His Dad saved him by pointing the carving knife at Jack’s chest.

“Your mother,” he said. “That’s it, isn’t it. I’ve always suspected that it made you a little crazy, but now I want to hear it from you. I remember you at the wake and the funeral. Like a zombie, hardly speaking to anyone. You were never a momma’s boy. Far from it. You were closest to Kate. But to see your mother killed by violence, to have her bleeding and dying in your arms…there’s no shame in having a breakdown after what happened. No one should have to go through that. No one.”

Jack gulped more of his wine. He could feel it hitting him. He’d had nothing to eat since breakfast and the alcohol was jumping directly into his bloodstream. So what? And why not?

“I agree that no one should have to go through that. But it wasn’t Mom’s death that put me on the road.”

“What then? It’s driven me crazy for the past fifteen years. What made you disappear?”

“Not her death. Another death.”

“Whose?”

“I was pissed at everyone back then for not finding the guy who’d dropped that cinder block. The state cops were going on about keeping an eye on the overpasses, but it takes a lot of effort to track down someone who commits a random act of violence. And they had better things to do—like ticketing speeders on the Turnpike. God forbid we drive above the limit. And you, you weren’t doing anything but talking about what should happen to the murdering bastard when they caught him. Only it wasn’t a ‘when,’ it was an ‘if’—an ‘if’ that was never going to happen.”

Jack finished the glass and poured himself some more, killing the bottle.

Dad looked up from the ham. “What the hell was I supposed to do?”

“Something. Anything.”

“Like what? Go out and track him down myself?”

“Why not?” Jack said. “I did.”

Oh, shit, he thought. Did I just say that?

“Youwhat ?”

Jack raced through his options here. Say never mind and stonewall it? Or go ahead and tell all. Abe was the only other person on earth who knew.

But now the wine and a cranky, don’t-give-a-shit mood pushed him to let it roll. He sucked in a deep breath.

Here goes.

“I tracked him down and took care of him.”

Jack thought he saw Dad’s hand tremble as he put down the carving knife. His expression was tight, his eyes bright and wide behind his glasses.

“Just how…I’m not sure I want to hear this but…just how did you take care of him?”

“I saw to it that he never did anything like that again.”

Dad closed his eyes. “Tell me you broke his arms, or smashed his elbows.”

Jack said nothing.

Dad opened his eyes and stared at him. His voice dropped to a whisper. “Jack…Jack, you didn’t…”

Jack nodded.

Dad sidled left to one of the counter stools and slumped on it. He cradled his head in his hands, staring down at the pile of sliced scallions.

“Oh, my God.” His voice was a moan. “Oh, my God.”

Here it comes, Jack thought. The shock, the outrage, the revulsion, the moral repugnance. He wished now he could take it back, but he couldn’t, so…

He walked around the counter, past his father’s bent back, opened the refrigerator, and took out another bottle of wine.

“How did you know it was him?” Dad said. “I mean, how could you be sure?”

Without bothering to remove the black lead foil, Jack wound the screw through it and into the cork.

“He told me. Name was Ed, and he bragged about it.”

“Ed…so, the shit had a name.”

Jack blinked. Other than hell and damn, his father had always been scrupulous about four-letter words. At least when Jack was a kid.

He lifted his head but didn’t look at Jack. “How?” He licked his lips. “How did you do it?”

“Tied him up and dangled him by his feet off the same overpass. Made him a human piñata for the big trucks going by below.”

The cork popped from the bottle as Jack remembered seeing Ed swinging over the road, the meatythunk! as the first truck hit him, then the second.

Music. Heavy metal.

Dad was finally looking at him. “That’s why you left, isn’t it. Because you’d committed murder. You should have stayed, Jack. You should have come to me. I would have helped you. You didn’t have to spend all those years dealing with that guilt alone.”

“Guilt?” Jack said, pouring more wine for both of them. “No guilt. What did I have to feel guilty about? No guilt, no remorse. Send me back in time to relive that night and I’d do the same thing.”

“Then why on earth did you just take off like that?”

Jack shrugged. “You want an eloquent, thoughtful, soul-searching answer? I don’t have one. It seemed to make sense at the time. From that moment on the world looked different, seemed like another place, and I didn’t belong. Plus I was disgusted with just about everything. I wanted out. So I got out. End of story.”

“And this creep, this Ed…why didn’t you call the police?”

“That’s not the way I work.”

Dad squinted at him. “Work? What does that mean?”

Jack didn’t want to go there.

“Because they’d have carted him off and then let him out on bail, and then let him plead down to a malicious mischief charge.”

“You’re exaggerating. He’d have done hard time.”

“Hard time wouldn’t cut it. He needed killing.”

“So you killed him.”

Jack nodded and sipped his wine.

Dad started waving his arms. “Jack, do you have any idea what could have happened to you? The chance you took? What if somebody saw you? What if you’d been caught?”

Jack opened his mouth to reply, but something in his father’s words and tone stopped him. He was going on about…he seemed more concerned about the possible consequences of the killing rather than the killing itself. Where was the outrage, the middle-class repugnance for deliberate murder?

“Dad? Tell me you wish I hadn’t killed him.”

His father pressed a hand over his eyes. Jack saw his lips tremble and thought he was going to sob.

Jack put a hand on his shoulder. “I never should have told you.”

Dad looked at him with wet eyes. “Never? I wish you’d told me back then! I’ve spent the last fifteen years thinking he was still out there, unnamed, unknown, some kind of wraith I’d never get my hands on. You don’t know how many nights I’ve lain awake and imagined my hands around his throat, squeezing the life out of him.”

Jack couldn’t hide his shock. “I thought you’d be horrified if you knew what I’d done.”

“No, Jack. The real horror was losing you all those years. Even if you’d been caught, you could have pled temporary insanity or something like that and got off with a short sentence. At least then I’d have known where you were and could have visited you.”

“Better for you, maybe.”

A jolt in the joint, even a short one…unthinkable.

“I’m sorry. I’m not thinking straight.”

Jack still couldn’t believe it. “I killed a man and you’re okay with that?”

“With killingthat man, yes, I’m okay. I’m more than okay, I’m—” He threw his arms around Jack. “I’m proud of you.”

Whoa.

Jack wasn’t into hugs, but he did manage to give his dad a squeeze, all the while thinking, Proud?Proud? Christ, how could I have read him so wrong?

Once again Anya’s words from that first day came back to him.

Trust me, kiddo, there’s more to your father than you ever dreamed.

They broke the clinch and backed off a couple of feet.

Jack said, “If I’d have known you felt that way, I might have asked you for help. I could have used some. And you would have beendoing something instead of waiting for the police to do it for you.”

Dad looked offended. “How do you know I wasn’t doing something? How do you know I didn’t take a rifle and sit in the bushes, watching that overpass, waiting to see if someone would try again.”

Jack managed to suppress a laugh but not a smile. “Dad, you don’t own a rifle. Not even a pistol.”