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“Those are the shadows of the heart speaking. It’s part of our upbringing that we have to get rid of, Wyatt.”
“I didn’t learn about evil in a church house. I learned about it from my fellow man.”
“That’s because you never knew love. You have to forget those years in prison and forgive the people who hurt you.”
“I ain’t real big on the latter.”
“It’ll happen one day down the road. Then your life will change. In the meantime, just be the man you are.”
“That preacher may be the man who killed your brother.”
She brought him a cup of coffee and sat down across the table from him. Through the window, he could hear the music from the carousel. “I don’t want to talk about that anymore,” she said. “I want to let go of all the evil in the world and never have it in my life again.”
“Why would a phony preacher choose the name of a Roman emperor?”
“You mustn’t drink anymore,” she said.
“I won’t.”
“Please don’t go out and do something you’ll regret.” When he didn’t reply, she said, “Are you going to answer me?”
He put the tines of his fork through a piece of lasagna and placed it in his mouth, gazing out the window at the redness of the sun on the river and the way the children kept grabbing at the brass ring, no matter how many times their outstretched fingers went flying past it.
The day was cooling, the leaves scudding along the concrete walkways, more like fall than summer. Wyatt felt a chill in his body that he couldn’t explain. “I never make plans. Nobody knows what’s gonna happen tomorrow. So there ain’t no use in planning for it. That’s the way I see it.”
“You can choose to be the person you want, can’t you?”
“What some call revenge, I
call justice.”
“They’re not the same.”
“Is this food Italian?”
“Don’t hurt me any more than you have. Don’t you seek revenge in my name.”
“I ain’t meant to hurt you, Bertha. You ever been on a carousel?”
“When I was a child.”
“Let’s go down there and take a ride in those big seats for adults. Then we’ll go for ice cream,” he said.
“If that’s what you want,” she replied.
“See the sky? It looks like it’s raining way out there on the edge of the world, like you could sail right into it and leave all your cares behind. That’s what I’d like to do one day, with you at my side. Just sail right off the edge of the earth into the rain.”
THAT SAME EVENING Gretchen Horowitz lay on her stomach in front of Albert’s television set, on the bottom floor of the house, and watched a DVD of the cable series The Borgias. She watched it for three hours. Albert came downstairs from the kitchen with a cup of cocoa and a plate of graham crackers. “I thought you might like these,” he said.
“Pardon?” she said, not taking her eyes from the screen.
“I’ll put them down here,” he replied, and turned to go.
She paused the show with the remote. “That’s nice of you,” she said.
“What do you like most about that series?”
“It reminds me of The Godfather. I think The Godfather is the best movie ever made. Every scene is a short story that can stand by itself.”
