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22.

Memory is a fickle beast. So often we choose what we want to remember; but sometimes memories choose us. The memories we most want to forget are the ones that fold themselves into our subconscious, waiting until we least expect them to rise up and pinch us tight in their talons. You’ll be walking down the street on an otherwise-normal morning and suddenly there it will be, the thing you most wish you didn’t remember, stealing your breath away, leaving you horror-struck and ashamed.

I wish I could forget everything about that day—most of all, my own complicity—but of course it’s the one day of my life I will never, ever forget.

I will never forget the look on the security guard’s face as he glanced up from the desk in the stone-clad lobby and saw me frantically knocking on the glass-paned door. The way his expression morphed from annoyance to bewilderment to something resembling hunger, like a starving coyote who has just spied a rabbit across a field.

I will never forget the unpleasant feeling of power I experienced when he walked toward me, his jaw slackened, his eyes sliding up and down the tight red dress; and I understood for the first time what it meant to possess control of another human being.

I will never forget the fat meaty fingers of his hand, and the way they felt huge on my upper arm as he steered me toward the far end of the parking lot where I told him I’d just lost my money. The way his grip was protective and paternal—the man was older than my father, quite possibly I reminded him of a daughter or a niece—but also a little too eager, a little too tight, in the way he hooked his elbow around me and used it to press his body against mine.

I will never forget the wiry black hair that grew out of the top of his butt crack, which was exposed when he knelt down to peer underneath the sedan. Or the sight of his pale gut wobbling—the pants of his too-tight uniform having separated from his shirt—when he stretched his arm deep under the chassis of the car, trying to reach the wad of bills that I’d tossed under there, just out of reach.

I will never forget how, as I stood there staring down at the guard’s prone, vulnerable body, I watched my own father scurry through the unattended doors of the office building, the leather satchel gripped in one fist. Head down, utterly innocuous, like a middle manager on his way to an important meeting. And how I felt a sense of victory and pride, thinking of the praise I would receive from him later for doing my job so well.

God, I shudder every time I remember that .

When the security guard stood up, there were big, damp patches on the knees of his pants from where he’d knelt on the rain-soaked asphalt, and I remember that this was what I was suddenly concerned about—that the security guard might get in trouble for the state of his uniform. It never occurred to me that the real terminable offense was the monster who had just slipped through the doors that this man was being paid to guard.

I remember reaching out to grab the fold of money from the security guard’s fist, so anxious to get back to the safety of the truck that I didn’t even bother to pretend to be thankful. And how the grin on his face, wolfish and self-satisfied, began to collapse when he realized there was no Samaritan reward to be had—no girlish gratitude, no sweet kiss on the cheek.

I remember how, then, as I tried to wrestle the cash out of his fist, he suddenly decided to grip it even harder. There we were, having a tug-of-war out there in the parking lot, me teetering in the stupid heels, panic rising in me along with the realization that he wasn’t going to let me go so easily. That perhaps the power in this situation wasn’t mine, after all.

I remember his free hand snaking up the leg of my skirt, his rough palm on the inside of my thigh, his hot breath in my ear— c’mon, don’t be coy, I know what you are —and the horror as it dawned on me exactly what he thought that was. That he’d measured me up—the tight dress, the tattered parka, the wad of cash—and pegged me a prostitute. The reward he’d expected wasn’t a kiss on the cheek: It was a trip to the utility closet, buckles undone, me taking my own turn on my knees.

I remember the hot rush of adrenaline that caused me to jerk away, so that I lost my balance entirely and found myself on the ground, looking up at the leering security guard. His hand drifting toward an object on his belt as he started to kneel next me, his crotch perilously close to my head…

What I don’t remember: how the gun from my pocket suddenly ended up in my hand. Nor do I have any memory at all of making the decision to fireit.

I can play the scene over in my mind, time and time again, but I still can’t quite figure out what happened and why. It’s quite possible that I overreacted, and he was just leaning over me to help me up. Or maybe he was about to yank me into the empty lobby to do unspeakable things to me. I will never know exactly what his intentions were at that moment. All I can say for sure is that, in an instant, all those years of paternal indoctrination— uniformed authorities are out to get us —escalated my panic into an instinctive rush of self-preservation.

And so the security guard was suddenly on the ground, my ears were pulsing from the reverberations of the gunshot, and there was a spray of dark red across the Valentine fabric of my dress. The security guard was moaning and clutching at his thigh, calling me a bitch as something viscous pooled onto the storm-slick pavement; and then I had my heels in my hand and the gun in my other hand and I was running, running, running so fast that I split out the sides of that ridiculous dress.

—

I don’t remember the long sprint back to the truck, either, just that when I came back to myself I was sitting in the front seat, shivering so hard that my entire body was vibrating. How much time passed before my father returned? I couldn’t tell you that, either—just that it seemed to take an eternity even though surely it was just a matter of minutes, and that the whole time I was waiting for the police to show up and surround the car. If they had, I would have been too blind with tears to see them.

What I didn’t know, of course, was that the police had been distracted by something else entirely, something that had happened just a few minutes after I raced out of that parking lot.

Did I hear the horrible roar that marked the disaster taking place just a half mile away? I must have, but I don’t remember this, either; perhaps it was drowned out by the deafening hammer of my own heart.

When the door to the truck finally flew open, I nearly jumped out of my skin. I was fumbling my way toward an apology— I screwed everything up —but something about my father’s appearance stole the words while they were still in my throat. His face was red and beaded with sweat. His gelled-back hair had collapsed and was falling in spikes across his forehead; there was a long, gooey scratch across his chin. The leather satchel he’d brought into the building with him had vanished; in its place was a big brown shopping bag, with something heavy tearing at its seams.

He thrust the bag into the truck and then began peeling off his suit jacket. “Listen. You can find your way back to the motel by yourself, right? You were good with that map.”

I rubbed at my tearstained face with the back of my hand, feeling the lipstick smear across my cheek. “I can. But, Dad—is everything…OK?”

He wadded the jacket into a ball that he shoved under the seat. “Why?”

Was it possible he hadn’t noticed the state I was in? “The security guard—” I was at a loss for words.

“You did a fine job, that was some very creative thinking,” he said. “But now they’ll be looking for me. We need to split up.” He replaced the suit jacket with his old blue parka, then extracted the baseball hat from its pocket and tugged it over his hair.

“Looking for you? Not me?”

“You? Why would they be looking for you?” He reached across the seat and shoved the truck keys in my hand. “I need you to pay attention, Jane. You go back to the motel and wait for me. OK? I’ll meet you there as soon as I can.”

I stared dumbly at the keys in my palm. “But how will you get back, if I have the truck?” I didn’t want to be alone right then, not at all.

“I’ll take a taxi. It doesn’t matter. The important thing is, you stay at the motel until dark. And if I’m still not back by then, you drive back to Montana.”

In the distance I could hear the wail of a siren, winding up the speed of my pulse. “Dad. I’m scared. Is he dead?”

My father hesitated. “Peter?”

“The security guard’s name is Peter?”

My father shook his head in frustration. “We’ll talk about this later. I’ve got to go. If I don’t come home within a day or two—let’s say Tuesday—and I haven’t called you yet, either, you know what to do, right?”

“Wait. You’re not coming home?”

My father turned his head to the road, his ears tuning in to the approaching siren. His words came quicker now: “I’m coming home. Of course I’m coming home. But we always have a contingency plan, just in case, right? So tell me what you do. If I don’t come back. Or if they come before I do.”

“Get the go bag, light the fuse, run,” I recited, trying not to tear up again as I imagined the authorities forming a noose around the cabin while I sat there, alone, unaware. “But run where? Where do I go if you’re not with me? We never talked about that.”

“You make your way to North Dakota. To Malcolm Torino. We can meet there, it’s safe. Bring what’s in that bag.” His eyes slid to the shopping bag on the floor. “You’ll find his address on top of my desk. Look in the bottom drawer of the desk, too; there’s more money in there, I’ll need it all.”

“But the door to the study is locked. So is the desk.”

He turned back to look at me then, one last time, his lips twisting into a dark smile. “That didn’t stop you before, did it, Jane?” And then he turned on his heel and ran off in the opposite direction of the approaching siren.

I watched as he hitched right, and then changed his mind and veered left, turned a corner, and vanished.

—

And here’s one last thing I remember, one last monster of a memory that claws me awake, pulse pounding, chest convulsed in a cringe: that as I drove away, my fingers white-knuckled on the steering wheel, I still believed that my biggest crime was shooting a potential rapist in an act of self-defense. And that this was what was going to get me into trouble with my father, once we made it back to Montana. Even as I passed the fire engines—one, two, three—racing in the direction from which I’d come, I couldn’t begin to fathom how much bigger my crisis actually was.