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“I was in trouble,” I say quietly. And they tried to help me.
How did I not know that? How did I miss the obvious?
You see now, don’t you?
“Stop stop stop. I don’t want to do this anymore. ” I roll onto my side and close my eyes.
You need to remember.
“No. I need to forget. ”
September 3, 2010
2:10 P. M.
In the hospital conference room, the police detective stood with his legs spread far enough apart to hold him steady if an earthquake struck. He had a small notepad open and was reviewing his notes.
Johnny glanced around the quiet room. Most of the chairs were empty, pushed in close to the table. Two Kleenex boxes stood at the ready in the middle of the table. Beside him, Margie was trying her best to sit tall and straight, but this had been a tiring vigil; she kept slumping in defeat. He’d called her early this morning; she and Bud had been on a plane from Arizona by nine-fifteen. Now Bud was at Johnny’s house, waiting for the boys to come home from school. Marah was in with Tully.
He and Margie had been in this room before. Here, they’d been told that the surgeons had failed to get clean margins on Kate’s cancer and that it had spread to her lymph nodes and that there were quality-of-life decisions to be made. He reached over to hold Margie’s cold, big-knuckled hand.
The detective cleared his throat.
Johnny looked up.
“The toxicology report won’t be in for a while, but a search of Ms. Hart’s residence revealed several prescription drugs—Vicodin, Xanax, and Ambien, primarily. We haven’t found any witnesses to the accident yet, but our estimate, based on the crime scene analysis, is that she was driving in excess of fifty miles per hour on Columbia Street, heading toward the waterfront, in the rain. She hit a concrete stanchion at a high rate of speed. ”
“Were there skid marks?” Johnny asked. He heard Margie draw in a breath, and he knew that this question hadn’t occurred to her. Skid marks before a collision meant that the driver had tried to stop. No skid marks meant something else.
The detective looked at Johnny. “I don’t know. ”
Johnny nodded. “Thanks, Detective. ”
After the detective left, Margie turned to Johnny. He saw the tears in her eyes and regretted his question. His mother-in-law had already suffered so much. “I’m sorry, Margie. ”
“Are you saying … Do you think she drove into it on purpose?”
The question stripped Johnny of his strength, left him exposed.
“Johnny?”
“You’ve seen her more recently than I have. What do you think?”
Margie sighed. “I think she felt very alone in the last year. ”
Johnny got to his feet and mumbled an excuse about needing to use the bathroom and left the room.
In the hallway, he leaned against the wall and hung his head. When he finally looked up, he saw a door across the hall from him, and a sign: CHAPEL.
When was the last time he’d been in a church?
Kate’s funeral.
He crossed the hall and opened the door. It was a small, narrow room, utilitarian-looking at best, with a few pews and a makeshift altar at the front. The first thing he noticed was the quiet. The second was the girl seated off to the right in the front pew. She was slumped down so far, all he could see was a tuft of gelled pink hair.
He moved forward slowly, his footsteps lost on the carpeted floor. “May I join you?”
Marah looked up sharply. He could see that she’d been crying. “Like I could stop you. ”
