Page 68 of Caleb's Salvation
Betty came to the counter with my order and slid it in front of me.
“Usual, Dave?” she asked him.
He nodded without saying anything but still kept his head turned away from me.
“He made me hide what we were doing…”
A thought occurred to me.
“You married, Dave?”
His head snapped in my direction. “What of it?”
She’d been a repressed virgin and you were the first man who ever paid attention to her. She thought you were going to save her. And the whole time you were just some guy cheating on his wife.
“Just asking,” I said even as I reached for the ketchup, dumping a ton of it over the fries that came with the sandwich. “Kids?”
“Two girls,” he grunted.
And one boy. One sweet, goofy boy with light hair and hazel eyes. Who, if Vivienne has it her way, will grow up in Alaska surrounded by a community of people who would love him and watch over him and raise him right.
I picked at my fries, took a bite of the sandwich I was no longer hungry for then threw a twenty on the counter.
In my head, I had a vision of just planting my hand on the back of Dave’s head and slamming it hard enough into the counter to break his nose. Some kind of justice for Vivienne and Sam she would never know about.
In the end, though, he wasn’t worth the effort.
I left the diner, walked across the street and got into the fucking Taurus, wondering what the hell I was doing here.
Then I looked up the directions for the local church run by a Pastor Chester and made my way there next.
* * *
Cal
It was about ten miles outside of the town. Along a dusty dirt road surrounded by a whole lot of nothing. Shit, this place looked barren. Brown, flat, endless. About as far from vibrant, vivid Alaska as I could imagine.
It felt like nothing could live here on top of the soil.
Probably why everyone spent so much time digging for oil underneath it.
I pulled the car into a parking spot and got out of the tin can. Happy again to stretch my legs.
The doors to the church opened and an older man stood at the top of three narrow steps framed by a handrail.
He was older than I’d imagined. Sixties, judging from his thinning hair and stooped shoulders. At least from this distance.
I held a hand up that I hoped he interpreted as a greeting because I wouldn’t have been surprised if there was a shotgun just inside that church door.
“Can I help you?” he called, his voice hoarse.
“Looking for Pastor Chester,” I said.
“Found him,” he returned with a nod. I made my way toward him, cautiously as if to show him I was no threat.
I stopped a few feet away, but he stayed right where he was at the top of the steps leading into the church. I thought of a million things I wanted to say, but I thought of the only thing that mattered.
“Vivienne’s safe. So is Sam. They’ve got a place to live and she’s working.”
