wet clothes. "Look, can we throw these in the dryer or something so I
can get them back on and get the hell out of here?"
It was there again, she noted. Not just anger, but a deep, dark
despair. "What is it, Michael?"
"I told you it has nothing to do with you."
"Let's sit down."
"Back off, Emma."
He turned away and walked back into the bedroom. He'd been wrong, he
decided as he put the whiskey aside. He couldn't keep that down,
either.
"Oh, I see. You want to be a part of my life, but I'm not to be a part
of yours."
"Not this part."
"You can't section off pieces of yourself and tuck them away. I know."
She moved to him, touched a hand to his arm. Until that moment, she
hadn't realized how much she loved him. With a kind of wonder it came
to her that the need wasn't all hers after all. "Talk to me, Michael.
Please."
"It was kids," he murmured. "Jesus, babies. He just walked over to the
playground at recess and let loose." Michael had to sit. Groping his
way to the bed, he sat on the edge, pushing the heels of his hands into
his eyes. He could still see it. What terrified him was that he knew
he always would.
Bewildered, Emma sat beside him, rubbing a hand over his shoulder to try
to ease the tension from the muscles bunched there. "I don't
understand."
"Neither do I. We found out who he was. He'd had a history of mental
illness. Been in and out of institutions all his life. Turns out he
went to that school, that same school, through first and second grades
before they put him away the first time. We'll find out more, for what
it's worth."
"Who? Who are you talking about?"
"Just a loser. Some sick, pitiful loser who got his hands on a
fortyfive automatic."
And she began to see. A sickness welled up to her throat. "Oh my God."
"He drove to the school. Walked right up to the playground. Kids
were playing ball and jumping rope. It hadn't started to rain yet. So
he opened up. Six kids are dead. TWenty more are hospitalized. They
won't all make it."
"Oh, Michael." She put her arms around him, rested her cheek against
his.
"Then he just walked away. By the time the black and whites got there,
he was gone. When McCarthy and I drove up-" But he couldn't describe
it, not to her. Not even to himself. "We got a make on the car and
found it a couple of blocks away. He was right there, eating lunch in
the park. Just sitting on a bench in the tucking park eating a sandwich
in the rain. He didn't even bother to run when we moved in. He picked
up the gun and stuck the barrel in his mouth. So we'll never know why.
We'll never even know why."
"I'm sorry." She could think of nothing else to say. "I'm so sorry."