Long Drive Home (15 page)

Before I knew what was happening, Rachel and the driver were helping me up, asking if I was okay. As far as I could tell, I was fine. Ted was in tears, clinging to his mom. Sara came running from the school yard. Traffic stopped in all directions. The driver was practically in tears himself. He kept apologizing, half in what sounded like Arabic—to me, to Ted, to Rachel.

Somebody said the police were on the way. I didn’t want to talk to them but knew I’d have to. Warren took control of the crosswalk and started directing traffic around the pickup. An ambulance arrived. The medics looked Ted over, then me. Warren overheard me declining a ride to the hospital for a more thorough examination. He told me I should go, even if I felt fine. He said I was full of adrenaline and might not know if I was hurt.

“You could wake up tomorrow and not be able to get out of bed.”

A TV news van showed up while Sara and I were waiting for the police to finish with the driver. They’d been out doing weather stories, on their way to a pileup on Route 46, when they heard about our mishap on the police radio. The reporter, a young guy in a puffy jacket and leather gloves, came over with the cameraman and a microphone, but I told them I didn’t want to be on TV. It was all too eerily familiar.

“I don’t like this,” Sara said. “I want to go home.”

“We will. Soon as they let me leave.”

Even though I hadn’t done anything wrong, I was nervous explaining to the police what had happened. The news crew got some footage of me talking to them. Afterward, they asked again for an interview but had to settle for Ted, who seemed to be enjoying the attention, and Rachel, who claimed I’d saved her son’s life.

Sara thought I was a hero. That’s what she told the old men from the Rotary Club who sold us our Christmas tree, and that’s what she told Liz and Helen on the front porch when I dropped her off.

“It was just luck,” I said. “I was lucky to be standing right there.”

“Not lucky,” Sara said. “Brave.”

“The truck actually hit you?” Helen said. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

I windmilled my arm. “Just a little sore.”

I was hoping Liz would take pity and ask me to stay for dinner. Instead, she said she was glad I was quitting.

“Me too,” Sara said. “And I’m glad school’s out.”

We had plans to go sledding at Flood’s Hill the next day while Liz was in the city. I looked over at the memorial, now covered in white except for the cross. “Let’s hope it doesn’t let up.”

Driving back to the apartment, I was at loose ends. I didn’t feel like working; I didn’t feel like being alone. At The Gaslight, the bartender, Dan, was surprised to see me so early. I told him I was celebrating—I’d saved a kid from getting hit by a truck. He listened to the story, then poured me a pint on the house. When I was done, I tipped him double, and he poured another. Outside, a plow rumbled by, followed by a salt truck. A basketball game was on TV, interrupted now and then by a train whistle. I ordered a sandwich and fries. The stools around the U-shaped bar began to fill with commuters. I sat there sipping my beer, wanting to feel good about what I’d done. I wanted the news to come on TV and to hear Rachel say I’d saved Ted’s life and have Dan and everybody else there hear it too. I wanted them to know that about me as badly as I’d wanted the people in that other bar to know about Derek Dye. I found myself considering the possibility that saving Ted
in some way made up for what had happened with Juwan. Except that even after three beers, I knew that was horse-shit. Lives weren’t figures in a ledger, and what was done was done. There were just consequences, how you felt, and what you did about it.

On the way to Montclair, I picked up a cold six-pack and was already cracking the first one as I parked across the street from Derek’s. I stashed the rest in the console, zipped my coat, and put the window down. Snowflakes drifted in. The upstairs lights were on in the house. After a few minutes, I caught a glimpse of Derek in boxers and an undershirt, getting dressed. I pictured his pistol on the dresser. I imagined how it would feel to turn the gun on him.

Ever since I’d followed him to the club, I’d had it in the back of my mind that I was going to do something about him. The problem was, I didn’t know what. I’d been telling myself I had time, that the longer I waited, the sweeter it would be, but I knew this was just a way of letting myself off the hook. Believing I’d do something had become more important than actually doing it.

Now that I was sitting there in the dark, though, watching him, I felt obliged to consider a course of action. I wasn’t going to shoot him or run him down, like I’d wanted to that first day, but none of my other ideas—slashing his tires, smashing his windshield, taking a bat to his precious Suburban—
felt right either. I needed something more personal. I wanted him to know it was me.

After an hour or so, Derek left the house. I wasn’t able to make a U-turn in time to catch up. I considered going by the club to see if his car was there, but my shoulder was starting to hurt, the roads were getting bad, and I wanted to be back at the apartment in time for the eleven-o’clock news.

Ted and I ended up getting thirty seconds or so at the end of the weather report, the feel-good story in a local traffic roundup. The reporter described me as wanting to avoid the limelight. Ted said he never saw the pickup coming. Rachel said, “He saved my son’s life.” I was on the sofa with the Chairman, trying to ignore the stiffness in my shoulder. I raised my can to the TV as best I could.

The next morning, I was in pretty sad shape for sledding. I could barely brush my teeth, and my hip ached. I bundled up, slowly, and went for Sara. She was out front in her snowsuit with Liz, who was dressed for work. They were watching three men unload chain saws and coils of rope from a truck in front of Clarice’s. Behind the truck was a wood chipper.

“They’re cutting Sicky down!” Sara wailed, running across the snowy yard and throwing her arms around me. “Make them stop!”

The workers were watching. I managed to pick her up, afraid she might try to stop them herself, and sat on the front steps. She was crying so hard she was hiccupping. Liz sat down next to us to stroke her hair. Clarice came outside in a long down coat and rubber boots. She spoke with the worker in charge, then crossed the street to tell Sara she’d be getting a new tree in the spring, a sapling, and Sara could help look after it. Sara didn’t even acknowledge her.

“You said Sicky would be fine, Dad.”

I was telling her the accident must have done more damage than I realized when Clarice interrupted.

“Actually, sugar,” she said, “that tree was sick all along. I just didn’t find out until I had somebody look at it after the crash.”

Sara lifted her head from my shoulder. “You mean she isn’t getting killed? She just died?”

“I’m sorry,” Clarice said. “I wanted to wait until spring, but they’re telling me I could have a problem if there’s ice.”

Sara asked if she could have a piece of the tree, and Clarice had one of the men cut her a branch the length of a walking stick. By then Liz had missed her train. She said she’d better get going or she’d miss the next one, too. Sara took her eyes off the tree crew just long enough to hug her good-bye, then told me she didn’t feel like sledding anymore.

“I want to watch,” she said.

I didn’t think that was such a good idea: knowing what was happening and seeing it weren’t the same. I was also still
afraid she’d try to stop them. With the chain saws going, they might not notice her until it was too late. But she stayed put, sitting on the steps with her mittens on and the branch across her knees. We ended up watching them all morning. One of the guys climbed the tree with a chain saw, cutting limbs, while the others used rope pulleys to lower them to the ground. Once all the limbs were gone, the climber started working his way back down, roping and cutting sections of the trunk as he went. Sara said it reminded her of a candle burning down. Maybe she was thinking of the vigil; the crew was piling branches on the grass where the mourners had stood. The cross and flowers were on Clarice’s front porch.

Despite what I’d told Tawana—that I couldn’t stand the sight of that tree—I was sorry to see it go. Sara and I might not have been sitting there, alive, if not for its stopping Juwan’s car. I put my good arm around her and asked if she was warm enough. She nodded and leaned into me. Later, when the men started feeding limbs into the chipper, she covered her ears and said she’d had enough.

Sara cheered up a little when a new bicycle decorated with a big pink bow arrived that afternoon, a present from Ted’s family, and when I got back to my building, a huge gift basket was waiting in the manager’s office.

“Call me if you need any help with the Cristal,” he said, handing it over.

There was also a cabernet, a chardonnay, caviar, cheese, olives, chocolates, cookies, a grilled artichoke antipasto, and a thank-you card from Ted’s parents that I stood on my dresser.

I was putting everything else back into the basket when Liz called, nearly hyperventilating. “I just saw Tawana.”

She’d been out shoveling when Tawana showed up to put the memorial back together.

“She wanted to know why we wouldn’t let Sara talk to the police. What was I supposed to say? I almost told her to call
you
.” Instead, she’d given her our line about not wanting to put Sara through any more than we already had. “She was like, ‘Any more
what
? All he wants to do is ask her some questions.’ It was awful.”

“Do you think he put her up to it?”

“No, I think she just wants the whole thing to be over. She said the autopsy report came back a few days ago. He was
twice
the legal limit. And still Rizzo won’t close the case. He tells her he hasn’t ruled out, quote unquote, further criminal wrongdoing. She said she dreads his calls. She was practically pleading.”

I told Liz I was sorry. I said the investigation was my problem, not hers. “Next time just tell her it was my decision. Tell her to come see me.”

“I hate this,” Liz said. “I hate being like this. Her son’s dead, and I’m standing there worrying about getting sued.”

* * *

Sitting across the street from Derek’s that night, I popped the cork on the Cristal—probably the most expensive champagne I’ll ever have—and gulped it warm, straight from the bottle. I didn’t deserve to savor it. More to the point, I wanted to blot Tawana from my thoughts as soon as possible. I couldn’t stop imagining what it must have been like when Rizzo called. Being forced, again and again, to contemplate the accident, to wonder how many seconds of terror or pain Juwan had endured, if he’d really been alive before the medics arrived, if he’d known he was dying, if he’d thought of her. And for what? I pictured her hanging up, standing alone in the kitchen of that big house, listening for sounds that weren’t there anymore—Juwan coming home from school, Juwan playing video games with his friends, Juwan on his skateboard in the empty swimming pool out back.

I took another swig of champagne and tried to concentrate on Derek. Him I could at least do something about. He was inside watching TV with the girl from the nightclub. They had a bowl of popcorn, cans of beer. After a while, he aimed the remote, and she got up for a couple more. I didn’t like her being there. Watching them together made me feel like a creep, but that wasn’t all. Seeing her stretch her legs across his, I longed for a similar night with Liz—a different life altogether—my
real
life—were it not for Derek. Maybe I couldn’t blame him for the accident, but if I’d been a bomb waiting to go off that day, he
was the one who’d lit the fuse. He was the one who’d
made
me a bomb in the first place.

By the time I’d polished off half the bottle, my hip was hurting. I had a bruise the size of a salad plate. Derek glanced up from the TV as I was shifting around, trying to get comfortable. He came and stood at the window. I thought he was looking right at me, and I looked right back. I hoped he recognized my car. I hoped I was making him uneasy. When he drew the curtains, it felt like a small victory. Driving home, one arm cradled in my lap, it occurred to me that maybe this was all I needed to be doing—getting inside his head, keeping him on guard. A few months of that would take a toll on anyone.

On Saturday, after my head cleared from too much champagne, Sara and I went to dinner and
The Nutcracker.
She brought along the branch, which she carried as tenderly as she would have a doll, and asked me to take her over to the memorial when we got home. Figuring Tawana wouldn’t be stopping by to tend the flowers that late, I held Sara’s hand and crossed the street. Clarice’s house looked naked without the sycamore out front. The flowers now ringed the cross, which stood in a patch of wood chips where the workers had ground the stump. It pleased me, the more I thought about it, that the accident hadn’t had anything to do with the tree coming down; I liked the idea that cause and effect
wasn’t always as simple as it seemed. Sara picked up a handful of wood chips, breathed in their smell, let them fall through her fingers.

“I know it’s sad,” I said, “but look at all these.” Up and down the block, tall sycamores lined the street, their limbs forming a high canopy.

“They’re not Sicky,” she said.

By now Liz had come out onto the porch. I think she was still shaken from her conversation with Tawana—resenting me for it. She hardly spoke a word when I brought Sara to the door.

No lights were on at Derek’s. I parked and reached under my seat for what was left of the Cristal. When the bottle was done and he still wasn’t home, I began to worry he’d left town for the holidays.

The Suburban was back the next night, though. He had a Christmas tree up in the front window, and colored lights around his porch posts. Not long after I got there, he opened the front door and stepped out. I started the car and drove away, then returned ten minutes later. He came out again. This time he pulled the door shut behind him. He started toward me, cutting across the small yard. I waited until he was almost at the curb before I glided away. He turned and went for the Suburban, but I was gone before he ever got out of the driveway.