by B R Snow
“Is that your way of asking me if I’m going to tell the cops?”
“The thought did cross my mind,” he said, studying me closely.
“If I was going to do that, Bob, I would have brought the cops with me.”
“So, you’re not going to tell anybody?”
“And take away Bella’s last connection to the real world? No, I don’t think I can do that.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m not doing it for you, Bob. If it all came out now and you went to prison, it would probably kill her faster than a hose filled with carbon monoxide. And from what I see, you’ve already been in your own prison for the past thirty years.
“I suppose I have,” he said, then frowned. “Let me get this straight, you came all the way out here just to confirm your suspicions?”
“Pretty much,” I said, shrugging. “And it would have kept me up at night.”
“Do you have any idea how strange that sounds?”
“Yeah, I really need to start working on that.”
“Based on my own personal experience trying to change the weird, I don’t like your chances.”
For some reason, I found his comment funny, and I laughed long and hard. Then I wished him and Bella good luck and said my goodbyes. A few minutes after I hit the highway, I called the Chief.
“Hey,” he said. “I just caught a beautiful Northern that had to be fifteen pounds.”
“And you let it go, right?”
“I did,” he said, laughing. “You’ve finally shamed me into catch and release.”
“It took you long enough,” I said, laughing along.
“How did it go with Tompkins?”
I stared out at the road and thought about prisons, both the physical kind designed to confine as well as the ones we create for ourselves.
I thought about Bella and Samantha and the prisons they’d found themselves locked in by the powerful combination of genetics and fate then contemplated the parallels with abused wild animals trapped in small cages, also imprisoned through no fault of their own.
I thought about Bob and knew for a fact that no brick and mortar facility could ever match the one he’d built for himself and continued to live in to this day.
Then for some reason, I thought about the Queens Beagle perched on top of the elephant’s back.
When the image of the beagle quizzically surveying the world from a great height registered as a manifestation of the freedom to explore, I thought about Chef Claire and her relentless desire to learn and grow in the hope of realizing her full potential.
And for the second time today, I felt completely at peace.
“Are you still there?” the Chief said.
“Yeah, sorry about that,” I said, deciding to tell him a small lie. “There was a deer next to the side of the road, and I wanted to make sure she was safe.”
“I’d expect nothing less,” he said. “So, how did it go with Tompkins?”
“My theory was a total washout,” I said, feeling both good and bad about lying to one of my best friends. “I totally whiffed on that one.”
“Well, you can’t be right all the time,” he said. “Besides, it’s ancient history.”
“Yeah,” I whispered. “For some people.”
“What?”
“Nothing. You feel like meeting for lunch?”
“Sounds great,” the Chief said. “C.’s?”
“Of course.”
“Do you know what the special is today?”
“No. But I hope it’s one of the new dishes she’s been working on. I think I’m in the mood for something exotic.”
“Nice to see you embracing change,” the Chief said, laughing.
“Baby steps, right?”
“Exactly.”
“I’ll see you there, Chief.”
I ended the call and turned the music up. I glanced at myself in the rear-view mirror then shrugged.
“Or maybe I’ll just go with a burger.”
