Suddenly, I knew exactly what I was going to do.
There was an unsettling disconnect between my mind and my body; my body kept moving forward as if preprogrammed, and my mind was watching the whole thing from a distance, where it could safely call the shots.
I sped through the streets. It was past seven now; my detour through the Ohio countryside and back had cost me precious time. The day had fully arrived, ushered in with a golden sunlight that glinted off the asphalt.
I said it, hummed it, sang the three syllables: Rob-ert Saenz.
The Explorer fishtailed for a wild moment as I took a hard turn onto Morgan. It didn’t matter who saw me, what anyone said or thought. Saenz was in my sights, and everything else had disappeared. For all I knew, the rest of the world had fallen into a sinkhole, and this little plot of land was the only thing left standing.
This time I didn’t circle the block and park at a distance, or slow down to stare out the window and consider my options. Instead, I swung the Explorer into the driveway and jerked to a stop in the space that had recently been vacated by Jerry Saenz in the Saenz & Co truck. I waited a moment, watching. There was no movement inside the house, no face peering at me from behind a curtain. I fixed my eyes on the apartment above the garage. He was there, hungover, still in bed—I was sure. I heard the words in my head, as if I’d actually spoken them: Do you know who I am? Does the name Daniel Kaufman ring any bells?
I stepped out of the car, the Colt tucked into my waistband. Maybe even the sight of it would give Robert Saenz a massive coronary. That was fine, too. It was when, not if. It was when, not how.
My shoes crunched against the gravel where the driveway ended and a stone pathway began. The area around the bottom of the steps was filthy with cigarette butts, smoked to nubs. Add this to Robert Saenz’s list of crimes—littering, abuse of the environment. The stairs leading along the side of the garage up to the unit seemed to be an afterthought and not entirely up to code. Saenz & Co. was in the hauling business, not in construction. The entire staircase creaked under my weight, and the railing was less than stable. Left alone, Robert Saenz might just take a header down these stairs one night, without any help from me—but I wasn’t going to wait for that.
The time to consider my actions had been before. Minutes before, driving back into town. An hour before, loading a single bullet in the parking lot of the truck stop. Two days ago, when I was in Omaha with Kathleen and Olivia, when I could have taken one last stab at making things right. Almost a month before, when I’d received the letter, and things had started to spiral out of control. Years ago, when I’d made the decision—consciously? unconsciously?—that what had happened to Daniel was going to define my life.
Now there was nothing to do but raise my fist and pound on the door, a sound so loud against the crisp quiet of the morning that it might have been a gunshot itself. I was about to try the handle, then force myself in if needed, shoulder to the door, when the doorknob turned, and the door opened inward.
Robert Saenz, wearing a stained white T-shirt and a pair of gray sweats, was standing in front of me. He ran a hand over his face roughly, as if he were rubbing himself awake. It was the same face I’d seen in the Oberlin newspaper, the same face on the booking jacket that the police officer had pushed across the conference table at me. It was hard to see him in real life and not remember that mug shot—his face bloated and large in the foreground, a height chart climbing the wall behind him. Now he was older, hair shorter and graying around the temples, his eyes bloodshot. His stomach was a hard ledge beneath his T-shirt.
I said his name—not a question, just a recitation of his name out loud as I’d been reciting it inwardly.
What surprised me more than anything was the expression on his face. This man had killed two people, I had to remind myself. He had done time in prison—scenes from an episode of Lock-Up! flashed in my mind—but he didn’t look hard-bitten or criminalized. He didn’t reach out and push me down the stairs—which he could have done without much difficulty—or slam the door in my face or reach out to throttle me with his bare hands. Instead, he looked resigned. He looked horribly tired.
I said, “You don’t know me, but I know you. I’ve been waiting for this moment.”
He took a step backward and raised a hand, chest-high, as if to stop me. “Okay. Now hold on.”
“Daniel Kaufman was my son,” I said, my voice breaking on his name.
Saenz ran a tongue over cracked lips, his dead eyes sparking with life. “What do you want from me?”
All the language had been sucked out of my brain. Where words had been, carefully rehearsed, was only a raw jumble of feeling. My hand went to my waistband, to the Colt, and his eyes tracked my movement.
“I want you to say his name.”
“Look, I don’t know—”
“His name was Daniel Owen Kaufman.”
“Okay. So I’ll say his name, and then you’ll leave?”
This was the moment—my one shot. I tugged at my sweatshirt, bringing the Colt into view. “I’m here to make things right,” I said.
Robert Saenz’s eyes locked on the handle of the gun, but then his gaze shifted ever so subtly to something over my shoulder.
Behind me, at the foot of the rickety stairs, someone said, “Uncle Bobby? What’s going on?”