May 4, 1986

3
May 4, 1986

     Bill opened the door to the darkened apartment almost absolutely sure that law enforcement would be waiting for him. Ready to take him away for the awful thing he had done. Ready to put him to death for taking that poor doctor's life away. Why had he done it?
     He heard a laugh erupt from the other side of the room.
     "Caleb, that you?"
     "Yeah," he said, through his laughing.
     "Why the hell are you laughing?"
     "I been staring at that door for at least the last hour ready to blow to bits the first thing that walked through it. And you know what?"
     "What's that, Caleb?"
     "Lucky you, I wasn't ready in the least to do it."
     Bill stared at his friend.
     "How's that funny?"
     "I don't know," Caleb said. "It just is."
     "I'm ditching this town," Bill said. "I think I ought to, like, right now."
     Caleb nodded. "I thought that was the plan all along."
     "Yeah, I mean I just got to ditch with the apartment just like this."
     "That would probably be wise."
     "You wouldn't hate me for it?"
     "I can't stay here anymore. They're going to find us one way or another eventually. We got our homes to go to. We got our degrees."
     "I'm not going to write or call for a good long while, Cal."
     "I suppose you shouldn't."
     "I'm going to miss you."
     "You, too, pal."
     "Why did we do this?"
     "We didn't know what to do. You know, even though I regret it, I still think we did the right thing."
     "Maybe we did. Maybe we didn't. But now we got to live with it, and that's harder than living with the pain in the first place that we couldn't stop those babies from being killed."
     "We couldn't live with either."
     "No," Bill said, glad for his friend to the point that it made him tear up. "We couldn't live with either."
     If it hadn't been for Lorlene, Bill kept thinking. She had wanted that baby, but she'd been convinced it was a normal thing to kill that baby. She'd been convinced it was a normal thing to take the baby's life and just pretend like nothing had happened. I had to show her that it wasn't.
     And Bill even still felt the impulse to go visit Lorlene, to tell her that her baby's death had been avenged, but that was the kind of thing that got people put behind bars for the rest of their lives. In a state like Texas, could mean time in the electric chair. There was so much he wanted to say to her. So much he wanted to make right because he wasn't able to change the outcome, he wasn't able to convince her of the preciousness of that life.
     But the time for that stuff is over. It's time to ditch, before it's too late to ditch.
     And so he found himself in the place he had called home for the last two years dumping his belongings in a suitcase and getting ready to leave it forever. He decided to leave a note to the landlord and a fifty dollar bill, knowing there was cleanup to do. He claimed a family emergency and hoped Joe wouldn't hate them too much for it.
     He'd been renting to students for years, Bill thought. He's probably seen just about everything.
     Except for the things Bill couldn't shove in his car, the place wasn't in terrible shape.
     The more Bill packed, the less real that doctor's death became. The less real everything in Fidello became. Everything was starting to recede into the background. Soon, he would be home, and with family. Of course, he gave his father about until dinner the night he was home to ask him how he planned to get employment. His right, Bill supposed.
     He thought it would have been perfect to be arrested right there, at the table. Perfect to say what it was he was being arrested for.
     Bill reemerged. "Well, Caleb old buddy, I guess this is it."
     "I don't think it's ever it."
     "No, I suppose not. We'll see each other when it's time."
     Bill nodded. "When it's time."