“Who’s back there?” I yell.
Nothing.
I take one last look behind, gun still in my hand, and then Rip and I are jogging toward my street. Evenwitha gun in my hand, I feel like a scared little girl suddenly.
I hate feeling like a scared little girl.
But right before we make the left, I stop maybe on instinct, spin around, then see someone running across Abraham’s Path and toward the train tracks.
Not just running.
Sprinting.
And even though I know better, Rip and I now sprint in the same direction.
When we get to the tracks, I see a figure disappearing down the tracks in the distance, to the east.
I stop then and surprise myself by firing a shot into the sky.
“Hey, God!” I yell.“Duck!”
Then I fire again.
In the high heat of the moment I’m really surprised at how good that feels, my finger on the trigger and the brief explosion of noise, even as Rip starts barking his head off.
“What,” I tell him, crouching down to pat his back, “a girl’s not allowed to have a little fun?”
We continue walking back home. I feel a little less scared than I did a few minutes ago, thinking the long day and night is over, and that it’s time to at least try to sleep.
But it’s not.
Because when we get back to the house, Brigid is sitting on the front porch. When I get near her, I see that she’s been crying.
“I couldn’t find the damn key you gave me!” she says.
When I take a closer look in the porch light, I notice the darkening bruise on her left cheek.
“Who did this to you?” I ask.
She doesn’t answer at first.
Finally, almost inaudibly, she says, “Rob.”
“Robhityou?”
She looks up at me then, ashamed, like a little girl caught doing something naughty.
“It’s not his fault,” my sister says. “I asked for it.”
FIFTY-NINE
I INSIST THAT BRIGID spend the night, then try to get her to talk about what just happened between them, promising I’m not looking to judge her.
“It’s my fault,” she says, over and over again.
“A man taking a hand to a woman is never her fault,” I say.
Brigid, eyes shining, shakes her head. “I know you think you know me so well, Jane. But you don’t know me nearly as well as you think you do.”
