Noah has some change in his pockets, but none of the coins fits the special slots on the screws that hold the metal grate in place. He’s hurrying because the crazy bad man is shouting again. Scary shouting that doesn’t make sense.
“Don’t mess with success! Heed the prophet! I bite the heads off bats! Leave the earth to Satan and his slaves! Into the void, boys and girls! Into the void!”
A moment later there are gunshots, and children screaming. Teachers, too. Is that Mrs. Delancey? Has something happened to Mrs. Delancey? Has she been punished for helping him escape?
Fighting his fear, Noah creeps to the front edge of the gymnasium seating on his hands and knees and looks out through a slot between the benches.
The crazy man is running around in circles, firing his gun straight up in the air. He looks as frightened as the screaming children. Smoke is pouring out of his little janitor cart. Huge amounts of thick black smoke, billowing over the floor and into the stands.
The crazy man kicks at the cart as if he wants the smoke to stop, as if he doesn’t understand what’s going on. That’s the really weird thing. He looks genuinely puzzled. He looks scared.
When the smoke begins to filter under the stands, enough to make him cough and make his eyes sting, Noah retreats back to the air duct.
Stupid people taking away his screwdriver! He hooks his fingers into the metal grate and yanks with all his might.
To his surprise the grate swings open on its hinges. He climbs inside just as the whole building begins to shake and the air goes black with smoke.
12. Out Of The Smoke
When Jed proposed, he sealed the deal with his grandmother’s wedding ring. A thin band of gold set with a diamond about as big as a grain of sand. But if I’d ever had any doubts—and who doesn’t have a few?—that little old ring blew them away. A man you love more than anything, more than you can possibly describe, he drops to one knee with tears of joy in his gorgeous eyes, and he offers you not only a place in his heart, but a place in his most precious memories.
A girl just has to say yes. Actually I didn’t stop saying yes for about half an hour, and by then we were in bed, and, come to think of it, I was still saying yes. But that’s private. You don’t need to know.
What really matters was that Jed trusted me without reservation, holding nothing back. The proposal of marriage came with an escape clause. He was going to tell me a secret, a terrible secret, and if I wanted to back out, forget the whole thing, he’d understand.
And that’s the thing about Jedediah; he really would have understood. Because it wasn’t just the secret, it was what it meant about our future together. Marriage would mean leaving everything behind—friends, family—and making a new life.
First thing I asked him, joking: you mean like the witness protection program?
He’d nodded gravely and said yes, a little bit like that, except we’ll be totally on our own. No U.S. Marshals to protect us. Nobody to give us new identities or settle us into a new life. It will all be up to us alone.
So who did you kill? I asked.
He’d rolled his eyes at that—he got a kick out of what he called my ‘smart-mouth jokes’—and said, it’s nothing I did, it’s who I am. Who my father is.
So who’s your daddy? Tony Soprano?
And that’s when he told me who his father was, and what that meant, and after he was done, as he waited gravely for my answer, I kissed his eyes and said, didn’t you hear me the first ten thousand times? The answer is yes.
Saint Francis of Hoboken, patron saint of New Jersey, he said, regrets, I’ve had a few. Not me. Even after all we went through, I have no regrets. Not about saying yes. Not about loving Jed. Not about the life we lived, the baby we made, the time we had together. What would I be if I’d never met Jedediah? Another person, surely. Not Noah’s mother, that’s for sure.
And if I’d known Jed would be gone in twelve years, snatched away in one terrible instant? If instead of an unforeseeable fatal accident he’d had, say, a disease that would shorten his lifespan. Something we knew about from the start. Would I have said no and saved myself the loss, the pain? No, no, no. No matter how you make the calculation—and all of this has raced through my mind a million times, in every possible variation—I would never choose to erase those years. Would never, ever wish I had taken another path. You can’t truly love someone and make a choice based on how long he might live. Love isn’t something that can be rated by Consumer Reports—go with the Maytag or whatever, because it will last the longest with fewest repairs. That’s not how it works. We like to think we’re rational creatures but we’re not. And besides, when you’re twenty, twelve years seems like an eternity. It seems, indeed, like a lifetime well worth having.
And it was, it was. I swear on my wedding ring. So forgive me if I admit that when the smoke starts pouring from the building, my first reaction is that I’d rather die than endure this again. I simply can’t do it. If Noah doesn’t come out of that gym alive, I want my heart to stop beating. I want to go wherever he’s gone.
It starts amid the swarm of uniforms. The county SWAT team, the state police tactical units. Deputies, firefighters, all positioned around the gym like bees desperate to return to a hive. I’m on my feet by then, with my friend Helen providing moral support, gathered with the other parents just beyond the bounds of the police barricade.
Until that moment I thought ‘gnawing on your knuckles’ was just an expression. It’s Helen who gently draws my fist away before I draw blood.
“That’s Tommy crouching by the exit doors,” Helen says with obvious pride. “He’s the unit expert on surveillance devices. He’s threading a fiber-optic device through the door frame, so they can see what’s going on inside.”
“You can tell all that from here?” I ask, my eyes still blurry and swollen.
She squeezes my hand. “Just my assumption, dear. That’s what Tommy does, so I assume he’s doing it now. Plus I saw him with an electric drill in his hand.”
I’m not reassured. “Remember what happened at Columbine? They waited and waited and waited. Kids bled to death while they waited.”
“They’ve learned a lot since then,” she says soothingly. “Tommy’s unit studies Columbine. They won’t make the same mistake.”
“Or they’ll break in too soon and he’ll set off his bomb.”
“Your little boy will be okay.” She gives me a quick hug. “You’ll see.”
I can’t blame her for believing that her nephew can work miracles, and I’ve no doubt he’ll try, like all of the others swarming the building. They have one thing in mind, to save the lives of our precious children. But I can’t help fearing the worst.
God help me, what I fear most is that Noah will make himself the center of attention. Which is what he tends to do when he’s unhappy or under stress. He tries to relieve the tension by doing something silly. Which would be exactly the wrong thing to do around a violent, insane individual.
Please, Noah, don’t make a joke. Don’t hang erasers on your ears, or scratch under your arms like a monkey. For once in your life blend into the background. Be invisible. Your mother is begging you.
That’s just about when the smoke starts coming out from under the doors. At first just a whiff, barely there. But smoke, definitely. Was anybody else seeing it? Are my exhausted eyes playing tricks?
Beside me, Helen mutters, “Oh, no,” and then covers her mouth with her hand, her eyes bright with fear.
“Oh my god, there’s a fire!” someone shrieks. “He’s lit the school on fire!”
The crowd begins