Page 139 of Wreckage and Rain

"You're still my son." Quiet now. The last thing he's got. "Whatever I did. That doesn't change."

"You're right. It doesn't." And I mean it, which is its own kind of awful. "I'm going to testify anyway. I'm going to tell the truth with the dates on it, and you're going to prison, and I'm not getting on a plane to hold your hand about any of it."

He starts in on something else. I don't need it.

"I've gotta go," I say. "Summer and I are making dinner."

And I hang up on Sonny Bennet for the first time in my life.

The phone goes dark on the counter. My hands are shaking. I set the phone down so I don't drop it.

Summer doesn't say anything wise. She takes my hands and holds them in both of hers until they stop. It doesn't fix anything. It's the only thing that ever helps.

"Were we making dinner?" I ask.

"We are now, but you need to let your attorney know what just happened."

"Ok, Summer, after."

Chapter 39: Nothing

Colt

The number lighting up my phone is one I deleted months ago and apparently never quite forgot, which is irritating, because I've worked hard at forgetting a lot of things and that one should have been easy.

Summer is in the shower. I've got the coffee going. I let it ring twice and pick up, because the only thing worse than Cheyenne calling is not knowing why.

"Don't hang up. Thirty seconds." Her voice is thinner than it used to be, worn at the edges. "I'm in trouble, Colt. The kind that doesn't go away. So are you. You just don't know it yet."

"You and I have been done a long time."

"You know I have photographs from that room." She lets it sit. "I can get up in front of a jury and tell them that night was exactly what those pictures look like. Two people who finally gave in to something they'd been heading toward all along. Nobody in that room to say different but the two of us, and one of us can't remember a minute of it." A breath. "Or you go to that prosecutor and tell her you can't say what happened in there, because you can't, and you know you can't. You take the assault off the table, those pictures stay where they are, and we both walk."

I open the fridge and find the milk. I take my time about it.

"Are you listening to me?" she says.

"I'm making my coffee. Keep going, though. You're doing great."

A beat of quiet, like she came in with a script and it doesn't have a line for a man making coffee.

"Think about your wife." Softer now. Like a kindness. "Think about her in a courtroom, looking at those pictures. You want to put her in that chair?"

There it is. The lever. She always could find one in the dark.

"Cheyenne." I set the mug down. "You just called a witness to lean on his testimony, after your own lawyer told you in writing to stay away from me, right before you plead. You didn't threaten me. You did my lawyer's job for him. So go tell the jury whatever bedtime story gets you to sleep. I'll see you at sentencing."

"Colt, please."

"Don't call this number again."

I hang up. My heart is going like I sprinted the length of a field, which is funny, because I never left the kitchen. I drink my coffee. It's damn good.

***

The water shuts off. I'm at the bathroom door before I decide to be, knuckles up, coffee still in the other hand because apparently I can't set it down.

"Hey. Everybody's fine, nobody's dead. But Cheyenne called, and I want to walk you through it while it's all still fresh."