Fiske stared at her, his hands clenched. “What do you mean?” he said, his voice shaking.
“What stopped you from talking to your brother? Michael told me you had shut him out, and you just admitted that. Even so, I can’t believe you never knew how she treated him.”
For a full minute Fiske said nothing. He stared at Sara, perhaps through her; his eyes revealed nothing of what he was thinking. Finally, he closed his eyes and said in a barely audible tone, “I knew.”
He looked at her. The terrible pain on his features made her tremble.
“I just didn’t want to care,” Fiske said. Sara gripped his shoulder tightly. “I guess I used it as an excuse not to have anything to do with my own brother.” He took another deep breath. “There’s something else. Mike did call me, before he went to the prison. I didn’t call him back. Not until it was too late. . . . I killed him.”
“You can’t blame yourself for that.” Sara’s words had no effect, she could see that, so she changed tactics. “If you want to blame yourself, then do it for the right reason. You unfairly cut your brother out of your life. You were wrong to do that. Very wrong. Now he’s gone. That’s something you’ll have to live with forever, John.”
Now he looked at her. His face grew calmer. “I guess I’ve been living with it already.”
Since he had confided in her, Sara decided it was only fair to reciprocate. “I saw your father today.” Before Fiske could say anything, she hurried on. “I promised you I would. I told him what really happened.”
“And he believed you,” Fiske said skeptically.
“I was telling the truth. He’s going to call you.”
“Thanks, but I wish you had kept out of it.”
“He filled in some gaps for me.”
“Like what?” Fiske said sharply.
“Like what happened to make you stop being a cop.”
“Dammit, Sara, you had no need to know that.”
“Yes, I did. A great reason.”
“What is it?”
“You know what!”
Neither of them spoke for several minutes. Fiske looked down at the table too, and fiddled with his straw. Finally, he sat back and crossed his arms. “So my dad told you everything?”
Sara glanced up at him. “About the shooting, yes.” Her tone was cautious.
“So you know I’m probably not going to be alive and kicking when I’m sixty or maybe even fifty.”
“I think you can beat any odds someone throws at you.”
“And if I don’t?”
“If you don’t, that doesn’t matter to me.”
He leaned forward. “But it matters to me, Sara.”
“So you give up the life you do have?”
“I think I’m leading my life exactly how I want to.”
“Maybe you are,” she quietly conceded.
“It would never work, you know.”
“So you’ve thought about it?”
“I’ve thought about it. Have you? How do you know this isn’t another impulse decision? Like buying your house?”
“It’s what I feel.”
“Feelings change.”
“And it’s so much easier to admit defeat rather than work at something.”
“When I want something, I work very hard at it.” Fiske had no idea why he said that, but he saw the devastated look on Sara’s face.
“I see. And I guess I have no choice in the matter?”
“You really don’t want to have to make that kind of a choice.” She said nothing and Fiske remained quiet for a moment. “You know, my dad didn’t tell you everything, because he doesn’t know everything.”
“He told me how you almost died, how the other officer did die. And the man who shot you. I can understand how that could change your life. How it could make you do what you do. I think it’s very noble, if that’s the right word.”
“That’s not even close. Do you really want to know why I do what I do?”
Sara could sense the sudden change of mood. “Tell me.”
“Because I’m scared.” He nodded at her. “Fear drives me. The longer I was a cop, the more it became ‘us against them.’ Young, angry, attitude, with a pistol to back it all up.” Fiske stopped speaking and watched through the glass partition as people inside bought refreshments. They appeared carefree, happy, pursuing some tangible goal in their lives; they were everything he wasn’t, couldn’t be.