44 The Meadow He finishes his call. He drops the phone into the sink and turns on the tap. He slaps the granite violently. Then he just stands, looking out the window. I try to think of him as a monster, but he doesn’t look like one now. He doesn’t have that predator hunch anymore. He looks like someone’s abandoned child, trying to play-act that he’s strong enough and doesn’t need anyone. Now is the time, whispers my murder song, and I’m about the pull the trigger when he tents his fingers in front of his eyes and begins, wrenchingly, to cry. He goes to the window, presses his forehead against it. His forehead is right in my reticule. Do it! He fogs the glass. He bangs his forehead against it. The glass vibrates. Then he opens his eyes. I know rationally that he can’t see me, in the house next to him, but I feel like he’s looking deep into my brain. I grit my teeth. I feel we are both looking into the eyes of the same kind of animal. There is an infinity of mirrors in his gaze. Every possible branch in the timeline that led us here to one another is there, and I grow suddenly cold and feverish. Time has stopped. I see myself at age fourteen, watching my father’s eyes as blood bubbled from his neck. Prey or predator, that had been my choice, a binary one. But looking into this endless forking of possibilities I see for the first time how many choices there are. I experience this thought as a howl of grief echoing through my breast. My finger, without my control, releases the trigger. We stare and stare and keep staring. There is rage and compassion in both of our eyes. I could slip away, I realize. I could drop my gun, leave this house, become a shadow, and exist elsewhere. Juniper might not find me. I might escape this life. The thought is terrible,
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