Page 131 of Antihero

Four point three miles passed.

“What is ‘huh’?”

“‘Huh’ is ‘huh.’”

The Gulag Archipelago was back in her lap now, across her knees like a weighted lap belt. In case the airbags failed, it would protect her with its girth and moral fortitude. “No,” she said. “You are precise. Everything is precise. ‘Huh’ is not ‘huh.’ “Huh’ is passive-aggressive.”

“You are,” Evan observed, “so Eastern European.”

Her eyes flared with fury.

Then a sea change came across her face.

“And you are so American,” she laughed. “‘Copy that.’ ‘Affirmative.’ ‘Noted.’”

His lips tensed with amusement. “Strong, silent American.”

“Boring, quiet American.” Her features were set pleasantly with the afterglow of her smile. “I am American, too.”

“Very.”

“Romanian-American. And you are?”

“An orphan. So just: American.”

She cocked her head the way she did. “Who taught you then?”

“Taught me what?”

“You were raised well. Somehow.”

“I learned what’s right,” he said, “by doing what is wrong.”

“That is such bullshit.” The curse left her mouth and her fingers touched her lips with chagrin, a Jane Austen heroine finding out Mr. Darcy had kissed one of the Misses Hurst beneath a full moon. She seemed to be holding back a giggle. “I’m sorry. I did not mean to say this. But really. What nonsense. You don’t learn good by doing evil. Evil leads to more evil unless it is interrupted by something else.”

Evan said, “Huh.”

It was the first time he’d heard her laugh in full. It was beautiful.

They flowed in and out of traffic, continuing a tactically circuitous route, until he exited, merging onto the Cross Island Parkway south. Her hands stayed clasped over the thick book, gripping it tightly.

“I will give this statement to your friend,” she said. “For you and for the others those men might hurt. And maybe it will help. But there is no cure, you know. For the world.”

“Not a cure,” Evan said.

He felt those blue eyes searching the side of his face. “What then?”

He thought.

He thought of missions past.

Lidia and Santiago Martinez, the framed school portrait of eight-year-old Gabriel on the wall, and the wrapped presents waiting beneath the Christmas tree.

Jayla Hill, orphaned as surely as he was, magically speaking again through crushed vocal cords.

The Seabrooks, Ruby and her parents, Mason and Deborah, and that jigsaw puzzle of a family photo on their kitchen table, their once-intact family put back together again.

He thought about when he’d finally delivered Anjelina home, how she’d moved through the white gate to the house, Aragón and Belicia waiting behind the screen door with unspeakable relief.