forgo our dream of a life together or risk watching the dream devolve
into a nightmare.
Now, with Lilly in my arms, I realized that because she had been the
first to express doubts about our relationship, she felt the full
responsibility for its collapse. When we’d ceased to be lovers and
decided to settle for friendship, my continued longing for her and my
melancholy about the end of our dream must have been dismally apparent,
because I’d been neither kind enough nor man enough to spare her from
them. Unwittingly, I had sharpened the thorn of guilt in her heart, and
eight years too late, I needed to heal the wound that I had caused.
When I began to tell her all this, Lilly attempted to protest.
By habit, she blamed herself, and over the years she had learned to take
a masochistic solace in her imagined culpability, which she was now
reluctant to do without. Earlier, I’d incorrectly believed that her
inability to meet my eyes resulted from my failure to find Jimmy, like
her, I’d been quick to torture myself with blame. This side of Eden,
whether we realize it or not, we feel the stain on our souls, and at
every opportunity, we try to scrub it away with steel-wool guilt.
I held fast to this dear woman, talking her into accepting exoneration,
trying to make her see me for the needy fool that I am, insisting that
she understand how close I had come, eight years ago, to manipulating
her into sacrificing her future for me. Diligently, I tarnished the
shining image she held of me.
This was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to do …
because as I held her and quieted her tears, I realized how much I still
cherished her, treasured her, and how desperately I wanted her to think
only well of me, though we would never be lovers again.
“We did what was right. Both of us. If we hadn’t made the decision we
made eight years ago, ” I concluded, “you wouldn’t have found Ben, and I
would never have found Sasha. Those are precious moments in our lives
your meeting Ben, my meeting Sasha. Sacred moments.”
“I love you, Chris.”
“I love you, too.”
“Not like I once loved you.”
“I know.”
“Better than that.”
“I know, ” I said.
“Purer than that.”
“You don’t need to say this.”
“Not because it makes me feel rebellious and noble to love you with all
your troubles.
Not because you’re different. I love you because you’re who you are.”
“Badger? ” I said.
“What? ” I smiled. “Shut up.” She let out a sound that was more laugh
than sob, though it was composed of both. She kissed me on the cheek and
settled into her chair, weak with relief but also still weak with fear
for her missing son.
Sasha brought a fresh cup of tea to the table, and Lilly took her hand,
held it tightly. “Do you know The Wind in the Willows? ”
“Didn’t until I met Chris, ” Sasha said, and even in the dim and
fluttering candlelight, I saw the tracks of tears on her face.
“He called me Badger because I stood up for him. But he’s my Badger now,
your Badger. And you’re his, aren’t you? ”
“She swings a hell of a mean cudgel, ” I said.
“We’re going to find Jimmy, ” Sasha promised her, relieving me of the
terrible weight of repeating that impossible promise, “and we’re going
to bring him home to you.”
“What about the crow? ” Lilly asked Sasha.
From a pocket, Sasha produced a sheet of drawing paper, which she
unfolded After the cops left, I searched Jimmy’s bedroom. They hadn’t
been thorough. I thought we might find something they overlooked.
This was under one of the pillows.” When I held the paper to the
candlelight, I saw an ink sketch of a bird in flight, side view, wings
back. Beneath the bird was a neatly hand lettered message, Louis Wing
will be my servant in Hell.
“What does your father-in-law have to do with this? ” I asked Lilly.
Fresh misery darkened her face. “I don’t know.” Bobby stepped inside