One Cold Night

its base, lowering his face between his knees and wrapping his arms around his bent legs. She stared at the photograph, knowing it was time to make her move, but she couldn’t. She was frozen. So it was true: He was her father. She felt a tinge of pity for him; he was so ridiculous and so cruel.
    He lifted his head. “I love you,” he said into the empty space in front of his tree.
    “What?” Lisa couldn’t believe she had heard him right.
    “I love you.”
    This was nothing like any kind of love Lisa had ever known or imagined. So he loved her. So this was love.
    For one whole night and one whole day, he had terrorized her.
    And now he had given her a gun, and he had given her this photograph as proof.
    Soon it would be completely dark. She had to make a decision.
    She thought of Meg from A Wrinkle in Time and Joni from her mother fantasies and Susan from her real life. She thought of how much her three heroines had inspired her and knew she couldn’t let any of them down.
    She pointed the gun at him. “Tell me about your brother.”
    “Only if you make me a promise.”
    A promise? Was he kidding? After all he’d put her through, why should she promise him anything?
    “No,” she said. She had the gun now.
    He closed his eyes, laid his head back against the tree trunk and seemed to think something over. Then he began to speak, slowly and carefully, keeping his eyes closed.
    “Sometimes I can see how wrong this has been. But I don’t have any real control over my mind. That’s the problem, Lisa. That’s why I need you to help me.”
    She just stared at him; she had no idea what he was talking about.
    “You’re right; my brother died. Robbie drowned.” He opened his eyes and stared at the space in front of him, like he was watching a movie. “I helped him drown.”
    “You mean... you killed him?”
    “I never meant to. When it was over I was horrified. I need you to believe that, Lisa. And I need you to do something for me.”
    “Stop asking me for things!” Her voice was sharper than she’d intended; sharp but true. “You have no right to ask me for anything.”
    He nodded as if he agreed with her, but his words said otherwise. “You were taken from me before I even knew you existed. When I found out about you, I knew he had come back, through you, to find me.”
    “You mean your brother, Robbie?”
    This was too much. So her father had killed a boy who would have been her uncle? And now he thought she was this uncle? That he was somehow in her?
    “I need his forgiveness, Lisa. If he forgives me, I’ll be saved. It’s the only way. He’s a part of you; I can feel it. Will you forgive me?”
    His face was red and sweaty and she hated him; she hated him for doing this to her and she hated him for not being a father she could have loved. Because she wanted to love him — she wanted to — but he had made that impossible.
    “Why should I?” She steadied the gun in his direction, just in case.
    He shook his head slowly from side to side, as if there were no way she would ever understand, which was probably true.
    “I want some answers,” she said in the demanding tone her father, Bill, used when he was unhappy with something she’d done. “Why did you kill your brother?”
    He closed his eyes again. “My wife helped me understand something about my mind, that I can’t control my illness alone. Even the medications don’t really work anymore. And to be honest with you, when I look at the world, sometimes I think I’m the only one who’s sane.”
    The more he spoke, the more her fear of him drained away. Something inside his mind was making him do things even he didn’t understand. Or maybe, Lisa thought, someone outside himself was giving him ideas.
    “Tell me about him, ” Lisa said.
    “I loved my brother—”
    “No, the other him. The one who called himself your brother and came up with this stupid plan. Did somebody put you up to this?”
    “I don’t talk to God, if that’s what you think. That’s what Robbie thought, but he was wrong. Maybe he does. I wouldn’t be surprised.”
    Something then occurred to Lisa, and she looked around the clearing, trying to see into the dense surrounding forest. Nothing was visible except tree trunks creating a variegated darkness in which anyone could hide at this time of day.
    “Who is he?”
    He sighed deeply. “He was my patient.” His voice sounded thin and vacant, like the last moment of a bubble before it popped. “Theo