Buster didn’t say anything until we were buckled in the car and pulling away from the curb. “What was that about? Colter said he offered something?” He kept his eyes on me and the car weaved across the road. That scared me even though it was late and there were no other cars out.
“Watch it.”
“What were you two talking about?”
I watched out the window at the passing houses. They looked dumpy and run-down, but I envied the residents their certainty, their comfort. They were likely sleeping the quiet sleep of the just.
“Tom? Tell me.”
I didn’t turn to face him. “He wants to see Caitlin again.”
“I bet.” He laughed.
“He says he loves her, and he made a mistake when he let her go.”
“Bullshit. Is he crazy? Is the guy fucking crazy?”
I kept my eyes straight ahead, but the side of my face burned. His eyes were on me.
“No, no, no,” he said. “No.”
As we reached the base of the on-ramp to the interstate, Buster jerked the wheel to the right, forcing the car to the side of the road. He hit the brakes hard, skidding a little. My body jerked forward, and I used my hand to brace myself against the dashboard.
“You’re going to do it? You’re going to take your daughter to that man?”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” I said.
“You don’t know? That’s not an answer.” He raised his finger in the air. “There’s only one answer, and the answer is no. That’s it. End of story.”
“Just take me home.”
“She’s your little girl.”
“She’s not so little, is she?” I said. “She’s able to say she loves that guy. She’s capable of feeling that, of thinking that. I know what the shrink says. I know about Stockholm syndrome. But, Jesus, what can I do with all of this? They were fucking, Buster.”
“He fucked her, not the other way around.”
I rested my hands in my lap. I turned them over and over, knotting the fingers together and twisting them until the knuckles hurt. “Did you see him?” I asked. “Did you see his fucking face? He’s a fucking pig. And a loser. Living with his mom. She was with him for four years. We lost four years. That kills me.”
“He took her, Tom. Do you understand that? He took her. He’s a criminal.”
What happened to me. The words cycled through my head, but I could no longer apply those words simply to Caitlin. They applied to me as well.
What happened to me.
I rubbed my eyes. “I want to go home. It’s late, Buster.”
“Not until you drop this,” he said. He turned to face me in the small car. The glow from the display panel lighted his face, turning it a pale and alien green. I could feel his breath. “Tell me right now you won’t do it.”
I watched occasional cars passing on the highway, their headlights creating bright white cones in the darkness. “It’s not your decision, Buster. She’s not your kid.”
“She is my kid. We came out here in the night. We came together, side by side. As brothers. That means she’s my kid. She doesn’t just belong to you.”
“You don’t have kids. You don’t know.”
“Oh, fuck that, Tom. You know, I’m tired of your sad-sack routine. The ‘Nobody loved me’ bullshit. I stood by you throughout our childhood. I was there for you. And now you throw it back at me and treat me this way. Fuck you, Tom.”
I took a short, futile swing at his face in the dark. I meant to hit him hard, to drive him back and hurt him. But he ducked away.
He reached back and pushed his door open. He didn’t say anything. He came around the front of the car, his body passing through the headlights, and then he stopped at my door, pulling it open.
I didn’t have time to react or think. He opened the door and reached in, taking me by the front of my shirt.
“What the fuck?” I said.
He kept pulling, the fabric of my shirt digging into the back of my neck, until I stopped resisting and allowed myself to be brought out into the night air. I tried to knock his grip free, but couldn’t. He held on; then something jolted the side of my face. It took a second for me to realize I’d been hit, that Buster had punched me in the left jaw. I fell back against the car, but he pulled me forward and hit me again, stunning me. My knee joints loosened and I started to crumple. As I went to the ground, he swung a last time, catching me in the back of the head and knocking me flat to the ground beside the car. The ground was cold. Dirt and gravel pressed against my face. I didn’t try to push myself up.
Buster’s shoes came into my line of sight. He was wearing work boots for some reason. I knew what might come next, and it did. He drew one of the boots back and kicked forward. I managed to curl up a little, and the boot struck me just below the rib cage on my left side.
“You’re lucky I don’t kill you,” he said.
The pain seared through me, radiating out like an electric charge, into my back and down my left leg. I couldn’t talk.
“I’m through with you,” he said, the words falling upon me like spittle.
I thought he’d kick again, but he didn’t. He shoved my door closed; then the shoes disappeared around the front of the car. I managed to roll away, putting a few feet between the car and me. He dropped it into gear and hit the gas hard, sending a spray of gravel into my face and over my body. And when he was gone, I just lay there on the side of the road, curled up in the dark like a broken and terrified child.