“You met Rebecca when you were on your first landscaping job. She was working at the plant nursery. She helped you choose the right plants—the ones you’d picked out would’ve died in that soil. The first thing you noticed about her was how the freckles exploded across her nose when she stepped into the sun. You used to go for girls your mom would call ‘cheap,’ but Rebecca was different. Even your mom agreed Rebecca was different that night she cooked you both lasagna, right?”

Jake fell back against the wall and took a ragged breath.

“Are you God?” he whispered.

“I’m here to save you.”

It wasn’t a lie. I was saving him from something.

“I’m not a bad person,” he said. He waved the pistol as he talked and it hit the sleeve of a little raincoat hanging on the hook next to him. The raincoat had ducks on it.

“Of course not,” I said.

“She’s the one who— She won’t marry me because I’m not a fancy lawyer. Because I don’t make as much money as her ex. That’s fucked up.”

I felt outside of myself for Cal in the parking lot. She was talking to the kids’ father. His terror and rage had become one simple annihilating feeling: desperation. He was ready. I sent my mind out farther and caught KQ in Jake’s mother’s kitchen. As KQ explained away the fine print, Veronica’s eyes were as wide and deep as wells, frozen on the news coverage on TV.

It was closing time.

“Listen, Jake. We can sit here and talk religion if you want, but the police are getting ready to storm this place, and they aren’t going to hesitate. You’re holding a woman and two children hostage at gunpoint. The media is here. Your mother is watching the news coverage as we speak. You’re not getting out of this. So you have three options, which will happen whether or not you decide to kill anyone. One: the cops kill you. Or, if by some miracle they don’t shoot you on sight, they arrest you and send you to prison, where, I’ve been told, folks do not take kindly to people who hurt kids. Two: take that gun you’ve got there and kill yourself right now. And I do mean right now, because, like I said, time is of the essence.”

Jake slumped farther down, snot running into his meager mustache.

“Or, Jake, we’ve got option number three. You accept my deal, and I erase all of this. Send you back in time, give you a redo. I can make you forget all about Rebecca, or I can make her love you so much she never talks to her ex, or anyone else, ever again. Whatever you want. I just need you to sign this and poof, you get a second chance.”