“Maybe you should talk to someone,” she called after him.

“Maybe you should mind your own damn business,” he said over his shoulder.

She snorted. “We both know that’s not going to happen.”

* * *

Another sleepless night. Some nights, it was worse than others. Tonight, every time he closed his eyes, all he saw was dust and blood. He heard the explosion. Saw from a distance as the truck he drove bounced on the shock wave. He watched Oluo crawl out of the passenger side as gunfire erupted. Fear. Pain. Darkness. Red. He wasn’t dreaming. His brain had cobbled all accounts of the incident into a monster memory.

He pulled on a pair of gym shorts and a tank top. It was one in the morning. No one would be out and about. He was safe. The first few walks he’d taken, he’d worn pants in case he ran into anyone. But Benevolence was a town of early risers. Restaurants closed at nine, and downtown was a ghost town by ten.

He snuck through the kitchen, past the stairs to the front door. Even here he could hear his mother’s snores upstairs. “Fucking chainsaw,” he muttered, stepping outside into the cool summer night. He didn’t bother locking the door.

He shuffled off the porch and headed toward her. Always her.

Downtown Benevolence was, as expected, dead asleep. The traffic light blinked, coloring the night in a steady green, yellow, red. Dawson’s Pizza was dark, but two floors above the restaurant, the lights were blazing. What was she doing awake, he wondered. Was she binge-watching TV? Reading? Was she upset about something? Didn’t she feel safe enough to sleep either?

He stopped and stared up, willing her to appear in a window, hoping that she wouldn’t.

He shouldn’t be here. It wasn’t fair to either of them.

What was he going to do when she moved on? When she finally met a nice guy? When he had to read her engagement announcement in the newspaper?

He turned his back on the building and walked on, leaving Gloria Parker behind him.

33

The key slid in the lock, and Aldo pushed his front door open, waiting for the waft of stuffy, unlived air. Every time he came home from deployment, the first thing he did was open the windows in the entire house, letting the stale air out.

But when he stepped inside and dropped his duffle, all he smelled was the faint hints of lemon and cleaning products.

He frowned. Aldo knew damn well his mother wouldn’t have thought to clean for him.

And if she had, nothing above her stocky five-feet four-inches would be dusted. The place was spotless. He’d never been a slob. But this—the spotless mantel, the neatly stacked mail, the charmingly arranged plants…

Gloria.