Dragonfly by Jax Hill 

He stopped again. I didn’t think we’d ever get the story out of him.

“So you took some sunflower seeds ...” Bruiser urged him on.

“That’s all,” he said. “But when I did, the way he looked at me, he smiled at me. He wasn’t stupid. He knew what was about to happen. But he smiled at me, and he said, ‘It’s all right. No one can take my life from me unless I lay it down. But now, Mateo, what will you do from now on?’ And I ...”

He paused again. I wanted to scream at him, Oh for God’s sake, just tell your story!

But I didn’t. I waited. Maggie waited. Bruiser waited.

Maybe for one minute, maybe two. That’s a long time to wait in silence for someone to continue telling a story. He gulped, and then he said:

“I’ve killed people before. My line of work that’s how you get noticed. I don’t have any fairy tale notions that there’s no blood on my hands, and I’m not squeamish about it.”

OK, that part of the story, I could have done without, but I guess he wanted to impress on us what a tough guy he was, or had been, anyway.

“But when he said that, when he smiled, I felt like he knew me, and he loved me, despite what I was, even knowing what I was. And when he said that, when he asked me what I was going to do from now on ... I couldn’t take it. I ran away. I gave the order, and I left the room, and I heard the boys get started, and then it was like my life caved in on me. How could I go on doing what I do, after he looked at me like that? I couldn’t go to sleep after that. I could always see his face when he handed me those sunflower seeds, it’s burned on my eyeballs now. I couldn’t stay at work. After the job was done, I just left, and I haven’t been back. I don’t know what to do now. I thought you could help me.”

He looked around at us again, desperate.

“What do I do now? That’s what he asked me. What would I do from now on?”

He hadn’t killed Torstein, but he hadn’t saved him, either. He’d given the order! Now he came to us to ask what to do? All I could think was: why don’t you do what Ferdy did? But then, as soon as I thought it, I wanted to un-think it, because it had killed me what Ferdy did.

Bruiser reached over and put his hand on Mateo’s shoulder.

“If you’re asking, what would Torstein have told you to do, if you hadn’t killed him, he would say that love is always the answer to every question.”

Mateo looked at him, that desperation shining in his eyes, and said, “What does that mean? How does that work?”

“That’s the part you have to figure out for yourself, I guess,” Bruiser said. “I used to work in Nikolai’s organization, too. I understand what violence and intimidation can do, but I’m only just learning now what love can do.”

Maggie gave a tentative half-smile to Bruiser. She said to Mateo, “We had a friend, Ferdy. He was the one who lured Torstein into the garage so your guys could capture him. Yesterday, he felt so bad about what he’d done, he killed himself. What he didn’t understand was, that was the last thing Torstein would have wanted. Torstein would have wanted Ferdy to forgive himself, and he would have wanted us to forgive Ferdy.”

Tears were seeping out of her eyes. She reached for Mateo’s hand and squeezed it, but she couldn’t say more. When she opened her mouth to speak again, the words didn’t come. More tears did. I realized it was up to me to finish what she’d begun, but I didn’t know if I could. Honestly I didn’t know. Torstein made forgiveness, love and mercy look easy. But I’m only human. What had he been?

I cleared my throat and said, “I don’t know what Torstein would have told you to do, if he were here. But I do know what he would have told Maggie and Bruiser and me. He would have said that he loved you, and he wants us to love you. We screwed up with Ferdy, but we won’t let you get away. If you’re looking for forgiveness, that’s ours to give, because Torstein made it ours.”

He pushed the coffee cup away, and laid his head down, pillowed on his arms on the table. He heaved a huge sigh of relief. And I think he said, “It’s a start.”

Bruiser said, “We’re a man down with Ferdy gone anyway, brother. Why don’t you stick with us? We’ll square it with the other guys.”

“Yes,” Maggie said. “Why don’t you come fishing with us tomorrow?”

Be a Facebook Friend

Read the next chapter