May We Be Forgiven

it.
    I don’t even ask where the Israeli is but notice that one of the unmarked vans is gone. “Are we done here? Am I free to go?”
    “Yes,” Walter says. “And don’t forget to get gas.”
    I am escorted to the thruway. There is an eerie absence of traffic. I fly towards home at eighty miles an hour. I would go faster, but anything over eighty elicits a disturbing rattle.
    Shivering, I turn on the heat—nothing happens. I reach down; the car seat is damp. I flick on the map light and see the seat is dark with blood.

    O utside, the sky is beginning to lighten. I’m not sure what time it is—the car’s clock is frozen at three-forty-three. Just before my exit, I take a detour, pulling in at the local hospital. From the parking lot I text Ricardo’s aunt to say it’s all taking much longer than planned and notice six missed calls—messages from Ashley and Ricardo saying hello, telling me jokes, wondering when I’m coming home.
    A security guard comes to the window. “No standing,” he says. “Patient parking only.” He points to a sign.
    “My ass is bleeding,” I announce, getting out of the car. The guard escorts me to the triage nurse.
    “What happened?” the nurse asks.
    “I’ve been shot,” I say, and then faint, falling flat to the floor. I come to facedown on a gurney with my ass up in the air, and someone is taking photos. I overhear that they’ve already gotten an X-ray and that luckily there’s no shrapnel to be found.
    “We’re going to clean it up,” the doctor says. “There’s really nothing to sew.”
    “I got a new digital camera for Christmas; I could bring the old one in,” someone says.
    “What’s the resolution?” another guy asks.
    “No idea, but it’s better than this piece of crap.”
    They’re talking supply chain while my ass is up in the air. The one guy bends down and speaks directly to me. “We’re going to put some numbing medicine on your tushy and clean it up,” he says. “The wound was deep.”
    “What happened?” a second asks, bending down.
    “I don’t really know,” I say. “It was like Deliverance met The Shining .”
    “Do you want to file a police report?”
    “No,” I say, “I’d like to keep it private.”
    As soon as I say that, I can tell they’re thinking it was some kind of sexual assignation gone wrong.
    “There are a couple of questions we need to ask,” one of the doctors says, bending down so we’re eye to eye. “Are you safe in your home? Is anyone hurting you, or otherwise abusing you? You don’t need to feel ashamed about answering these questions. …”
    “Do I look ashamed? I really have nothing to say. I don’t know who it was.”
    I am given a card for a men-only abuse hotline, a giant shot of antibiotics, and a tetanus shot, and, just like goddamned George, my arm swells: as I’m leaving the ER, I can already feel a hot baseball forming under the skin.
    I take the car through a car wash and ask if there’s anything they can do about the car seat—maybe steam-clean? “Hit a deer,” I say, shaking my head.
    “Guess so,” the guy says, looking at me funny, noticing the blood all over my pants. “Was it inside the car?”
    “It was enormous,” I say.

    W hen I get to the house, a large “WELCOME HOME” sign written in multicolored bubble letters is mounted on the front door. Ashley, Ricardo, and Christina have clearly been up most of the night and are looking at me with great concern.
    “Was there an accident?” the aunt asks.
    “Did you go see Dad? Did he beat you up?” Ashley wants to know.
    “You look crazy,” Ricardo offers.
    “Let’s just say it was quite an adventure.” I excuse myself, take a shower, have some Tylenol, eat a giant breakfast, and promptly fall asleep.
    “I called in sick,” Christina says in the afternoon, when she comes to check on me. “I couldn’t leave you and the children like this.”
    I nod and fall back asleep, facedown—arm throbbing, ass stinging.
    I can’t say I’m entirely surprised when a state trooper comes to the door that evening to ask me about a hit-and-run forty miles away. He comes right out and says it: “My brother-in-law works at the car wash and is really into these crime-solver shows. …”
    “I get it,” I say, handing him Walter Penny’s card. He calls Walter, and despite the late hour Penny answers and explains that it was a special operation and, yes, there was damage to both the person and the vehicle, but in general it