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Not that anyone was watching. No one saw Darcy go in the water. Her friends say she seemed fine, and her husband swears she wasn’t drunk. For several weeks afterward, neighbors speculate on what could have happened. Had she drank too much? Had she meant to do herself harm? Had someone wanted her dead?
Ann certainly disliked her, and she had been capable of bumping a cyclist with her car, and possibly causing a man to fall from his ladder, but is she really capable of drowning a friend?
I don’t know. And more importantly, if I did, could I prove it? Should I tell someone, and if so, would they think I was making it all up? It’s all so confusing.
Ethan always told me I care too much about things that don’t matter. He liked to throw around words like “obsessive” and “neurotic.”
I realize he is probably right when Ann says, “I’m sorry that she’s dead. But perhaps what really gets me about the whole things is, who is going to remember her, Sadie?”
Everything about her conveys exasperation, so I tell her I don’t know. She looks tired today, as much as a woman like Ann can. It’s a lot to have a dead body so close to home. Or so I presume.
She hasn’t mentioned what happened between us in the garage, and she hasn’t made another move. Ann projects. She channels her energy into worry over other things, instead of what’s really bothering her. She expresses her anxiety in her work, in meddling in her children’s problems, in asking questions no one can really answer. She’s different in real life than who she portrays herself to be on the internet. She doesn’t let her problems go to waste. She milks them.
My mother was like that. Growing up, we didn’t have much. That’s how I know that I haven’t yet hit rock bottom. I’ve seen worse. We were poor. Dirt poor. Irrevocably poor. In turn, mother made sure to never let a thing go to waste. If she cooked a chicken, she’d find a way to use it all. In the same way, I watched her work herself to death until she was all used up. Minus the financially challenged part, Ann is like that. She asks the question again, hoping it will change something. “Outside of her family, who is going to remember Darcy?”
“Really. I don’t know.”
“Paul has spoken with the family, and they agreed to donate some of the organs that could be salvaged.”
“Salvaged?”
“Organs need oxygen to survive, Sadie. Darcy drowned,” she says as though I’m unaware. “The water was cold. So there’s that.”
“What does that mean?”
Ann gives me the side eye. “It means there are a few things they can work with.”
“Like what?”
“Bone, liver, corneas…skin.”
My mind can go a lot of places, I’ll admit. But it never, not even once, went there. I don’t know what to say. Ann is expanding my life. She is very informed about a lot of things, and I don’t want to seem unintelligent by asking too many questions. Now is not the time to say the wrong thing. Not when she’s in this kind of mood. “Well, at least some good is going to come of it.”
“A lot of good, Sadie. A lot of good. You have no idea.”
I can only shrug. Ann has a way of making a good point.
CHAPTER THIRTY
SADIE
A death in the community really shakes things up. For Ann and I, Darcy’s untimely departure certainly has that effect. She goes radio silent on me. She gets busy. As usual, some places inside of her are easy to reach. But others are encrypted, grueling to decode.
Paul comes home for a week, and Ann says they need time. I worry that she’s using this as an excuse to avoid me. Maybe she’s changed her mind. Maybe she’s had enough of me. She wouldn’t be the first person. If anything, I’ve learned when you think you know what you’re dealing with, you usually don’t.
Still, Ann assures me everything is fine, she says time is important in a marriage. She says it’s all you have.
It certainly feels like all I have. I go to DUI class, I come home. Chet waits. Chet works. Chet and I have sex. Chet leaves and I’m thankful for another day to slow his progress. I lay in bed and toss and turn. I don’t sleep. Eventually, the sun rises. Chet comes back. I do it all again. Lather, rinse, repeat. This is my life.
I can sense the world is going on without me. It feels like I’m sleepwalking through this one and precious life. All the while, Ann is slipping away. My home is slipping away. My marriage is slipping away. My bank account is dwindling. I’m about to be homeless. There aren’t many subbing gigs to be had lately, which is a real bummer because I need the money in a bad way. Even if it isn’t much.
Maybe this is rock bottom, I think as I lie there each night. By dawn, I’m certain. It has to be.
THANKFULLY, near the end of the week, I finally get a call. Strep has hit the campus, and they need me to sub. Sometimes you realize you’re just one unfortunate circumstance away from better luck. Relief floods over me. Sometimes what feels like rock bottom is maybe just a blip.
There’s only one problem. I’ve only made it halfway down the driveway before I’m forced to come to a full stop.
Ann is pacing back and forth across my drive.
