was wearing . . . his words piercing me with truth and horror alike.
“I’ve done such a bad thing coming here,” I said. Outside, we heard car doors shutting.
“Jesus forgives all those who ask, even if it is at the latest hour, at the final second. There once was a thief who hung on a cross right next to Jesus, and Jesus said they would be together in paradise.”
I looked at Abbott, who just moments ago had been that very thief to me. Now I was the thief.
Tick, tick, tick.
Rosemary seemed to sense everything I was thinking. She glanced at her watch. “Eighteen minutes.”
“Do you think I’m really going to die in eighteen minutes, Rosemary?”
Tears welled in her eyes. “I hope not. I don’t know. But I really hope not.”
At that moment the house phone rang. We all jumped.
“It’s the police,” I breathed, looking at the closed curtains. Red and blue lights flashed through the cracks.
Rosemary stood. “I am going to answer it, Mattie. Okay? And I’m going to answer their questions. And you’re going to turn yourself in because that’s the right thing to do.”
I nodded, now wondering if I were not better off dead. Abbott and I looked at each other, him half-dead himself, me on my way after a long string of extremely bad choices in the last seven hours.
“Hello?” Rosemary said. She stayed in the kitchen but we could both still see her. “Yes, my name is Rosemary Goodheart.”
Goodheart? That was really her name? I almost smiled at the thought. Almost. But I didn’t believe there was a smile left in me. Not one more smile. I didn’t realize it, that a human being could run out of smiles, that we only had so many and then they were gone.
“His name is Matthew Bigham and he is holding two of us hostage.” She said it matter-of-factly, just like a nurse is taught in training. She might as well have been reading off my stats. There was a long silence as Rosemary listened. I stared at the gun on the carpet and decided to pick it up again. Abbott watched as I emptied the bullets and then set the gun on the table.
“What are you doing?” he whispered.
I didn’t answer. But I didn’t want anybody to get hurt. I knew I was absolutely capable of accidentally firing off a shot. I could tell you a story about a nail gun, but I wouldn’t have time.
Rosemary said, “He just learned his wife hired a hit man to kill him. She’s in custody, as is the hit man, but he’s distraught . . . Yes . . . yes . . .”
I mouthed
thank you
to Rosemary, happy that she didn’t go with the version of the story that included Constant.
“Abbott, am I crazy?” I asked. “You’re an expert. Tell me, am I crazy? Am I?”
“I don’t know,” he said very softly. “You’re probably having some type of nervous breakdown. That would be my guess. But I don’t really know.”
I looked at the watch again. Then I felt something else in my pocket. I pulled out the little book Constant had given me and held it up for Abbott to see. “Do you see this book?”
He nodded.
“Really? For real?”
“Yes, I see it.”
I took a deep breath. That wasn’t actually what I wanted to hear. There was a twinge of hope that maybe I really had lost my mind and that I wasn’t going to die. Even though I didn’t have much to live for, I had enough. I sat there amazed at the human will. My will.
Rosemary’s phone conversation seemed distant as I opened the book, read the terms listed on each page. My gaze stopped on
crown
: “the knob attached to the top of the winding stem.” It was the thing that gave life to the whole watch, that caused all the gears to run. I turned the page and my eyes rested on the word
escapement
.
But then Rosemary interrupted me. “Mattie?”
I looked at her.
“They want to know if you will come out and surrender.”
“Tell them you’ll call them back.”
“They want me to stay on the line.”
“Get the number and we’ll call them back.”
Rosemary nodded, wrote something down on a pad in the kitchen, and then hung up the phone. “There are a lot of guys out there,” she said, coming back into the room. “And the SWAT team. They said they have the house surrounded.”
“Perfect.”
She knelt beside me. “Mattie, I think you should give yourself up.”
“I’m thinking of letting time pass here, see if I drop dead. That would be easier on everyone, wouldn’t it?”
“But it’s not the right thing to do. You got a lot of guys out there who are waiting. Worried. Unsure what you’re going to do.”
“You sound like the hostage negotiator now.”
“Well, I am a hostage. And I am trying to negotiate with you. But I think you can trust me now, can’t you?”
I didn’t answer.
“What are you holding in your hand?” she asked.
“You can see it too?”
“It looks like a small book.” She leaned in. “About watches.”
“Constant gave it to me, said it might be helpful.”
She studied it for a moment. “Has it been?”
I looked down to read the definition of
escapement
. “‘Left to its own devices,’” I read aloud, “‘the mainspring of a watch would wind down in a matter of seconds. The escapement is the part of the watch mechanism that keeps this from happening, forcing the mainspring to instead unwind at a slow, regular pace. The regular interaction of the various parts of the escapement is what literally makes a watch
tick
.’”
Tears formed in Rosemary’s eyes. Mine too. Abbott’s looked glassy as well, from where I sat.
I set the book down next to the gun and grabbed Rosemary’s hand, harder than I should’ve, but she had strong hands. “There has been someone who has given me the chance to tick my whole life, since the day I was born. And most of the time, I didn’t even care to acknowledge him.”