Stay (2 page)

“Uh … did you want to grab some coffee with us?” she asked tentatively.

“Next time. A lot on my plate today. You ladies have a great weekend.” He tossed them a wave and headed for the Escalade.

He had no interest in joining the ladies for coffee but felt like it was about time he got an invitation. He chuckled at how petty that was and put the SUV into gear and headed home.

*   *   *

One more cup of coffee then he looked at his watch. Nine o'clock. He started cleaning clockwise around the house, living room, hall, bathroom, den, kitchen, dining room, living room. Then upstairs. Three bedrooms, master bath, kid's bathroom. He put the cleaning supplies away.

David checked his watch again. Ten fifteen. Not bad.

He bagged up the trash and took it out to the can on the garage side of the house. Without looking, he sensed the neighbor across the fence. If David could avoid eye contact and drop the trash into the can and leave again without—

“Hey, ho, neighbor! How's it hanging?”

David turned and smiled. “Hi, Mark. Doing fine. You?”

On the other side of the five-foot fence, David's neighbor Mark wrestled with a tangle of garden hose. He was a little pot belly on top of a pair of pale stick legs in Bermuda shorts. He jerked a chin at a younger, meatier version of himself. “You met my brother Gary?”

Gary was halfheartedly raking leaves into a small pile. He looked up for a split second. “Hey.”

David nodded back. “Hey.”

“You still out of work?” Mark asked.

David smiled. It wasn't easy, hurt his face a bit. “I'm not
out
of work, Mark. Just staying home for a while.”

“Sure. What's it been? Like four months?”

“Something like that.” It had been six.

“Hey, how about this guy,” Mark said to Gary. “He gets to lounge around the house all day while the wife brings home the bacon.” Mark winked at David. “Nice work if you can get it, huh, buddy?”

“Right.”

“Well, things will look up sooner or later.”

“Right.” David tossed a wave and turned away before he could be drawn into further conversation. “You guys take care.”

David circled back around to the front door and saw the mail had come. He took the wad of envelopes inside.

He sat at the kitchen table, a wastepaper basket next to him. He threw out the flyers. He opened the junk mail, glanced at it to make sure it wasn't important then ripped it all up and dumped the pieces into the basket. He made a mental note to buy a shredder. He wrote checks for the bills, stuck them into the provided return envelopes and stamped them, setting them aside for tomorrow's outgoing. He set aside Amy's mail. He opened and read a letter from Brent's school's foundation asking for money. He wrote a check for a hundred dollars, sealed and stamped the envelope.

David checked his watch again. Ten forty-two.

The house was quiet. Somewhere a dog barked.

In a little over four hours he could pick up the kids.

 

CHAPTER TWO

“The chicken okay?” David asked.

“Chicken?” Amy said it as if unaware what she'd been eating. She was forking food into her mouth absently as she looked at a file folder at the table. She looked at the chunk of white meat on the end of her fork as if seeing it for the first time. “Oh, yes. Fine.”

Lemon chicken, rice, asparagus. A reliable go-to meal, maybe boring now. David made a note to take it out of the rotation. Maybe a pork roast. David decided to reevaluate the entire pantry. He'd been relying too much on starches.

Or was he simply inventing projects for himself to fill the days?

“I don't like asparagus,” Brent said. “They look like wieners.”

David frowned. “Brent.”

“Green Martian wieners,” Bent said.

“You're not supposed to say that Brent,” Anna scolded. “You're in trouble.”

“Just eat your chicken, Anna,” David told her. “I'm the guy who decides who's in trouble.”

Brent looked wary. “
Am
I in trouble?”

“Yes,” David said. “You have to sleep on the roof tonight.”

“Oh, ha ha, that's so funny I forgot to laugh.”

“Both of you finish your milk,” David said. “Are you done eating?”

“I am!” Anna said, throwing up her hands like she'd scored a field goal.

“I want dessert!” Brent.
Of course
.

“Tonight's not a dessert night.”

“Aw, come on.”

“It's free time,” David announced. “Anna?”

“
SpongeBob!
”

“Approved.” He turned to the boy. “Brent?”

“Minecraft!”

“
Gong
!” David shook his head. “No Internet and no video games. Let's change it up, okay?”

“Aw,
come on
!”

“You have a quarter million Legos in your room,” David said. “Build something.”

“Build what?”

“How about an Mi-24 Hind helicopter?”

“I'm going to build a pirate fort.”

“Approved,” David said. “Kids dismissed.”

They pushed the chairs back and bolted from the room, slightly less noisy than dump trucks full of bowling balls driving over a rough road.

David gestured to the serving tray of asparagus. “Wieners?”

Amy lifted her head from the file folder. “What?”

“Nothing. Can I get you anything?”

“No. Thanks, hon.”

She went back to the file folder with a pen, making notes.

She looked up again a minute later. “You okay?”

“What? Why?”

“You're quiet. I thought maybe you heard from the Army today.”

“Oh.” He shook his head. “No.”

They'd sent him home to rest. They hadn't been clear exactly how much rest he'd needed or how long it would take. He'd stopped asking.

“I'm just thinking about building a barbecue pit out back,” he said.

“Oh.” Amy shrugged. “Sure. Whatever you like.”

He thought about it for ten more seconds. How often would he use a barbecue pit? He had a cheap Weber in the garage he'd used maybe twice. Hamburgers and hot dogs. He thought he might like to try ribs, but nobody else in the family liked barbecue.

The idea that he needed to discover some hobby for himself seemed suddenly … tiresome.

David cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher.

The kids' free time evaporated, and David shooed them one at a time toward the bath, reminding Brent that soap and shampoo were integral elements of the process. Teeth brushed and final visits to the potty.

“Whose turn?” David asked.

“I've got the boy,” Amy said. “You take the girl.”

David gave his wife the thumbs-up. “Check.”

He went to Anna's room where she was waiting for him under her Dora the Explorer sheets. She handed him two picture books in which the protagonist—a pigeon—was discouraged from driving the bus and staying up late. He finished reading, kissed her on the forehead, and turned out the light.

David made the rounds downstairs, turning off lights and making sure the doors were locked. No dishes left in the sink.

Back upstairs, he brushed his teeth and combed his hair. He considered shaving but generally preferred to do that in the morning. A little stubble wouldn't be a problem.

In the bedroom, Amy was already on her side of the bed, rubbing lotion on knees and elbows, her nightly ritual. She hadn't gotten as far as the face cream. She was still in bra and panties, hadn't slipped into the big flannel green monstrosity yet. Comfortable, she claimed.

He pulled the door closed behind him, locked it.

Amy looked up at the sound of the lock clicking. An easy smile came to her face. “Oh, yeah?”

David went to the bed, leaned down for a kiss. She returned it, lips wet and parting for him. One of her hands went behind his head to pull him down, a tongue snaking into his mouth with unexpected but welcome enthusiasm.

Now
this
was more like it. David had struck out a few nights ago, and Amy's schedule had been a whirlwind until today. This was something they
both
needed, he thought. It had been a long time coming.

Amy's hands went to his jeans, unbuttoning and unzipping. He pulled off his shirt. His pants and boxers came down and he stepped out of them. She grabbed his length and started working him. He climbed into bed next to her, and in a second they were entwined, kissing hard.

She was still tugging on him as he pulled her cotton panties down. He'd had big plans to slow-play this and make it last, but it had been awhile and he was driven by a fierce urgency.

David tossed her panties aside and positioned himself between her legs. He tried to maneuver himself in but it was awkward. He wasn't finding his way.

Amy reached down to guide him in. “Almost. Here, this way.”

A knock on the door.

Are you fucking kidding me?

“Hey, the door's locked.” Anna.

David composed himself, steadied his voice. “It's late, Anna. Go back to bed.”

“I had a dream with spiders.”

David felt Amy's hand against his chest. “David.”

And that was that.

He rolled off her, grabbed his boxers and T-shirt. An unreasonable resentment rose up within him, and he shoved it back down. This was being a parent. This was part of it.

Amy was already pulling the flannel green circus tent over her head. She went to the door and opened it.

Anna ran past without pausing and jumped into the middle of the bed, sinking into the nest of pillows and the thick, down comforter. “I want to sleep in here.”

“Of course, baby.”

Amy and Anna snuggled under the covers.

“I think I'll go downstairs and watch TV for a bit,” David said.

“You're still going with me tomorrow night, right?” Amy asked.

David sighed. “I won't know anyone.”

“They're expecting you,” Amy said. “And I need some good-looking arm candy to make those paralegal bimbos jealous.”

A halfhearted smile. “Sure. Okay.”

He switched off the light and left.

*   *   *

The dream had been gradually fading, becoming more obscure and coming less frequently, but tonight it was back in full force, vivid, so clear it was almost cinematic.

The streets of Damascus were littered with bodies. He could smell them. Buildings burned. Smoke. You couldn't see even halfway down any street there was so much smoke, black and thick and acrid.

Gunshots. Sometimes far away and other times startlingly nearby, echoing through the narrow streets. David couldn't always be sure of the direction. It was often difficult to understand who was killing whom and why. The sides hadn't quite been sorted out yet as various factions rushed to fill the power vacuum. Best just to shoot at everyone, or at least that seemed to David to be the prevailing strategy among the citizenry.

“Stay close,” he told Yousef Haddad. “This wasn't the way we were supposed to come. I need to get my bearings.” He checked the handheld GPS but wasn't getting a signal.

“We have to go back.” Yousef's English was heavily accented but good.

“No.” David had his orders. “A truck waiting in the suburbs will take us to a safe crossing at the Lebanese border. Then we make for the coast. We'll take a skiff south until we can get into Israeli waters. There's a trawler waiting to pick us up. We just need to be patient and stay away from the chaos.”

Yousef stopped walking, which meant David had to stop also. He looked back into the man's resolute face.

“My wife and daughters are at my home.” Yousef's eyes were hard. “If certain people discover I have fled, they will be raped by many men. They will be killed only after many hours of humiliation, and their bodies will be dragged through the streets and put on display as a lesson to others.”

David considered what he knew of Yousef Haddad from the file.

The government hadn't sent David to rescue the man because he was a saint. Far from it. Yousef Haddad was a pivotal figure in the Syrian criminal underworld. As such, he had a finger in almost every pie, which made him the ideal informant, reporting on both government activities and insurgent movements. He'd provided names of faction leaders and endless details that kept the State Department and the CIA apprised of the situation on the ground. As long as Uncle Sam kept the cash flowing, Yousef kept the intel flowing.

So was it loyalty to Yousef that motivated the U.S. government to send in a man to fetch him out of the rapidly deteriorating situation in Syria? Partly. But it was also the fact that if he were captured by the wrong people and made to talk, it could be embarrassing for the U.S. government. David had been ordered to do everything possible to get him out.

Failing that, he had instructions to put a bullet in Yousef's head. David wondered if Yousef suspected this. Probably. The man wasn't stupid.

“I have to go back for them,” Yousef said.

If Yousef's file was to be believed, he had done much worse things to other men's wives and daughters. But every man loves his own. Yousef likely had no sense of irony about the situation.

“Another team has been sent for your family,” David said. “They'll meet us.”

“You know this for sure?” Yousef asked. “Are you in contact with the other team?”

“No. We'll have to trust them. And we don't really have time to debate it.”

A moment stretched as the men took each other's measure. David became acutely aware for the pistol stuck into his belt at the small of his back, concealed by his light jacket. He felt sure he could bring it out fast enough if Yousef failed to cooperate.

The sound of gunshots the next street over decided things.

“They had better be there, government man,” Yousef said. “When we get to the truck, my wife and daughters had better be there waiting for me. You understand?”