by Brent, Amy
“She was really young,” I said. “Like thirty-one or thirty-two.” I hit the joint again and sucked the smoke in deep, held it for a second, then let it out like air escaping a balloon. I handed the joint back to Kevin and slid off the edge into the water. The cool water felt good on my hot skin. I went under for a moment to wet my hair, then came up and set my arms on the side of the pool and rested my chin on them.
“It’s just so sad,” I said, licking the water from my lips. “One minute you’re alive, and the next minute you’re not.”
“You never know when your ticket’s gonna be punched, babe,” Kevin said with the joint at his mouth. He held the joint between his thumb and index finger and poked the air with it as he spoke. “Remember Harvey Upton from school? Just walked outside one day and got hit by a bus.”
“Harvey was fucked up and walked in front of a bus,” I said, rolling my eyes at him. “Not the same as losing control of your car in the rain and hitting a tree.”
“Unless she was fucked up, too,” Kevin said, his round shoulders going up and down. He got a knowing look on his face and rocked his head back and forth. “Who knows, maybe she was out late looking to score. Or to get laid.”
“She was married, dumbass,” I said. “Her husband is a super-hot Navy SEAL.”
“So, that don’t mean shit,” Kevin said, rolling his glassy eyes at me. “Just because she was a wife and mom doesn’t mean she didn’t have her dark secrets. Look at you, my little Lolita. You have all kinds of dark shit going on in that pretty head of yours.”
“Fuck you,” I said with a smile.
“Fuck you back.” Kevin gave me the grin that first got him into my panties the night of our junior prom when I was just sixteen, a couple of months after Jerry popped my cherry. Kevin Cramer—everybody called him KC— was so fucking hot then. He was a year older than me, the captain of the varsity football team, tall, lean, muscular, with shaggy blond hair that hung over his blue eyes and a smile that he used like a deadly weapon.
We had been pals most our lives and had been on one date before the night we first fucked in the back of his mom’s minivan. We never officially went steady or anything as silly as that. Neither of us were that juvenile or possessive. We just liked to get high and fuck. He had other girls and I had other guys. Through it all, our friendship endured.
Now, three years later, we were more fuck buddies than sweethearts. Whenever I got horny I called him and whenever he got horny he called me. That was it. There were no delusions of a grand future together. The relationship had no really beyond the moment. We were not in love. We were just having fun; two friends who liked to fuck each other. But tonight, nobody was getting fucked or blown or fingered or jacked off. Kevin would have fucked me right there in the pool if I’d asked him to. We’d fucked so much in that pool the water should have been milky white by now, but I just wasn’t in the mood.
The death of Bethany Ryder was bringing me down, though I didn’t really know why. I barely knew her and probably hadn’t even spoken to her in months. Maybe it was that she always seemed so sad, even though I thought she had everything to live for. Maybe Kevin was right: who knows what goes on inside someone else’s head. Or behind closed doors. Or late at night when they’re out in a rainstorm instead of safe at home.
Kevin certainly had his dark secrets, though he managed to keep them hidden better than most folks. Everyone at Arlington High expected him to get a scholarship to play football in college, but he was injured in the first game of his senior year. He was slammed between two humongous linemen and his neck snapped like a twig. I remember sitting in the stands watching when it happened. It was like the world had shifted into slow motion. Kevin was hiked the ball and dropped back to throw. He was bouncing on the balls of his feet looking downfield for a receiver. Two of the opposing team’s linemen came at him from opposite sides and slammed into him like two fists crushing a gnat. His helmet came off and flew straight up in the air like a pimple that had been popped. Kevin went down hard and a ton of guys piled on top of him.
When the referees finally cleared the pile, Kevin didn’t get up. He didn’t even move. He just lay there like a crumpled-up wad of paper, moaning so loudly that you could hear him in the stands. The whole place got deathly quiet as two thousand people held their breath. All you could hear were Kevin’s moans carried over the chilly fall air like the wail of a ghost. It was the saddest sound I’d ever heard, like the sound of an injured animal slowly dying, moaning out its last breath. My eyes tear up sometimes just thinking about it. I knew at that moment that he was not going to get up. And if and when he ever did, his life would never be the same.
Four paramedics stabilized Kevin’s neck and loaded him onto a stretcher. Everyone clapped and cheered as they carted him off the field. I thought it was creepy, all those people cheering for a guy who couldn’t move. Two minutes later, the game resumed as if nothing ever happened. I rushed from the stands and rode with Kevin’s parents to the hospital. It was the last high school football game I ever attended.
The doctors managed to fuse Kevin’s neck back together. He was in the hospital for two months, then in a rehab facility for six months, learning how to walk and use his hands again. He came out the other side a shell of his former self. The optimistic golden boy with the bright future was gone, replaced by a moody seventeen-year-old with a slight limp and an addiction to OxyContin. He spent most of his time fucked up in his mom’s basement. Then he started dealing Oxy to his friends. Being a dealer got him out of the basement, but also made him angry and paranoid, like the whole world was out to bring him down.
Kevin was fucked up most of the time now, which was why our hangout sessions were starting to become more like interventions. I loved Kevin, but I wasn’t going to watch him overdose on Oxy or get caught up in his shit. Life was too short. Bethany Ryder was proof of that.
“So, you wanna do anything tonight?” he asked, offering me the joint. He shrugged when I waved it away and tapped it out on the concrete. “Wanna go down to the lake and get fucked up?”
“You’re already fucked up,” I said with a sigh.
“We could go to a movie. Get something to eat. Get even more fucked up.”
I looked past him at the Ryder house next door, looming over the privacy fence like a dark cloud. “I want to go get some flowers,” I said quietly. “And put them on their front porch. All the neighbors are doing it. Mrs. Crown said the husband would be home tomorrow sometime. It would be nice if he saw that his neighbors were there for him.”
Kevin scowled at me. “What the fuck for, Lolita? She’s dead. And you barely knew her. Come on, let’s take a drive. I need to deliver some product to one of my guys.”
“You go ahead,” I said, bracing my palms on the side of the pool to lift myself out. “I’m gonna go buy some flowers.”
“Whatever,” he said with a sigh. He pulled his feet out of the pool and rolled down his pants legs, then found his shirt and shoes. I picked up the bikini top and put it on, then wrapped a towel around my waist. Kevin tugged his black t-shirt over his head as he followed me to the side gate. Without asking, he pulled me into his arms and tried to kiss me. His breath wreaked of beer and pot. His dry lips felt like sandpaper on my skin.
“If I slam into a tree tonight and die will you bring me flowers?” he asked, his breath hot on my cheek.
“No,” I said, pushing him away. “But I will send flowers to the tree.”
Ryder
I stepped off the plane just before 7 A.M. Arlington time. My back and legs were stiff from the long flight and my body was racked with exhaustion. I had a killer headache that I could feel in my teeth and couldn’t shake the constant wave of nausea that had been plaguing me since leaving Mosul the day before. There was very little about me that didn’t ache.
I had dozed on and off for a few hours, but had never really fallen asleep. Every time I closed my eyes I saw Bethany’s face. Not the angry Bethany that I left standing in our kitch
en when I left Arlington two months ago, but the Bethany that I met in that California bar when she was just twenty-one. The Bethany with the bright blue eyes and the warm smile and the gentle touch. The Bethany that used to light up when I walked into the room, not the one who frowned as if I was a bad smell being carried in on the wind.
I worked out the kinks in my back and legs as I walked through the crowded airport. Reagan International was the DC hub and it was always busy with flights coming and going. I grabbed a large cup of coffee from the McDonald’s in the food court and sipped it carefully as I went to retrieve my duffel at baggage claim. I somehow finished the coffee without scalding my mouth too badly. I tossed the cup in the trash as I went outside to stand on the sidewalk and wait for Quinn to show.
I dropped the duffel on the sidewalk and grunted as I stretched my arms and hands toward the sky. I hadn’t been home in two months and it was good to be back on U.S. soil—or on U.S. concrete—breathing air that wasn’t filled with yellow dust. It was a bright clear day in Arlington, but it was already hot and muggy. It was the middle of summer in Virginia and the temperature would probably be in the nineties before the day was through. It was a different kind of heat than I experienced in Mosul, though. Summer time in the Middle East was like a hot oven. Summer time in Virginia was like a hot soup. By the time I saw the black Range Rover with Quinn behind the wheel headed my way, my pits were drenched in sweat.
Quinn pulled to the curb and quickly got out of the Rover. He came around and threw me into a bear hug and squeezed tight. “God, Ryder, I am so fuckin’ sorry,” he said, his Tennessee accent coming through his words. “I don’t know what the fuck to say, man.”
“There’s not much you can say,” I said as he pulled back. “Just tell me what the fuck happened.”
“Okay, I will,” he said, reaching for the duffel bag that was sitting at my feet. “I’ll tell you everything I know on the way home.”
I waved him off and picked up the duffel. “I got this. Let’s just go.”
I threw the duffel in the back and slid into front passenger seat and buckled in. The Rover smelled like leather and looked brand new. I glanced around while Quinn climbed in and buckled up. Other than a tall Starbuck’s cup in the holder, it was spotless on the inside, like it had just come off the showroom floor.
“I got this for you,” he said as he pulled away from the curb and maneuvered his way into the flow of traffic leaving Reagan International. “I figured you’d need something to drive since… I mean… shit. You know what I mean.”
“You didn’t have to do that,” I said, leaning my head back against the headrest. I rubbed the exhaustion from my eyes and stifled a yawn on the back of my hand. Bethany and I had one car, a two-year-old Maxima that I assumed was now totaled and covered in her blood. I had an old Harley that I’d bought from a buddy that I took on the road whenever I needed to get away. “I can get a car to drive, Quinn. You don’t have to buy me one.”
“Hey, it’s a company vehicle, so shut up and enjoy it,” he said, forcing a smile. His fingers were wrapped so tightly around the steering wheel that his knuckles were bone white. There was an edge to his voice that normally wasn’t there. Quinn was probably the most laid back guy I’d ever known. He could handle any combat situation with the best of them, but he wasn’t sure what to say to me. He glanced at me sideways. “How are you holding up?”
“Okay, I guess,” I said, blowing out a long breath. “Where’s my son?”
“Still at Emily’s.” Emily was Bethany’s older sister. She was married to a plumber named Hank and they had three kids of their own.
I asked, “Does Cody know about his mother?”
Quinn took a deep breath and blew it out slowly as his head turned from side to side. “No, Emily thinks you should tell him.”
“She’s right,” I said. “Take me to him.”
“Ryder, Cody is fine for now,” he said. “You need to go home and take a shower and grab a nap before you pick him up. I’m sorry, buddy, but you’re in no shape to see him right now.”
I started to argue, but realized that he was right. I had not slept or eaten in two days, and I looked and felt like shit. I was in no shape to see my son and tell him that his mommy was dead, at least not yet.
I gave Quinn time to merge onto 395-South toward my house in Falls Church, a neighborhood south of Arlington, before distracting him with a million questions. It was a short drive to the house, thirty minutes with the morning traffic headed mostly in the other direction toward DC. Once we settled in to the flow of traffic, I started asking question.
“What happened, Quinn?” I asked. “What do you know?”
“She was driving and lost control of the car,” he said, sighing through the words. “We had a hellacious rain storm here that night. The police think she might have swerved to miss something in the road and lost control. She went down a steep embankment and slammed into a tree.”
“What about the airbag?”
“The airbag deployed, but the force of the collision snapped her neck and caused too much internal damage to save her. The doctor at the ER said she never regained consciousness. She died without suffering.”
“Like that makes a fucking difference,” I said, gritting my teeth and shaking my head. People always said stupid shit like that after someone dies. At least they went quickly. At least they didn’t feel any pain. At least they went peacefully. Fuck that shit. There was no such thing as a peaceful death because the result to those left behind was still the same. The one they loved was—or used to love—was dead and gone. Period. End of story. How much they suffered in the process was a moot fucking point.
I asked, “What time did the accident happen.”
He glanced at his watch as if it had stopped the moment Bethany died. “Around 9:30 or 10, I think.”
“What the fuck was she doing out at 9:30 on a Sunday night in a fucking rainstorm?” I asked.
He shook his head without taking his eyes off the road. “I wish I knew, buddy.”
“Where was Cody?” I asked.
“Spending the night with her sister, Emily.”
“Son of a bitch,” I said, looking out the window at the world passing by. Un-fucking-believable. Cody was at Emily’s while his mother was out doing God knows what. Fuck that. God knew what she was doing and I had a pretty good idea, too.
“Any idea where she was coming from or heading to?”
Quinn nodded at the road ahead. “The wreck was on Old Post Road, about six miles west of here. She was heading in the direction of Falls Church. Maybe she was going to pick up Cody. Maybe she changed her mind about him spending the night with Emily.”
“Maybe. You have contacts with the police,” I said. “What do they know? Any sign of foul play or evidence that anyone was with her?”
“They don’t know anything, Ben,” Quinn said, his hands still tight on the steering wheel. “The medical examiner did a toxicology screen just as a matter of routine. There were no drugs or alcohol in her system. But…”
I turned to stare at him. “But what, Quinn?”
“She was pregnant, Ryder,” he said quietly. “About six weeks along, they think.”
I felt like I’d been hit between the eyes with a sledge hammer. I quickly did the math in my head. I couldn’t remember the last time Bethany and I had sex. I’d been gone for eight weeks. She was six weeks pregnant with another man’s baby.
Anger churned in my gut, mixing with the guilt and remorse that were already there. I started to sweat and felt like I was going to puke. I turned up the air conditioning and adjusted the air vents on the dash so they’d blow cold air in my face. I closed my eyes and breathed slowly and deeply.
I didn’t say anything else until Quinn pulled into the driveway of the little house that had once been my home. Now it was just a dark, empty shell, filled with bad memories, lies and deceit. I momentarily thought about burning it down.
As I pulled my duffel out of the back I noti
ced that the front porch was covered in brightly colored flowers and homemade cards. “The neighbors left those,” Quinn said, coming around to hand me the keys to the Rover. He had an Uber already waiting at the curb. “Guess they wanted you to know that you’re not alone.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
He gave me another hug and waited until I was inside the house before getting into the Uber. I stepped carefully across the assortment of cards and flowers and unlocked the door with my keys. I closed the door and dropped the duffel on the floor, then dragged my feet up the stairs to the master bedroom.
I kicked off my boots and stripped off my clothes and collapsed on the bed. I was asleep within seconds of my head hitting the pillow. The pillow that smelled like my dead wife.
Ryder
My cellphone buzzing across the nightstand jarred me awake. I lifted my head from the pillow my face was buried in and looked around for a moment. It took me a minute to remember where I was. I wasn’t in Mosul. I was home.
I pushed up onto my elbows and gave the phone a hateful look, as if I could scare it into silence. It continued to buzz unabated. I could see Quinn’s smiling image on the screen’s caller ID. I squinted at the digital clock on the dresser. It was 2:48 and the sun was shining brightly through the window. I had either been asleep six hours or thirty hours. Either way, it felt more like six minutes. All the sleep had managed to do was set the exhaustion even deeper into my bones.
My fingers fumbled with the phone and I rolled to my over to my back to answer it. “Ryder,” I said, rubbing my eyes.
“Hey, it’s Quinn,” he said. “You get any sleep?”
“Yeah, some. What’s up?”
“I thought I’d pick you up in an hour and go with you to make the arrangements.”
“Arrangements?”
Quinn hesitated. “The funeral arrangements?”
“Fuck,” I sighed. “I’m sorry, man. My brain’s not firing on all cylinders.”
