The Perfect Letter (23 page)

            
I saw the man I'd been sent to kill. I saw him, and he saw me. We locked eyes across the river, looked at each other. I raised my rifle to my shoulders, touched my finger to the trigger. I could feel the heavy
thump thump
of my heart beating in my chest, the wet heat of the jungle in my lungs, the cold, greasy metal of the gun in my hand. I could still taste the cold corned-beef hash straight from the can.

                 
I was here to kill. I was here to kill another human being, a man who quite possibly had a family, children, a wife. I had those things back home, and even though I was the one with the gun, I didn't think I'd ever been so afraid in my life.

                 
Then he waved to me. He put two fingers to his forehead in a salute, his eyes never leaving mine. I had him in my sights, but he was completely unafraid.

                 
For a long moment we stood and looked at each other, and before I knew it I had put my gun down, stood up, and saluted him back. He looked at me for one long moment, then turned and disappeared.

                 
That was my last mission. Two days later I was on a plane for home, in chains. I was being court-martialed, and I'd never been so happy in my life.

Leigh put the last pages down. It was two in the morning, and she hadn't been able to stop reading. Jim Stephens was every bit as good a writer as she'd hoped he be—better, even. The story was gripping as well as brutally honest, carefully researched, and well crafted. The man who'd gone to war as a sniper had found his conscience and refused to fight. He'd been court-martialed and then spent three years in the hellhole of Fort Leavenworth prison. His wife hadn't left him while he was in the war, like he'd said—she'd divorced him when he'd gone to prison, ashamed of the dishonor he'd brought on himself and the family by laying down his arms and refusing to fight.
But how could I blame her for thinking so,
Jim had written,
when the same thoughts went through my own mind every day? Who was I, if I refused to do the one job I'd been sent to do, if I refused to kill?

She'd found the first title for Leigh Merrill Books, Leigh thought, gathering the pages together. If that was still something that was going to happen.

She looked over at Joseph, asleep next to her, his mouth open slightly in a snore, his eyelids moving slightly in a dream. She did love him, she really did. She loved his charm and his calm; she loved that he was in love with her. There was something intoxicating about being wanted so very much, being loved. But was that all there was to it, really?

She caught sight of the ring on her left hand, a large clear diamond surrounded by a circle of smaller ones, in a heavy setting of platinum. It was a little big—it kept sliding around her finger—but she could always get it resized. A little fix and her life would go on as it had
before, more or less. It wasn't settling, like Chloe had said. It was the choice of a certain kind of future, a certain kind of life.

She thought of her apartment back in the city, the old lady who lived across the hall with her little dog, her doorman, the friends she'd made in the office, the little silver cart in front of the office where she bought her bagel and coffee every morning. She thought of it all with a pang of longing, remembering Sunday mornings with the light streaming in the high-floor windows of her apartment, autumn in Central Park, the air growing cool, leaves crunching underfoot as she walked to the museum. It was a good life, a happy life. An easy life.

It could continue being easy, too. The only thing she had to do to keep it was give up her grandfather's money, pay off Russell Benoit, and go on back home like nothing had changed, go on back to her apartment in Manhattan, her job, Joseph. There was nothing wrong with that. In many ways it made perfect sense to her.

And what was the alternative, after all? She couldn't stay in Texas, that was clear. Nothing had gone right since the minute she stepped off the plane. Since the minute Joseph had proposed to her, actually, in front of all their friends and coworkers. But that was her fault, mostly—for always holding back from Joseph, for not recognizing a good thing when it was standing right in front of her. She'd never really given him all of herself, not the way he'd deserved.

She had an image of herself at forty, fifty, sixty, sleeping next to this man, raising kids with him, publishing books with him. They'd have a great apartment in the city, beautiful children, interesting friendships, extensive travels, every luxury imaginable. They'd be the envy of their friends and neighbors, the kind of couple that never fought, the one invited to every dinner party. They'd be the Middleburys, bastions of the society pages, going to charity balls, hosting salons and literary galas. It would be—could be—very satisfying, that kind of life.

How she wished all that were still enough for her, that nothing, in
the past few days, had changed. A sudden feeling of grief squeezed her, took her breath away, and then was gone, replaced by determination.

She reached over and turned out the light.
Everything's changed. Everything.

 

AUGUST
25, 2006

Starlight Motel

Huntsville, TX

Dear Jake,

My grandfather had a stroke, a little blood clot in his brain that's rendered him about as helpless as a nine-month-old baby. He's been in the hospital for two days, and the doctor says it's very likely he'll die, and I guess hating him forever doesn't extend to the grave. I couldn't let him go without coming to say good-bye, without forgiving him. It wasn't easy, but it was the right thing to do, and I'm glad I did it. He barely knew me—he kept calling me Abby—but I think some part of him knew I was there. He seemed more peaceful. My uncle thought he was waiting for me to come home so he could die. I'm hoping rather than believing that's not true.

I'm afraid even now that the phone will ring and Sonny will tell me he's dead.

It was hard to lose my mom, but she was always this kind of dreamy, silent figure in my life, and when she died, it was like she just drifted into another room, like she'd come back at any moment. This is different. This feels like I'm dying along with him, and if I go, I might never come back.

My aunt and uncle are decent people, but I can't impose on them. They have their own kids to worry about. Without my grandfather, and you in prison and not answering my letters, I won't have anyone but Chloe.

Since I was in Texas anyway, I thought I'd drive up to Huntsville and see if you'd changed your mind at all about seeing me. Maybe a few months have given you a different perspective on things, I thought. Clearly I was wrong. I never asked you to take on this burden alone, Jake. I never expected you to go so far for me. I would never have asked it of you. I would never have let you do it, if I thought it would be the end of us.

I know now that you aren't writing to me. You don't want to see me. Maybe you're angry, and you deserve to be. But don't make me go on without you. It's the one thing I can't bear.

Love,

Leigh

 

AUGUST
25, 2006

Huntsville State Penitentiary

Huntsville, Texas

Dear Leigh,

During the day I walk in circles. I walk the track, I talk to no one. I work in the laundry, cleaning other men's clothes. The clothes are stained with shit and urine and semen. They don't come clean, not really.

At night I don't sleep. I'm always afraid. When I close my eyes I see you with the gun in your hand. I see you point it at me. I see you cry. I can't sleep, knowing I'm the one who's hurt you. I can never take it back.

For months now I've been keeping my head down and my nose out of other people's business. The other inmates leave me alone, for the most part. I keep thinking about time off for good behavior. That and the image of you in your blue dress like a meteor shower, your long hair in my face. Drowning me.

Yesterday I was in my bunk reading a magazine. One of the jokes made me laugh out loud. The old man, Harold, looked up and asked what I thought was so funny. I told him. A judge asks the defendant: “Do you have anything to offer the court before sentencing?” and the defendant answers, “No, sir, my lawyer took my last dollar.”

It was then that Russ walked in. A little guy, not even five-foot-five. He has the outsized attitude of little guys everywhere, always starting trouble to prove that he's a badass. His arms are so big he can barely put them down at his sides. He's covered with tattoos, including one of his girlfriend's face on his belly, bent over like she's giving him head. He has small brown teeth.

He heard us laughing but not what we were laughing about.
What's so goddamned funny? he said, and got up in my face, pushing me. I tried telling him. He kept saying he must be a joke to me, was that it? Did I think he was funny? He didn't care what we were really laughing about. Sometimes guys need to blow off steam. He got right up in my face, pushing his nose into my chest, shoving my shoulders with both hands, trying to get me to hit him back. Snorting like a bull.

It would have gotten worse if one of the guards hadn't heard. He threatened to send us both to solitary if the argument continued. Just try me, he said. He tapped his baton on my bars. They rang like a xylophone.

Russ shut up after that. He was fuming like Yosemite Sam. The guards can't be around all the time. You think you're so smart, don't you, pretty boy? he said. You think you have all the answers. You sit alone on your bunk and pretend you're better than the rest of us. But you're not. You're not.

The trouble is, I know he's right.

My dad wrote the other day. He found a new job, some little outfit where they train Arabian horses. It was all he could find. He comes sometimes to visit. I hate seeing him. He's always angry, always bitching about the people who've done him wrong. I don't think I have to tell you who's on that list. I don't bother telling him it was all his own fault to begin with. He doesn't want to hear it. It's easier for him to blame you, or your grandfather. Or me. Me most of all.

He told me your grandfather was sick. Something about a stroke. It's hard for me to forgive him, even if he's your family and he loves you. He was trying to protect you from me, to keep you safe. Maybe he was right. If I had left you alone to begin with, none of this would have happened. I'd be free and you'd be happy.

This morning the guards told me I had a visitor, and I knew
it had to be you. Maybe you came home to visit your grandfather, decided to come to Huntsville to see me, try to talk to me. I told them I wouldn't come out. They kept asking if I was sure, didn't I want to see who had come? A gorgeous thing like her could keep a man going in here a long, long time. They said you kept insisting you wanted to see me. I couldn't. I told them to tell you to go away, and they did, shaking their heads like I was crazy.

Maybe I am crazy.

I'm not myself here, Leigh. I'm bitter. I'm angry at my father for caring more about himself than me, angry at myself for allowing my father to abuse our relationship. I'm angry at your grandfather for trying to keep us apart. I'm angry at my lawyer for telling me he thought I could get off on a self-defense plea. I'm mad at Russ for picking a fight. I'm angry at myself most of all, for being so gullible. For loving you so much.

I'm not angry at you. I hate to think of you lonely and scared. It isn't like you. It's not what you were made for. You should be happy. If it weren't for me, you would be happy. That's why I can't send these letters. If you go on without me, you'll be happy again.

If I die in here, I've told Harold about the place where I hide my letters, in a slit in my mattress where the stuffing is loose. He promised to mail them to you. He didn't seem too happy about it, but he promised. I want you to know I was still thinking of you. I want you to understand the decisions I've made and why. I hope you can forgive me my ugly feelings. It's only fear that makes me think this way.

I hope you know what you mean to me, what you'll always mean to me. I'd die for you, Leigh. I always said so.

Every night I pray I will be strong enough to let you go.

 

Love,

—J.

I
n the morning Leigh opened her eyes even before her alarm went off, exhausted from having stayed up so late two nights in a row. She hadn't slept, not really, just drifted into a quasi-conscious state at some point during the night. Her dreams were all exhausting, violent: Leigh in the jungle with a rifle in her hand, raising it to her shoulder, sighting down its length at a target that started out as Dale Tucker, then turned into Jake, then turned into herself.

She was looking back at someone aiming a semiautomatic rifle at her, someone whose eyes were hidden by the brim of his hat. She raised two fingers, like the man in Jim's story, and gave a salute to the enemy on the other side of the clearing, but instead of turning around and going, the man pulled the trigger.

The gun went off three times—
pow pow pow
—and she felt the bullet
pass through her body, fast and sharp as a red-hot poker. Her chest burned. She had only one thought—
he shot me!
—and then her eyes snapped open.

She pressed her hands to her chest, in the place where she'd felt the bullet enter her body, and it was several long moments before she was sure she was safe and whole, alive. But for several seconds, while consciousness returned, she remembered the feeling of the bullet passing through her, the heat, the sudden weakness in her limbs. Maybe Dale Tucker had felt the same thing the night she shot him. Maybe he had that same final thought, the shock of realization—
she shot me!
—before he slipped away.

The sun was coming in through a crack in the curtains and Joseph was snoring beside her. The cottage, decorated in roughhewn wood and river stones and clean white linens, looked the same as it had the night before. Her suitcase open, clothes strewn everywhere. Jim's manuscript lying on the floor beside the bed. Everything was perfectly undisturbed except for Leigh herself.

Then she heard it,
knock knock knock
, three times fast, like in her dream. Someone was knocking on the door to her cottage.

Jake.

Beside her Joseph was stirring in his sleep. She jumped out of bed and ran to the door, unlocked it and swung it open, but instead of Jake, what she saw there was the face of a maid, blinking apologetically in the morning light. “Housekeeping,” she said, and then, seeing Leigh in her nightgown, asked, “Should I come back later?”

Leigh's hands were shaking. She steadied them on the door and said, “Yes, just give me an hour, thanks.”

Behind her she could hear Joseph sitting up, starting to wake. “Who is it?” he asked in a voice still thick from sleep.

“The maid. She said she'll come back,” Leigh said.

She was both disappointed and relieved. No Jake meant no explanations,
no confrontations. And yet some part of her had wanted him to be there behind the door, waiting. To get all her secrets out in the open the way Jim Stephens had done in his book, consequences be damned. What a relief it would be—to be finally rid of her secrets, and her shame, once and for all.

She went to shut the door, her thoughts turning to her morning cup of coffee and all the meetings she had lined up that day, all the work she had to do, but as the maid pushed her cart on down the path Leigh saw someone else sitting there, someone with his back against the wall of the stone cottage, a brown Stetson with a rattlesnake band in his lap. There were shadows under both eyes, and he had three days' worth of stubble on his chin, but he stood up when he saw her and crossed to her door in one long step.

“Wait,” Jake said, putting his hand on the door. “I need to talk to you.”

“Not now,” she hissed in a low voice. “Let me get dressed, and I'll meet you down the hill.”

She started to close the door, but he put his hand out to stop her. “I found out something about Russell.”

Leigh felt her breath catch. “Did you see him? Is he going to leave me alone?”

“I couldn't find out where he was living, but I talked to someone who might know where to find him.”

“Who?”

“My dad.”

“Your dad?” Leigh realized she hadn't had enough caffeine for this conversation, not yet. She wasn't following him exactly. “Wait. What does Ben have to do with Russell Benoit? How do they even know each other?”

From his place in the bed, Joseph called out in a sleepy voice, “Leigh, who's there?”

Leigh instinctively narrowed the door to a crack, but it was too late—Jake had heard.

“Still the maid,” she answered. “Hold on.” She went out onto the stoop, shutting the door noiselessly behind her. So much for getting everything in the open.

Jake's eyes narrowed to stormy slits. “I take it that's him,” he said. “Where do you find the energy?”

“Don't,” she said.

A sound from inside the room—the rattle of glasses on a nightstand, the sound of someone picking up, and putting down, a cell phone.

Jake started to say something else, but Leigh said, “Wait. Not here.”

There was nowhere private at the top of the hill, and she couldn't very well let Jake into her room at that moment, so she led him toward a small supply shed on the other side of the cottage. Inside there were brooms and toilet paper, a soda machine and an ice machine, which whirred and hummed in the background. She flipped on the light. It was cool inside, but too bright, too fluorescent for the morning hours. Already Leigh felt a headache coming on.

“You do like your little secrets, don't you?” Jake said. “I take it you never told him about me. But now he's here, and I'm here. How cozy. Any second now it could turn into a sitcom.”

“Listen, him coming here wasn't my idea. He just showed up yesterday. What should I do, tell him to turn around and go home?”

Jake crossed the distance between them. He stood so close she could barely see over his shoulder. If he was trying to intimidate her, it wouldn't work.

“Shouldn't you?” he asked. “After yesterday, the day before?” His hands slid down her shoulders.

Leigh was getting angry now, fear and frustration boiling over into fury. She pushed both hands into his chest, made him step back and
drop his hands. “You disappear yesterday, and I don't know where you are or even if you intend to come back. I have no way of getting hold of you. I don't even know where you live, and I'm supposed to make a decision about the rest of my life based on one night?”

“You don't want him. I know you, Leigh. You don't love him.”

“You don't know me, not anymore. We're different people now, Jake. I'm not saying I can't be with you, I just need some time to figure things out. Because of my job, and Joseph . . . it's just not as simple as snapping my fingers.”

Jake went quiet. “I thought—well, it doesn't matter what I thought.”

He was softening, starting to back off, and she lowered her voice again, her anger easing. She touched his arm. She needed a little space to clear her head, just a little. “I'm winging it here. I have no idea what the right thing is under these circumstances. Can you be patient, just a little patient with me? A few days is all I ask.”

“Okay,” he said. “I can do that.” He was looking down at the floor, chastened, but something else must have caught his eye: the shine of the diamond on her left hand. She tried to turn her hand away, but it was too late.

“I see,” Jake said, grabbing her wrist, his fingers tightening as he waved the ring around between them. “This is the part where
I'm
supposed to be patient?”

“I didn't—” she started.

But Jake wasn't listening anymore. His body was tensed with fury, and suddenly he filled the whole shed, he was everywhere. “You agreed to marry him on the same day you slept with me?”

“Jake, I—”

“I can't believe you. Why would you agree to marry him? Because of a fancy ring, a nice apartment, a job? What are you really selling yourself for?”

Leigh stiffened. “You don't know anything about it. I owe him a lot.”

Jake gave a single
ha,
a sound flat and hard as stone. “That's a funny thing to say to a man who went to prison for you.”

“He needs me,” she said, but it sounded feeble even to her own ears.

She knew what Jake wanted from her, but after the last few days, she wasn't sure she could give it. He was too erratic—pulling her toward him one minute, pushing her away the next.

“If you dumped him today, you think his life would change at all? He'd find someone else, you know it.”

“I don't know that.”

“He would. He'd be a little sad for a while, but he'd move on,” Jake said. “I've tried—God knows, I tried—but I can't move on. Not without you. I need you, Leigh. I need you so badly I can't breathe.”

He crossed what little distance remained between them, coming close now, and then his hands were on her, his manner intense but not hurried. He pulled up the hem of her nightgown gently with his fingertips, touching her as if it were the most natural thing in the world, as if there had never been a time when they were apart. His hands were sliding up the back of her thighs, cupping her buttocks. He pulled her close, slowly, until they were just millimeters apart, his mouth nearly brushing hers. The heat of him crept over every inch of her skin. He was so close she could feel him everywhere, even deep in her lungs.

“
I
need you,” he said, breathing the words into her mouth. “Don't you know that by now? That there's no place in the world that's home for me, except you?”

Her body yearned toward him, her skin crackling with the electricity between them. If he so much as kissed her now, she would forget Joseph, her career, everything. She would give up all of it to be with him.

He was coming close to her, pressing her back against the wall next to the ice machine, parting her thighs with his knee. “I know you
want me. I know it. I can feel it.” Something was vibrating, either the ice machine or the air between herself and Jake. “I felt it yesterday. I feel it now.”

She didn't answer. She could feel the heat coming off him, the smell of his skin making her dizzy, the space between them taut with sorrow and longing and a want that was so palpable it nearly had a shape and a voice. She couldn't see anything but his dark blue eyes pushing their way into her, leaving her naked. If he touched her then, she would dissolve completely.

With one hand he opened the lid of the ice machine and took a piece of ice. With the other he slid the strap of her nightgown off her shoulder, revealing her breast. He touched the ice to her nipple, and she shivered. She couldn't move. She was pinned there by his body, his hands, her own pulsing desire.

“I tried to forget about you in prison,” he said. “I tried to hate you, tried to get you to hate me. I thought you'd be safer that way.”

“Safer from what?” she choked out.

“From me.”

The ice tightened something deep inside her. His lips were just an inch away. All she had to do was tilt up her mouth to kiss him, and the decision would be made. There would be nothing else to keep them apart, ever.

Jake kept pushing, coming closer. He rubbed the ice up her neck, watching it dissolve on her skin. She shivered.

“Tell me you love him. Tell me you want to marry him.” When the ice was gone his hands slid downward, his fingers still cold and wet and slick. “If you tell me to go, I'll go. Tell me you want me to leave right now, so I can leave you behind once and for all.”

His hands slipped beneath her panties, felt the wetness at the center of her. Leigh's body arched toward him, and she felt her throat close up. She couldn't speak, not even the word “wait.” She would
never tell him to go away, never. Not when she wanted him as much as this.

“You think he'd ever touch you like this? You think he could ever know your body the way I do? Your heart?”

Through the window, they were in full view of the hillside path, where people could walk by at any moment, where Joseph could find them at any moment. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered but his hands and the searing look in his eyes, and the flutter of greed in her belly that said
more.

“Tell me to go. I'll go.”

She realized, dimly, that if she told him to stop he would leave immediately, and she would never see him again. The thought made her belly clench with fear.

“Jake.”

“What?”

His hands. The electricity in them.
Please. Please, don't stop
. She closed her eyes, her breath coming fast and hot, not caring that Joseph would come outside at any moment looking for her. He'd wonder what was taking her so long and come looking. Then he'd see. It would be awful, the repercussions, but she didn't care, she didn't care at all. In that moment the only thing that mattered was Jake, his hands, his mouth. Her body, alive with wanting.

Just then the maid came in with her cart, flinging the door wide and making them jump apart. “Sorry,” she said, looking down at her feet, her face turning scarlet. “I didn't know anyone was in here.”