The wind tore at Katelyn’s jacket, wet worms of escaped hair plastered to her forehead, and water snaked in the side of her hood and slithered down her neck. And instead of just letting her do what she’d come to do, the officer standing by the yellow and black tape barricading the bridge wanted to argue.
“Yes, I’m his ex-wife, but I think I can help. Please let me try.”
“How did you even know he was here? Did he notify you this evening? Did he tell you he was going to self-harm?”
Katelyn shook her head. A battery of voices surrounded her. Static crackled from radios on the hips and in the hands of a variety of uniforms. The darkness was cut by flashing red, white and blue lights. One wide, piercing beam sliced a straight line to a slump-shouldered man sitting on the railing of the bridge.
“I told you. A friend called me.”
“And this friend, she told you your husband was—”
“She’s not really my friend. She’s my ex-boss. And she wasn’t sure it was Steve. She just thought it might be—”
A heavy-set man strode toward them and stepped over the barricade. “Katelyn Kellerman?”
Katelyn nodded.
He introduced himself by name, reeled off something Katelyn didn’t catch, and finished with, “You came to talk to your ex-husband?”
Katelyn nodded again, noting with dull interest that the officer had referred to Steve as her ex. Had Steve called himself that, or did the information come from somewhere else? She didn’t have time to ponder it for long.
“He’s been asking for you. Says he won’t jump if he can talk to you—but I have to warn you, getting you out there to watch might be his whole plan. He might have it in his head that he can punish you, by—”
“By jumping to his death in front of me?” Katelyn whispered.
The officer nodded.
She stepped forward. “But . . . am I allowed to talk with him?”
The officer scrubbed his jaw with his fist, sighed, and gave a terse nod. “But you can’t go within reach of him, okay? No closer than ten feet—and if I say move, you move—back here, fast as you can, got it?”
Katelyn nodded.
The middle of the bridge, despite the storm, seemed strangely quiet. The absence of cars, maybe—or . . . Katelyn was aware that her brain was trying to take her anyplace but here, trying to have her think about anything but . . . this.
The streetlights were yellow and dim, unable to do much to alleviate the smothering darkness, enhanced as it was by the driving rain and thick fog. Beneath them, Steve wasn’t so much illuminated as he was blurred.
He turned when she was about fifteen feet away, though neither she nor the officer had said a word yet. It was as if he sensed her.
“Katelyn,” he breathed. “Katelyn.”
She hated the relief in his voice with every fiber of her being. What did he expect of her? What could she possibly have left to give him?
“Steve,” she replied softly, then walked a cautious step or two closer, carefully maintaining the distance the officer accompanying her had insisted on. “What are you doing? Are you okay?”
Steve shook his head, then moved stiffly, swinging a leg over the rail so that he sat straddling it, able to look at her more directly. “I . . . almost hurt that woman. Jayda.”
And that was what was horrifying to him? That he’d almost hurt a stranger, not her for all those years?
“I know.”
He shook his head again. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t. The knife . . . I only had it on me because I’d been cleaning out our camping trailer. It was my camping knife. For camping.”
“She’s all right, Steve. She’s okay.”
He nodded and gulped air like a drowning man, and Katelyn realized he’d been sobbing. She felt something leave her body like a physical presence—terror. He wasn’t a threat to her right now. Not like this. Something had changed. In him? In her? She guessed it didn’t really matter who—just that it had.
“I can tell you feel sorry,” she said, “but you’re sitting in a dangerous spot. Will you come down from there and we can talk some more?”
Steve continued, like he hadn’t heard her. “And you won’t come back to me because I scared you, right?”
She darted a look at the officer. He held her gaze, but shook his head once, like he didn’t know what she should say either—but Steve didn’t appear to need her words.
“I am not a bad man,” he said vehemently. “I’m not.”
“But you’re sorry for any bad things you may have done, right? For any misunderstandings?” she said softly, falling into their old pattern and for once in her life, being grateful for it, grateful she knew the lines to say, the role to play.
“See? You know. You know me. I am sorry. So sorry. I know I lose it sometimes, but it’s just because I love you. I love you so much.”
Katelyn couldn’t smell alcohol on his breath because he was too far away, but she recognized the bottle talking.
“I do know that, Steve. I do.” She was hit by what might’ve been the saddest thing she’d ever thought: that in his own damaged beyond repair, delusional, no idea what real love was way, he did love her.
He rubbed his eyes and suddenly shifted his weight. It looked like he might swing his leg back and return to a ready to jump position again.
“You have a lot to live for, Steve. The kids love you. They need to know that while a person’s alive, there’s still hope.”
“Ha!”
Katelyn froze at the explosive bitterness in Steve’s voice like someone had just fired a gun. She couldn’t help it.
He shook his head, his mood swinging as unpredictably and quickly as a branch caught in a river’s current. “The kids don’t love me. And they shouldn’t. They’re scared of me. They’d be better off without me. You’d all be better off without me. And that’s what you want, right?”
Katelyn didn’t hesitate. She threw the truth like a life preserver, praying Steve would grab onto it. “They would not be better off without you. If you hurt yourself, if you . . . die . . . it will be terrible for them.”
Silence. Silence. Silence. Only the rain beating hard. And her heart beating harder.
Then finally, just when Katelyn feared she might scream with nerves, Steve spoke again. “But not for you. It would be good for you. You would be happy.”
“No, it wouldn’t. It would be terrible for me—terribly, terribly, terribly sad.”
“If I . . .” Steve lifted his foot to the railing like he was going to try to stand—but slipped and came down heavily on his tailbone. Katelyn stifled a scream and rushed forward out of reflex. The officer beside her caught her wrist in a cement grip and restrained her.
“If I get help, if I promise to really, one hundred percent, get help, will you come back to me? Give me one more chance. Just one more. Please. I love you, Katelyn. I love you. I love you. I love you.”
Katelyn realized she was crying and wondered if she had been ever since she stepped foot onto the bridge. “Oh, Steve . . . ” Her nose was running back into her throat and her vision misted—but even so, she saw him shake his head and wrap his arms around himself, like he was trying to hold himself together.
“You won’t. And I knew it. It’s all over. And it’s my fault. My fault.” And just like that, without another word or sound, Steve jerked his body hard and pitched forward, falling with a wet smacking thud onto the surface of the bridge. It wasn’t far to fall and he didn’t appear badly hurt. He curled into a fetal position in the pooling rain and lay still.
The officer was instantly gone from Katelyn’s side, joined by two others she hadn’t even been aware were on the bridge. Steve didn’t resist as the officers patted him down, checking for injuries and weapons. He didn’t resist being handcuffed either.
When he was on his feet again, in what was probably a minute but seemed like years, he looked Katelyn’s way once more. “I really am sorry,” he said.
She nodded. “I know.”
“Good-bye, Kiki.”
It was hard to believe, but she actually smiled. “Good-bye, Steve. I hope . . . you get the help you need.”
And then it was over. Steve was gone, shuffled away in the bleak night to the backseat of a waiting squad car.