Chapter 14

14

We’re all just walking each other home.

—Ram Dass

Jericho, New York

One Year Later

Breathe. Four seconds in, hold for four, out for four, empty lungs for four.

I peer through the scope, into the front window of the house. The living room is empty. My phone vibrates in my pocket. I shouldn’t check it. I don’t want to be here longer than I have to be. Someone could spot me.

But most of the driveways on the block are empty. People gone for work, or traveling for the holidays, or scrambling to buy Christmas gifts at the last second. I risk it. It’s a text from Booker.

Booker: You done yet?

Me: Almost.

Booker: We’re running out of time.

Me: I got three hours.

Booker: Google says they close at 4.

Me: I called. Holiday hours. They’re open to 6.

Booker: That’s not what Google said.

Me: Google doesn’t know everything. I called to make sure.

Booker: Don’t fuck me on this, Mark.

Me: Calm down, tough guy. I got it covered.

Booker: Ask for Maritza.

Me: This better be worth it. It’s out of the way. I like that place on Bleecker.

Booker: Remember the last time you went hard in the paint for someone? Your judgment remains suspect.

Me: You’re never going to let me live that down.

Booker: Real talk, man, I’ve been thinking I’m nuts for a long time. Seeing ghosts everywhere. It was actually pretty affirming that my gut was right on that. Means my radar still kind of works.

Booker: But no, I will absolutely not let you live it down.

Back to the scope. I shift it to my right arm, giving my left a chance to rest. Kozlov’s bullet missed the tangle of bone and major blood vessels in my shoulder, but it tore out a chunk of my deltoid muscle. Six months of rehab bought me a little strength and range of motion, but it’s never going to be at full capacity.

Could have been worse.

I spend a lot of time thinking about what Kenji did, sacrificing his recovery, and then his life. In the movie version, I’d chalk it up to some cutesy hitman code like “You live by the blade, you die by the blade.” The honest truth of it is, I think Kenji loved me as much as I loved him.

My service commitment: organizing and leading the weekly meetings, keeping an eye on the Paper Cranes forum, taking on sponsees of my own—that’s the best way to honor his memory.

I’m still waiting for that last part. I think I’m ready. Another thing he was right about. Being a sponsor isn’t about saving someone else. It’s about reinforcing your own recovery and saving yourself in the process.

One life, plus another.

Even though we haven’t had any new recruits, I’ve been practicing the paper cranes, which contain the password for the new forum on the Amber Road, the site that took the place of the Via Maris. It feels good to keep that part of the tradition alive.

I always wondered about the origin of the cranes and never asked. I feel silly now, for not asking. It was one of those things I figured we would get to eventually, and then eventually turned into too late .

The story I’ve decided to tell myself is that Kenji wanted to use his hands, the hands that inflicted so much pain and death, to create something delicate and beautiful.

Finally, there’s movement against the lens of the scope.

Sara walks into the living room, Bennett toddling after her, and it takes me a moment to realize I stopped breathing. He’s got the same color hair as me. He goes to a kitchen playset and slams plastic toys together, pretending to cook. Sara sits on the couch, clearly exhausted, but content. The Christmas tree twinkles in the background.

This is the first time I’ve seen Bennett and it’s all I can do to keep the scope steady.

My son.

The next time Sara goes outside, on the porch she’ll find a box wrapped in sparkling red paper with a big green bow on top, placed out of view from the sidewalk so no one walks off with it. Inside is half a million dollars and a typed note, explaining how to spend it to avoid the attention of the IRS.

In the bag at my feet is another note—this one handwritten, explaining who I am, what happened, everything. Along with that: a gift-wrapped present for Bennett. A package of glow-in-the-dark stars for his bedroom ceiling.

The whole ride over I nearly managed to convince myself there existed a reality in which knocking on her door would be appropriate. By the time I rounded the corner of her street, I realized how selfish it would be.

She might guess the money is from me, though honestly I hope she doesn’t.

And if she does, I hope she keeps it.

This isn’t about clearing a debt.

I like to imagine at some point I’ll make an in-person amends, but for now I have to settle for a living amends. Which means sticking to the program, doing my best to make the world a better place, and keeping an eye out to ensure nothing from my past ever blows back on them.

If Bennett can be happy and know what it means to be loved—that can be enough.

That can be more than enough.

I stash the scope in my bag and turn onto the sidewalk, head for the train station that will bring me to the Lower East Side and that little cupcake shop that offers the promise of a peaceful Christmas Eve with friends.

As I walk, I feel lighter. I’m not sure why. I don’t think it’s the money. Maybe it’s the freedom of knowing I could catch a bullet in the back of my head at any second, and the lights would just go out, Sopranos -style, which means nothing matters, but at the same time, everything does.

—

As I step through the door of the cupcake shop, a young Hispanic woman with curly brown hair and a shiny nose ring looks up from the counter.

“Maritza?” I ask.

“You must be Mark,” she says, sliding a white cardboard box across the counter. “Booker called. Said you were coming.”

I check my pocket to make sure I’ve got my Lactaid. “Yeah, he was hyped. Sorry if he got a little intense?”

Maritza makes a confused face. “Intense? Booker comes in all the time. He’s like, the sweetest.”

I stifle a laugh as I pull out my wallet. “Fairytale of New York” by the Pogues starts in on the café’s speakers. I point toward the ceiling. “Best Christmas song there is.”

“Agreed,” she says before placing a small cup of coffee next to the box.

“I didn’t order that,” I tell her.

She points with her chin at something behind me, toward the seating area on the other side of the shop. “She did.”

I turn to find Astrid sitting in the corner, bundled up in a heavy black bubble jacket, a paper cup of coffee on the table in front of her. I don’t know what’s more unsettling—that she’s here waiting for me, or that I didn’t notice her when I walked in. She gives me a little wave, and I wave back, which seems like a ridiculous greeting considering the crushing gravity between us.

I stuff a hundred into the tip jar, wish Maritza a Merry Christmas, take my coffee and cupcakes, and approach Astrid like I’m navigating a minefield. I stop in front of her table and she raises her cup of coffee to her lips, takes a long drink, and puts it back down, all without taking her eyes from mine.

“Hey,” she says.

“How’d you find me?”

“Would you join me?” When I don’t, she takes another sip of coffee. “I’m no Pale Horse, but I’m pretty good at my job, too. I’m not here to cause trouble.”

I pull out a chair and sit across from her, take the lid off my coffee to let it cool. “If you were planning to kill me, I never would have seen it coming. Maritza has seen your face, the shop has a camera, and there’s a CCTV across the street. Too many variables.”

“Just wanted to talk.”

“Right,” I say. “Talk.”

A chasm of silence opens between us, and it’s hard to tell from the vibration of it what kind of silence it is. There are too many emotions swirling inside my chest for me to have any hope of untangling them.

Astrid’s eyes are sunken, her body concaved. She looks like she hasn’t slept since the last time I saw her.

“You still in the city?” she asks.

“Got a little cabin up in the mountains. Off the grid. I come in for the meetings, but otherwise, there are way too many people around here who want to kill me. It’s pretty nice, besides the mice.”

“P. Kitty must be in heaven, then,” she says.

“Oh, no, he has no predatory instinct whatsoever. The mice have the run of the place.”

“Why don’t you kill them?”

“I don’t work for free.”

She nods. “Speaking of, happy anniversary.”

“Anniversary?”

“Last year, didn’t you say you were at a year? You’d be at two years now.”

“Ah, that.” I laugh, and it starts small but then grows bigger, and her face twists in confusion. “Actually, I’m back to a year. After what happened, I started from scratch. Went back to counting days. Square one on the steps.”

“Was it because of what I did?”

I shrug. “I needed to do it. I decided being in the program wasn’t as simple as killing or not killing. The second shit went sideways, I went right back to how I used to be. Riding on my reputation, using fear to get what I wanted. It scratched the itch.” I turn my cup of coffee on the heavy wooden tabletop, hoping the words I’ve been struggling to find for the past year will suddenly reveal themselves, written on the surface of it. “Turns out there was one last person I needed to kill.”

“The Pale Horse,” she says.

I bow my head in affirmation.

Astrid’s eyes drift to the corner. She picks up her coffee but doesn’t drink from it.

“What was the thing that pisses you off the most?” I ask.

“What?”

“When we were in the van. Before Kozlov rammed us. You said that.”

She nods and places down her cup of coffee. “Sticking with you wasn’t just about Kozlov. I wanted to understand you. To be honest, I resented you. You were the go-to guy. I was second string. And it pissed me off when you said you quit. Like you were wasting your potential.” She pauses. “Like you weren’t just physically better than me, you were suddenly morally better, too.”

“I was good, Astrid,” I tell her. “But so are you. Speaking of, how are things at the office?”

“Messy. That guy Stuart, he kicked over the apple cart and then stomped on all the apples. There was a lot to clean up. They’ve got a new golden child in, too. He’s been getting most of the work, so I’m back to the B squad. People call him the Viper.”

“If Ravi were around, he’d be called Leviathan or Nephilim or something.”

For the first time since I sat, Astrid smiles. “The guy did love his biblical references, didn’t he?”

“I wonder if he was religious.” I take a long drag of the coffee. It’s still a little too hot, but it feels good to do something to fill up the sharply awkward edges of the space. “Didn’t know him well enough to say one way or the other, I suppose.”

“You were right, by the way.”

“How’s that?”

“Drinking the poison.” She cranes her neck to look around me, but Maritza is in the process of wiping down the counters, preparing to close—out of earshot. “For years, all I thought about was killing Kozlov. Then he was dead and I didn’t feel any better.”

“That’s the way it tends to go.”

“Are you mad at me?”

“For what?”

“For screwing up your recovery.”

Again, the right words elude me, even though I’ve imagined this conversation, despite never expecting to have it. I drum my fingers on the table, waiting for something to come to me, and when nothing does, I settle on the truth. “Yeah, for a while after. I blamed you, and I thought you killing him was the same as me doing it. The more I sat with it, the more I realized I was mad at myself. It’s up to me to clean my side of the street.”

“Yesterday matters,” she says. “Tomorrow matters more.”

“Sixty percent of recovery is cute slogans.”

“It took me a little while to hear, but I heard it.”

“Sometimes they take a minute to land. Believe me, I know.”

“I want out.”

The word burst out of her, like a frothing river held back by a dam. Once they’re free and floating in the air between us she holds her breath. She said the hard thing. A thing she’s wanted to say for a while now. And I can feel pieces of her falling away in the white-hot aftermath.

“Hey.” I look her in the eye, tossing a rope into that raging river. I know where to throw it because I’ve been there myself. “Do they teach box breathing in Special Forces?”

She shakes her head, hard and fast.

“They teach it in the SEALs. Calms your central nervous system. Breathe in for four seconds, hold it for four seconds, breathe out for four seconds, hold your lungs empty for four seconds.” I put my hand on my chest. “With me, okay?”

She nods her head with the same fervor, and together we breathe in, hold, breathe out, then hold.

We do it once, twice, three times.

She closes her eyes and then looks back up at me, the waters now placid.

“Thank you,” she says.

“You’re welcome.”

“I don’t know if this whole program thing is for me.”

“It might not be,” I tell her. “But you could give it a shot.”

“The whole ‘god’ part of the recovery process—”

“Don’t worry, we cover that.”

“Excuse me,” Maritza calls from the other side of the store. “Sorry to rush you off, but we have to close.”

“No, it’s all good.” I toss the mostly empty coffee in the trash can next to me. “It’s Christmas Eve. We all have places to be.”

Astrid and I gather our things and step outside. Maritza locks the door behind us. Snowflakes swirl in the air and perch on our shoulders. The street is empty, the city taking that deep, peaceful breath it takes once a year for Christmas, when everyone either leaves or heads indoors, seeking out a little bit of light in the dark.

“You got any plans tonight?” I ask.

“No,” she says.

“I’m getting together with Booker and Valencia. And my old neighbor, Ms. Nguyen. She was in the game, too. She’s great, even though she gets a little handsy when she’s drinking.”

“So it’s like a recovery thing?”

“Sort of, but not really,” I tell her. “It’s part Christmas party, part baby shower for Valencia.”

Astrid smiles. “She’s pregnant?”

“Close to popping. You will not be surprised to hear it’s not doing much for her demeanor. But she’s going to be a good mom. She’s so excited.”

“I don’t have anything to bring.”

“Me and Booker got a bunch of cool stuff. We’ll throw your name on the card.”

She hesitates. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“No.” I offer her my free hand. “But it could be.”

She lets out a light laugh that feels warm and familiar—like it was back when we were on the run, when I thought there might be something between us. “We’re not holding hands, Mark.”

“Right,” I tell her, sticking my hand in my pocket. “C’mon, though, worst thing that happens”—I hold up the box—“is you get some cupcakes.”

“What kind?”

“Red velvet. Best in the city, according to Booker.”

She surveys the empty street, and the sparkling lights and decorations, and the swirling snowflakes, and the enormity of what it means to decide you want to change.

Both the impossibility and the simplicity of it.

“Okay,” she says. “Lead the way.”

I turn in the direction of the subway, and for a few steps, she follows, until she falls in alongside me. The snow picks up, dusting the street, the stunted and barren trees lining the sidewalk and reaching up to the streetlights, and even if this is all a ruse, even if her ultimate plan is to kill me, it’s hard not to appreciate this moment.