HL 04-The Final Hour by Andrew Klavan Read Free Book Online

anyway. I know he understood because he was the first one who taught it to me.
    I picked up the phone on my side. My mom held the phone on their side. Dad pulled up an extra chair and sat beside Mom with his arm around her shoulders. They peered through the window at me. I felt like one of the animals in the zoo.
    Mom tried to be brave, but it was hard for her to get the words out, especially when she got a look at the bruises on my face, all purple and yellow now.
    “Oh my God,” she said, the tears starting. “What happened to you?”
    “I’m all right,” I told her. “Don’t worry about it.” I didn’t want to lie, but I knew she didn’t want to hear the truth either. And I only had to glance over at my father to see he understood what had happened.
    “Are you sure you’re okay?” Mom said. “Did they let you see a doctor at least?”
    I almost laughed. Doctor Fist , I wanted to tell her. They let me see Doctor Fist . Instead, I changed the subject. “Listen, I have some good news. My lawyer says there’s a chance my case is going to be overturned on appeal. He says I could be out of here in a couple of months.” I tried to make it sound like a sure thing, even though I knew it wasn’t.
    “That’s wonderful,” Mom said through her tears— but I could tell she didn’t believe me. She was just trying to sound hopeful for my sake.
    “Mom,” I said. “Really. It’s all right. It’s going to be all right.”
    “That’s great,” she said bravely, but she was just pretending still, I could tell.
    When my mom couldn’t talk anymore, my dad lifted his hand up and pressed the palm flat on the divider. I put my hand up and pressed it to his. He looked at me through the Plexiglas. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t say he was proud of me or that I was like a part of him and he was suffering right along with me. He didn’t say that he threw a father’s heart on the altar of heaven every night in the hope God would protect me, or that he sent a father’s blessings into the bowels of this hell every day in the hope it would sustain me. He didn’t say any of that, but somehow he said all of it—the way he’d always said it, without speaking a word—just by being there.
    After a while, he lowered his hand and I lowered mine. My dad helped my mom stand and they went out together, slowly.
    A couple of moments passed. Then Beth came down the hall.
    I read a poem in school once. I can’t remember the name of it, but the guy in the poem said that he was afraid he was going to die “like a sick eagle looking at the sky.” I remembered that poem now because that’s how I felt looking through the thick square of Plexiglas at Beth. Like a sick eagle looking at the sky. She looked good. Beth always looked good. Pretty, with her hair curling around her smooth cheeks, and her blue eyes bright. She was wearing a yellow blouse and new jeans and they looked good on her too. But the thing about Beth that was hard to describe was just how nice she was, how kind she was, and how it showed in her face and in her eyes.
    In here, in Abingdon, you came to understand that kindness is like freedom—you don’t know how sweet it is until it’s gone.
    When she sat down, when she looked through the window, when she saw how banged up I was, her mouth got all tight and her eyes got watery, but she didn’t cry. I could see her forcing herself not to cry. She didn’t ask what happened to me either. She knew.
    It was a moment before she could speak. She just sat there, looking at me through the glass, holding the phone to her ear. Then she just said, “Are you all right, Charlie?”
    “Yeah,” I said. “It’s fine, Beth. It’s nothing. I miss you. That’s the hard part. I miss everyone. That’s the only thing that really hurts.”
    Her eyes lingered doubtfully on my purple bruises. But she said, “You’re going to get out of here soon. I know it.”
    “Good,” I said. “Hold on to that. Don’t lose hope.