Page 181 of The Vigilante's Lover
Mia and Colette should be here soon anyway.
Mia!
I’m already restless with plans. We’ll stop for clothes, have a decent meal, then I’ll grab some identification from my nearest stash — not D.C., but somewhere — and rent a car. A plain old civilian car! I’ll shut down my known residences, or maybe I won’t even bother, just fly to Switzerland and buy a chateau at whatever point is the farthest from any Vigilante silo.
Forget they exist. Forget anything else exists.
Mia. All to myself. Endlessly. I stop in front of a row of well-nursed chrysanthemums. We’ll garden. We’ll grow flowers and vegetables.
We’ll be normal people.
Avoid boats. Big bodies of water. Guns. Poison darts.
Buy lots of rope. Practice knots. On each other. Endlessly.
Maybe I’ll lead a Boy Scout troop.
The thought makes me laugh. Everything makes me laugh. I’m out. I’m done. It doesn’t matter.
It’s over.
The elderly lady has taken out an apple and is slicing it. She alternates eating one slice and setting another in the grass by a headstone. Her simple joy in doing this calms me.
Mia and I are going to be just like that. Quiet. Devoted. A love affair that even death can’t end.
I cross the lawns to get closer to the road. There’s another concrete bench under a tree that can hide me from casual glances.
I sit on it. Opposite is a double headstone with two overlapping hearts. Doris and Bernard Thatcher. They died within weeks of each other after long eighty-something-year lives.
That’s what I want. That exactly.
Now that I’m not running, the chill sets in. But it feels good. I feel good. The jump and the swim and the race away from the river have cleared my head and body from the drug that got me out of the silo.
I breathe in deeply, loving the clear crisp air and the glory that is autumn in this part of the country. The leaves are already changing and soon will be bright with reds and golds.
I’m getting a new start, right here.
I feel something brush my arm, and I leap into action, ready to fight.
But it’s the old lady.
“So sorry to startle you,” she says. “I thought you could use this.”She passes me a soft, well-worn cardigan, the sort an older man might wear.
“It was my husband’s.” She waves her hand in the direction of the bench where she was sitting when I passed. “I’ve been silly, bringing him snacks and sweaters. I think it would look very fine on you. He’d like that.”
My mind wants to examine her story for inconsistencies, lies, or attempts to detain me while someone comes for me. I can’t quite program out my distrust, my trained responses.
But I force it down. This is my new life. I slide an arm into the sleeve of the cardigan. It smells of hand-washing and home.
“Thank you,” I say. I plan to make up a story, some bit of cover for why I’m out here dressed this way.
But she just pats my arm. “I’ve seen people come out here in all states. Grief does that.” She steps away. “The sweater looks good on you.”
Then she starts walking, not back to the grave, but toward a single car parked along the road.
I sit back on the bench. Mia would be that sort of woman, I think, one who would let go of a beloved article of clothing to help someone else. “You picked a good one,” I say to the sleeve, as if it’s the person who once wore it. “So did I.”
The old lady’s car chugs past at a snail’s pace. She waves as she passes by. I lift my hand in return.
