When Jeff left, Tara pulled her chair up, reached out across the table, and touched Evan's hand. "I'm really not here to criticize you, Evan. It's just that the other night you said you'd been drinking too much and were trying to slow down a little."
"Yeah, well, I guess I'm not succeeding tonight. What's that look? You don't think a couple of drinks is a good idea?"
"I didn't say that. If you need it, you need it." She pulled his hand from his glass and covered it with hers. "Look," she whispered, "I don't know even any small part of what you've been through. You're the one who said it would be better if you didn't need so much alcohol."
"That would be better. I agree." Defiantly, he picked up his glass and took a long drink. "But that doesn't seem to be what I'm doing right now, which is trying to keep things together."
"What things?"
"My job, for one. What happened with my guys in Iraq. Why I'm still alive. Anger. Guilt. You name it." He brought his eyes up, unfocused, heavy-lidded. "And all those are before we even get to you."
Jeff showed up with Tara's cranberry juice, placed it on the table in front of her, turned, and left. A silence settled. Evan again lifted his glass, then put it back down. "You want to tell me about you and Ron?"
"There isn't any me and Ron. Not anymore. How can you even ask that after…?" She swallowed. "I called him after I saw you at school on Monday. It's over." Sighing, she went on. "But then this afternoon he came by."
"Didn't take the hint, huh? How did that go?"
"I never let him in. He told me he never said I'd ripped up your letter."
Evan took that in with a solemn nod. "The guy's a congenital liar."
"Evan, look at me." Her eyes bored into his. "You're swearing to me that he said that? You didn't make that up to make him look bad? I know it's awful of me to ask, but I've got to ask you straight out. I've got to know for absolute certain."
Evan covered Tara's hand with both of his. "I swear to God," he said. "I swear on the memory of the lives of my men, I have never lied to you."
Tara let out a long, shuddering breath, as though something that had been squeezing her had suddenly let go. "He also denied what he told you I said in the hospital, about making your own bed and you could lie in it."
Evan shook his head, almost in admiration. "Old Ron was on a roll." Lifting his glass, he finished his drink, reached across, and took the second one from in front of Tara. "He said it, all right."
"He said something else today too."
"I can't wait to hear it. What? Did I kill somebody now?"
But Tara had straightened up. "God, Evan, why do you say that?"
"What?"
"That you'd killed somebody."
"I didn't. I was kidding. What?"
She started to talk and stopped herself, then started again. "Ron told me you broke into his house last weekend and left stuff that you'd somehow smuggled out of Iraq to make it look like Ron had killed this man and his wife, when in fact it was you who'd killed them."
Evan's shoulders sagged. He slumped in his chair. He lifted his drink and put himself on the outside of it in one gulp.
"Evan?"
"That fucker. That
She went on. "He said you'd brought over hand grenades and guns to his place that you'd smuggled out of Iraq. And planted incriminating pictures on his computer."
Evan's body molded itself back into his hard chair. He spoke slowly, with great caution lest his thick tongue betray him. "This guy who got killed, Khalil. He was Iraqi. Think about it. Think about Ron's real job over here…"
"What do you mean? Ron's a recruiter mostly. He's…"
"No, listen. He's a mercenary mostly. Those were his weapons, his grenades, his pictures."
Tara sat back and crossed her arms. "You mean you
He just looked at her, opened his mouth, closed it again.
She came forward now. "Are you telling me he wasn't lying about you breaking into his house? Did you do that, Evan? Tell me you didn't do that."
"No, I…" Evan shook his head, hard, trying to clear away the fog of alcohol. "I mean, okay, I went in."
"You broke into Ron's house? And did what?"
"Nothing. I didn't do anything. No," he said, "that's not true. I got on his computer and got pictures of this guy's house before it burned down."
"Why did you do that?"
"'Cause Ron's a murderer, Tara. He killed this guy and this was the evidence…"
"So what did you do with it?"
"Mailed it to somebody."
