On Borrowed Time Read Online Free Page B

out of that town. I walked down to a rental car place I had seen a few days before, when I was with Jen, when the world made sense. My car was badly damaged and I remembered Winston saying it was being repaired, but I couldn’t stay there another day. I rented a car and had reached the outskirts of town when I saw the General Store, which Jen and I had stopped in on the way into town. I pulled into the parking lot, willing to give this insanity one more chance to end.
    A woman stood behind the cash register, and I approached her.
    “Excuse me, ma’am. Do you know someone named Jennifer Ryan?”
    She thought for a moment. “Don’t think so. She from around here?”
    I nodded. “Do you know Janice Ryan?”
    She brightened. “Sure do. Lives about two miles from here.”
    “Does she have a daughter?”
    She hesitated for a moment. “No.”
    “Is Janice married?”
    “Not anymore,” she said.
    “What happened to her husband?”
    She seemed suspicious. “Why do you want to know all this?”
    “I think I might know her.”
    She nodded, as if that were good enough. “Ben must be dead a good twenty, twenty-five years now.”
    “Can you tell me how he died?” I asked.
    A wary nod. “Killed himself. Hung himself out in back where they used to have a gazebo.”
    “Do you know why he did that?”
    She looked at me even more suspiciously. “After all this time … why are you asking these questions?”
    “Please, I’m not trying to hurt anyone. It’s just important that I know.”
    “Their little girl died … she was murdered. Ben just couldn’t handle life after that.”

 
    I had to get home.
    Home was where I lived, where my friends were, where I prayed Jen was. I didn’t feel like there was any chance of my getting to the bottom of this; at least not in that town. The unhappy truth seemed to be that there could be no real-world explanation. None of this was consistent with reality; it was either a dream or I was insane. Or both.
    I would find out when I got home.
    The drive was surreal. I kept looking over to the passenger seat, to Jen, to see her as she was when we’d made the drive out earlier in the week. The fact that she was not there didn’t stop me from looking.
    I drove down the West Side Highway and parked in the lot underneath my building. Our building. I realized with some embarrassment that I was not ready to go upstairs. It was as if our home were the last card I had to play, and I didn’t want to use it quite yet.
    I walked over to the Legends Sports Bar. It was college bowl season, so I could be pretty sure John and Willie would be there. I was feeling very mixed emotions; on the one hand I was craving being with someone I knew, friends who would acknowledge the history we had together. On the other hand, I was afraid of what they would say about Jen. They had to know her, I was positive they knew her, but I was still scared shitless that they wouldn’t. And for all I knew, maybe they didn’t exist either.
    I felt some relief when I saw them sitting at our usual table. There were three women with them, two of whom I recognized from the other night, which seemed decades ago. The third one I’d never seen before.
    At least I didn’t recall ever seeing her before. She was the first one to notice me walking toward the table. She brightened, an immediate look of recognition on her face, and stood up. She said, “You made it,” with obvious pleasure, and kissed me. It was a light kiss, on the mouth, but it didn’t feel like a first kiss.
    Willie said, “We were about to put out a police report on you,” and John added with apparent concern and relief, “Where the hell have you been?” He looked at my bandage. “What happened to your head?”
    I decided to go straight for it. “I’ve been at Jen’s house. Where she grew up.”
    The woman who kissed me put an exaggerated pout on her face and said, “Who’s Jen?”
    “It’s his sister,” John said.
    “No, Jen’s his