Deadline

Harriet had heard the story about the time he was on the ferry going over to Saint Nelda’s. That was when his replacement cell phone—which he’d bought at a supermarket—had begun lighting up with text messages. He regretted having sent her his new number and hadn’t bothered to read her texts until after he got back to Savannah. The first few had been gleeful. Overnight, they’d graduated to giddy.

He looked over at his neglected laptop where it sat on the dresser. Last night, after leaving Amelia and returning to this solitary room, he’d planned to write. His best writing always came from scouring emotional wounds that were already raw, which was why he had a love-hate relationship with his craft.

Never had his emotions been as ulcerated as they were last night. Ideally, his impressions and feelings about Jeremy Wesson should be committed to hard disk while they were still fresh. He’d even booted up and placed his fingers on the keyboard, hoping the familiar preparation would jumpstart him.

But he hadn’t been able to type a single word. He couldn’t think of a turn of phrase that didn’t trivialize the thoughts and feelings that went bone-deep, soul-deep. And he realized he never would.

Now he sat down on the edge of the bed and placed the necessary call to Harriet. Before she got completely carried away, she needed to be told.

She answered on the first ring. “Oh my God, Dawson!” She practically squealed his name.

“Hello, Harriet.”

“I’m having multiple orgasms.”

“Congratulations. That has to be a first.”

“Go ahead, be your usual insulting self. You’re forgiven. You’re forgiven every hateful thing you’ve ever said to me. Tell me, how in the hell did you track them when the FBI had failed? Was it Glenda? Did she help put you there in that cabin? She won’t tell me dick, but I suspect it was her. Was it?”

“I’m not writing the story.”

When a star collapsed, it didn’t create that kind of vacuum. For an interminable amount of time, nothing was said. Then, “This isn’t fucking April Fool’s Day, Dawson.”

“This isn’t a joke, either. I can’t write the story.”

“What are you talking about? You lived the story. You are the story.”

“Which is why I don’t want to write it. Why I can’t.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll play along. Why can’t you?”

“I’m too close to it.”

“You’re close to every story. You drive us all nuts with your close-getting. Ordinarily you won’t write a story unless you’re grafted to it.”

“This is different.”

“How?”

“It just is.”

“Not good enough. How is it different?”

“The man died in my arms, Harriet.”

That subdued her, but not for long. However, her voice turned softer. “I know that must’ve been awful.” He imagined her stroking a cat after yelling at it for coughing up a hair ball. “But you’ve written about soldiers who died of their injuries. Some of them you interviewed hours before they died.”

“I wasn’t looking into their eyes when the lights went out.” He experienced a flashback to working his shirt collar free of Jeremy’s grasping hand, and squeezed his eyes shut in an attempt to block it. He propped his elbow on his knee and rested his forehead in his palm. “Look, I don’t expect you to understand how this is different. It just is.”

“So consider it a unique opportunity. A chance to stretch. It was an awful experience, but you came away from it with a new perspective on life. Share what you learned with your reader.” She was going for maternal now. I know it was a hard knock, but pony up, get on with it. I have every confidence in your ability to overcome this hiccup.

“It’s not an experience I wish to share.”

“Maybe not right now. It’s still too fresh. Give yourself a few days to mellow. Chill. Take all the time you need.” A second or two ticked past. “But if I could have the finished piece by, say, the end of October, I could slip it into—”

“There won’t be a story about this, Harriet. Not in October. Not ever. Not from me anyway. If you want to send someone else—”

“No one else can write it.”