The next morning Patch walked into a South Atlantic Bank, put his gun in the face of a kid not all that much older than himself, and filled his bag. As he turned onto Interstate 95 a cop tailed him for near three miles before passing. Patch figured if they caught him he’d go down with a single regret. He reckoned that was better than most.
He gave close to every cent to the Harvey Robin Foundation, which covered several southern states, their work tireless and vital.
Another two families, he painted their girls and packed the canvases off to Sammy, didn’t call in much, didn’t think of home because he did not know where that was. He still owned the house in Monta Clare, thought of selling up but knew it was all that tied him down, that gave him the smallest link to the town where it all began.
A month later he moved from Silverton to the Red Mountain Pass, through Calf Creek Falls till he reached Bryce Canyon. His feet stirred the dust, his brush rarely left the canvas as he met parents and grandparents and friends who could not ever let go. He watched grainy home movies in empty dens, sat on sofas and strained to hear their daughter’s voices, his heart sinking each and every time he could not place her.
In the early hours he called Saint, waited for the beep of her machine, and recounted a memory so sharp it cut through his doubt.
“Everyone in the world has a voice unique to only them,” Grace said, as she lay top to tail beside him, her own voice coming close from the darkness.
“Like a fingerprint?” he said.
“The length and tension of your vocal cords. The depth of your lungs. Your resonating chamber.”
“Sometimes I think you know too much.”
“I take comfort in it,” she said.
“In what?”
“In the screams I hear. That last cry in this world. So personal it will never be heard again.”
He took a route from the Colorado River down to Sedona, from arid to lush, dunes to pine. And at Phoenix he joined the Apache Trail.
He watched the sunrise as he threaded his way through the Rockies, the Million Dollar Highway soared, and at Mesa Verde he stopped at a small church and joined the morning mass and dipped his head and spoke his apology. As the plate came round he stuffed a hundred dollars into it; the woman beside took his arm and gripped her gratitude like she knew nothing of the bandit and the taint on each bill.
Beside the church, a woman sat in a rocking chair, her hands working on a macramé wall hanging. In her basket were a dozen more, and beside them on a table were trinkets and rosary beads.
Patch looked through them quickly.
“A chain of roses,” the woman said. Her skin was dark, and her white hair peeked from beneath a scarf. Her apron was faded and her eyes sunken deep, her view of the world narrowed.
“They count prayers,” he said.
“And remind us of the three mysteries history cannot teach. From the joyful to the glorious. Christ’s birth to the resurrection. My son was buried with his.”
“Why?” he said, caught himself and offered his condolences.
“We place them on the dead and then cut the rosary to stop another death following.”
“The joyful and the glorious. That’s only two. You said there were three,” he said.
She squinted up, the sunlight blinding. “The sorrowful. Suffering and death.”
“The dead. What happens if the rosary beads are left uncut on them?” he said.
She crossed herself slowly and continued her work.