Seven Minutes to Noon

himself.
    “No!” Alice said.
    She didn’t care about Tim anymore. But Austin. He was upstairs. This would destroy him.
    “Why?” Alice demanded.
    Hand trembling, Tim pressed the gun into his temple. His finger began to depress the trigger.
    But then... he stopped. Coward. Do it, her mind urged. Do it, you bastard.
    Crumpling to the floor, he wept, pulling his hand away from the gun as if it were diseased and he couldn’t bear to touch it.
    Alice moved quickly to kick the gun away from him. It slid across the floor to the far corner of the living room, stopping next to a forgotten Power Ranger contorted into an impossible fighting pose.
    She walked over to Tim and stood over him, feeling no sympathy whatsoever.
    “Why, Tim? Why did you kill Lauren?”
    “I didn’t,” he cried.
    She felt like kicking him for that lie; even if he wasn’t at the crime scene, he had still killed her. Alice controlled her anger, just as Lizzie had promised she could. To her surprise and almost pleasure, she felt capable of this moment.
    “Why?”
    He gathered himself off the floor and stood up, wiping his eyes on the back of his bare arm, slicking his skin with tears.
    “Please, take Austin,” Tim begged. “Please.”
    “What did you do with the baby?” Alice kept her voice cool, belying the heat that coursed through her body.
    “Will you take him, Alice?”
    “Yes. Now tell me.”
    He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a folded, rumpled envelope. “This letter gives you legal custody.”
    She didn’t know whether to hit him or laugh. Always the lawyer. Thinking of everything.
    “My daughter is somewhere out there, somewhere in this world.” Tim put the jackknifed envelope next to him on the floor. “We’ve been everywhere, looking for her.”
    Somewhere far away, Alice thought, somewhere hot. The sunburns.
    The scorching beach materialized in her mind but she banished the image. She needed to stay present.
    “How do you know she’s out there, Tim?”
    He shook his head mournfully. “I have to find her now.” He got up and walked past Alice to the foot of the stairs. “Austin!”
    There was no answer, though Alice suspected Austin had heard his father.
    “I’m leaving now!”
    Plain silence from Austin, resonating with banishment. Only five years old and he knew. He knew.
    “I love you!” Tim called up the stairs.
    He turned back to Alice, then shifted his eyes to the front door and seemed to will himself forward.
    She walked over to the corner of the living room where she had kicked the gun. Holding the wall for balance, she lowered herself down. Flicked aside the Power Ranger. Picked up the gun. Turned to Tim.
    “No,” she told him. “You’re not leaving yet.”
    “Alice—”
    “Tell me why. Then you can go.”
    A hard, harsh sun poured through the window at the top of the front door, blanching Tim’s eyes of color.
    “I made a terrible mistake.” His gaze fled to the door again, refusing Alice.
    “You slept with her?”
    He didn’t answer.
    She raised the gun on him and asked again. “Did you sleep with Sylvie? Is that what started all this?”
    “Yes,” he whispered. “I was never unfaithful to Lauren before. Sylvie wasn’t supposed to fall in love with me.”
    Love. Alice wanted to scream, That is not love.
    “Why didn’t you just leave, Tim? Why did you have to kill her?” Tears engorged her but she stopped them from flowing out. She could hold them back until later. She had to do this now.
    He shook his head. Bleached. Vacant. His forehead pleated with anguish.
    “I told Sylvie I would never leave my wife. I would never leave my children.” Finally, he looked at Alice. “I loved Lauren.”
    “Past tense,” Alice said. “You said loved.”
    “I didn’t know until after it was over.” His jaw tightened, he swallowed hard. Forced himself to say one more thing. “Sylvie did it herself, so she could have me and I could have my children.”
    Alice’s hand began to sweat around the gun, the muscles of her inner palm were cramping, but she managed to keep it steadily aimed at him.
    “Where is the baby?”
    “Somewhere out there.” His head tilted to the door. “I’ve been searching for her everywhere.”
    “But Sylvie stayed so long after... after she killed Lauren.” The statement flew out of Alice and hovered between them. There it was, the simple fact. “Why didn’t you just ask her?”
    “She wouldn’t tell me.” His smile was a bitter contortion.