In Short Measures

by Michael Ruhlman

  As soon as she was off the phone, she poured herself a second cup of coffee and sat with Frank, who remained stunned, still as a statue at the dining room table.

  “Karen, I’m so sorry. What was I thinking, why did I ask him that? Goddammit. He can hurt us now. I’ve got to come clean when the police get here. It’s the only way to protect you.”

  “But Frank, you heard him. Protect me? It’s done. Perjury and obstruction of justice. And you were found to be legally drunk at the scene. We’ll be destroyed, Frank.” She could feel her heart beating in her throat.

  “It’s our only hope of saving you. You did what you did on impulse, on love. And Dan now knows everything. You saw him, you saw his eyes. He could go after everything. If I come clean, he’s powerless.”

  “No, Frank, you heard what he said. We both go to jail, our family is devastated, who knows what happens to Nick?”

  “Why, why, why did I speak?”

  “Frank, no, it was good. Look at me.” She gripped his wrist. “It might have saved us.”

  Now he did look at her.

  “Dan told me what to do,” she said.

  “What?”

  “He gave me some advice and I’m going to take it.”

  “He gave you advice?”

  “He was actually just making a very shrewd observation of his past experience. Lord knows in his line of work, he sees a lot.” And she went on to explain what he had said about conspirators. “It was obvious what he was doing,” she told Frank. She reiterated that she knew what she was going to do.

  “We’re in this one hundred percent now, and we have to act,” she said. Karen still couldn’t tell if Frank was processing this—she was always the decisive one. He weighed things; she pounced.

  And then they sat in silence—Karen upright in her chair, staring forward at the wall, Frank elbows on the table, his face in his hands. A full minute of silence. Then another. Gradually, Frank grew aware of Karen’s breathing. He sat back in his chair, taking a quick glance at her as he did so. She continued to stare at the wall. She breathed through her nose as her already thin lips appeared clamped shut, as if to keep something in. She snorted and said, “God,” and then, “Dammit!”

  He turned to look at her.

  “What were you thinking, Frank?”

  He could only exhale and stare at his lap.

  “How could you?”

  These questions could come only from Karen and they had no answer that wasn’t sinister in its mundaneness. Now she struggled to resist tears. The shock of last night, the fatigue, the meeting with Dan, the calls to insurance and law offices moments ago left her only with how to proceed with the day, which would consist, now that there was time to think, of answering the question, How did they get here?

  “Why?” she all but shouted. “How could you drive drunk like that? Did you even consider that you were going to pick up our son? That you were driving drunk? With our son in the car?”

  Frank could only close his eyes and focus on his own breathing.

  Softly and to herself: “Jesus.” Again, “Why?” And again, “Why?”

  “I thought I would be all right. I didn’t want you going out.”

  “You thought it would be all … right … to drive drunk with our son in the front seat in a blizzard?”

  “Karen,” he shouted back. “Nick is not the issue here!” He leaned close to her and whispered, “I killed a woman last night. A woman is dead because of me.” He leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling, incredulous.

  “As I’m well aware, Frank. And it’s not just about you. We’re all in this now. And from this moment forward, I am the face of it. Never again say that.”

  “I killed her.”

  “Frank! I’m serious. Never, never, never say those words from this moment forward.”

  “But it’s the truth, Karen. I killed her, and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I can’t believe I’m hearing these words come out of my mouth.”

  She shook her head and snorted.

  “Oh, Jesus, Karen, God, I’m so sorry. The poor woman, and now you, and Nick.” Frank put his hands over his face, rubbed his eyes.

  She snorted again but softened. She held his wrist. “Look at me, Frank. Look at me. Say it again.”

  Long pause. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I know you are, my love.”

  “Oh, God, thank you.” He took her hand and kissed it, kept it against his lips as he said, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

  She said, “Shhhh.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She let him continue to say it until the words stopped meaning anything.

  She waited. “Okay?” she asked.

  He looked at her and exhaled as if a crying jag had played itself out, but there had been no tears.

  “Okay,” she continued. “You’re going to say you’re sorry one more time. It’s going to be to Nick, and then you’re done.” Frank seemed to understand. “From this moment on, we are in this one hundred percent together. I was driving. I killed her. Tell me it’s okay. Tell me it was an accident. Tell me it could have been anyone. At any time. That automobiles kill thousands or tens of thousands. Tell me that it was an accident. Tell me how important it is that I not blame myself. Understand? This is as bad as bad can be, Frank. We cannot falter or we will lose everything.”

  Karen rubbed her face, pulled her wild hair tightly back and then let it fall loose.

  “Okay, we have to talk to Nick. Officer Williams will be here in an hour.”

  Frank said, “Nick. How is this going to affect him?”

  “He’ll understand.”

  “It goes against everything we teach him.”

  “The situation has changed, Frank. We are in dire circumstances. The rules no longer apply.”

  “But what’s he going to think?”

  “He’s going to have to realize the world isn’t as simple and black and white as it is in his video games.” He looked away, and when he looked back to her, she said, “Frank, I will not let you go to prison.”

  Frank shook his head. After several more moments, Karen took a deep breath and said, “Okay.”

  *

  Karen sat on the edge of Nick’s bed and Frank pulled the desk chair close and sat. Karen squeezed Nick’s shoulder until he came to. Then he sat up and looked at them, scared, like a cornered animal.

  Karen said, “Honey, we need to tell you what the situation is.” She watched him close his eyes and sigh, clearly remembering just then the situation. “I need your attention. Go use the bathroom, splash some water on your face.”

  Without a word, he left the bed and did as he was told. Karen and Frank looked to one another but didn’t speak until Nick returned and got back under the covers, sitting against the headboard and pillows almost as if sick and waiting to be ministered to. Karen reiterated the events of the night before, pretty much as Frank had, and concluded with their intentions.

  “You’re asking me to lie? To the police?” Nick said.

  “I’m bringing you, very reluctantly, into the adult world, honey,” she said. “I’m asking you to protect us. Dad and I have created a story that we have to stick to one hundred, one thousand percent or we will be in very big trouble. Permanent big trouble.”

  Nick looked away.

  “Which is why I did what I did,” Karen continued, touching Nick’s arm so that he would turn back to her. “I started this. I began the lie. To keep Dad out of all but certain trouble, trouble that would take him away from us for a long time. I had to do what I did to save Dad. Nick, he’d have gone to jail, a pretty ugly one, and for who knows how long, and our family could have been ruined in other ways as well.” She squeezed his forearm. “And it still could. Which is why I need you to be the extraordinary actor that you are and lie on our behalf. I beg you to forgive me for having to do this. Please believe me when I say that everything I’m doing now, from the moment I realized the trouble we were in, I’m doing to save us. Sending Dad to ja
il will not bring that poor woman back.”

  Nick then snorted and rocked and turned red, and Karen didn’t know if he was going to cry or pummel the pillow he now clutched to his chest.

  “This is Dad’s fault,” Nick said, not looking at Frank.

  “Nick, you can’t say that, and you can’t even think it.”

  “Well, I’m right. He told me he was driving drunk.”

  “He was, and he knows how wrong that was.”

  “So it was his fault. And you’re taking the blame.”

  Karen looked to Frank, who leaned forward and put his face in his hands. Karen turned back to Nick and said, “No. I’m putting myself on the line on behalf of all of us.”

  “But if he hadn’t gotten drunk, this wouldn’t have happened.”

  “Now listen to me,” Karen said, again reaching for his forearm to squeeze it, as if to indent her words into his body. “In the kid world, there are all kinds of absolutes. Lying is wrong. Smoking is bad. Period. No ifs or buts. The adult world is a lot more complicated.”

  Nick grimaced and looked away.

  “Hey,” Karen said angrily. “Here’s an if for you. What if I had let you sleep over at Oliver’s? Remember, you asked? But I didn’t want you to because I knew you and Oliver would be up till dawn if you stayed the night and then you’d be wiped out on Christmas Eve. So I said no. Your dad argued on your behalf, but I made my case and he ultimately agreed. So, in this way, it’s my fault.”

  He wrinkled his nose as if smelling something bad.

  “If I’d let you sleep over, then Dad wouldn’t have been driving home at eleven thirty.”

  Nick frowned and looked away.

  “If you hadn’t been ready when Dad arrived, the woman Dad hit would have been long gone by the time he got home. Remember last weekend I picked you up from Noah’s, it took you twenty minutes to find your shoes? That would have changed the outcome of last night. That’s how precarious, how random and unknowable events are in our world. Say you had lost your shoes last night, and Dad had waited twenty minutes for you to come out, and then the same awful thing had happened, would it then have been your fault for having lost your shoes?”

  “Dad was driving drunk.”

  “Yes. He’s not the first, and he’s more responsible than most people most of the time, as you surely know. And, yes, the law would hold him responsible for what happened, not you for being on time, not me for disallowing a sleepover, not the woman out walking in a blizzard in the middle of the night. Dad. And he would go to prison for what he did. Do you want your dad to go to prison?”

  “No.” Nick wiped tears from his eyes.

  “Neither do I. That’s why I did what I did and I pray you understand and forgive us that we have brought you into what is for us a very dangerous situation. Will you help us? Because now I could go to jail for what I’ve done.”

  A look of horror came over his face. He threw his arms around her, pressed his head against her.

  “Shhh, it’s going to be all right if we stick to our story. Can you try to help?”

  “Mom,” Nick says, pulling away. “Can I get in trouble?”

  “No, absolutely not. Nothing will happen to you. You are still in the kid world, you’re a juvenile according to the law, and Dad and I will take all responsibility for this before we’d let anything, anything at all, happen to you. Trust me, I will not let anything happen to you. You are not in the slippery and treacherous world we’re in.” She paused and said, “According to the law anyway.”

  Long pause. “Nick, I’m asking you to grow up fast now. Because this is serious. Now, are you willing to help?”

  He nodded.

  “Okay, here’s what I told the police, this is the official public record and you have to commit it to your brain so hard that it becomes real. Okay?” She waited and repeated, “Okay?”

  Nick nodded.

  “You’re going to become an actor like you’ve never been before. Do you think you can do that?

  He nodded gravely.

  “Okay, here’s what happened, and we’re never going to utter anything other than this, because this is what happened. Do you understand?”

  He nodded with determination.

  And then Karen went through every hour of the day, hour by hour, from when she picked him up at school to when she and Frank and he left for the Thompsons.

  Then she asked him to repeat the events of the day, everything from the time he arrived home from school to the moment of the accident. Then she asked him questions about his actions, at each stage. She did this three times until his third go-round was identical to the second and without hesitations or pauses.

  “Okay,” she said. She hugged him and said, “My brave boy.” Then she stood, looked at her watch, looked at Frank.

  Frank didn’t stand but instead asked Nick, “Can you hang tight here till ten? That’s when the police officer, Officer Williams, will be arriving.” Karen looked to Frank, nodded, and said, “He should come down just as he is. Pajama pants and T-shirt, as if we’d just woken him up.” She said to Nick, “Don’t even brush your hair.”

  Frank stood, squeezed Nick’s shoulder. “Okay?”

  Nick looked terrified but he nodded.

  “Don’t worry,” Karen said. “It’s all right to be afraid and nervous when you talk to Officer Williams. What happened is horrible for everyone, and Officer Williams will be sympathetic to this. And as long as you stick to what happened, which we’ve just been through three times, there’s no way Officer Williams will know anything other than what you tell him.” Karen paused. “Okay?”

  Nick, holding his mother’s gaze, nodded. Karen and Frank both nodded back.

  *

  When Sharon Talbott gave them the full report the following Wednesday, Karen was relieved to see that Officer Williams had recorded how distraught she had been when he’d arrived that Saturday morning, that she had shown genuine contrition, concern for the victim and the victim’s family, a desire to meet the family and to attend the services.

  It had been her first question to Officer Williams, who pulled up at 10 a.m., parking on the wrong side of the street at their front walk.

  “Have you reached the family?” she asked.

  He said that they had, but before they got into these details, he needed to take a statement from Nick.

  Officer Williams, red-eyed and looking sleep-deprived, listened to Karen explain how afraid Nick would likely be, that this was traumatic, and so Officer Williams consented to letting them sit in, provided they didn’t speak.

  Nick appeared, and remained, shaken throughout the questioning. Nonetheless, he performed without a hitch or stutter, always answering “I don’t remember” when anything was unclear; he was fourteen, and much was unclear. It didn’t take long, and Officer Williams excused Nick. Only then did he go into the details of the victim’s family insofar as he was allowed. Karen pressed hard for everything—such as, were children involved?

  Officer Williams explained that he couldn’t give them the woman’s name, but they had reached the woman’s sister, who lived out of state. The victim—always “the victim,” and Karen winced when he said it—apparently lived alone in an apartment in the neighborhood, did not have children, and indeed seemed to have only this sister and brother-in-law as family. They would be driving up and arriving tonight.

  “Will you please, please give them my name and number and address?” she said. “If they can bear it, I need to tell them to their faces how sorry, how terribly sorry I am, how sorry—” and here she broke off, weeping at last, tears dripping through the fingers covering her face, weeping for the woman and her family and this terrible mess, exhausted and frightened, tears she did not try to restrain, tears that intensified until Frank hugged her with genuine concern. When she stopped, Frank handed her his clean, folded handkerchief. She wiped her face and blew her nose.

  Officer Williams said that he would convey this, but the victim’s family was under no obligation
to contact her. He explained that after the sister confirmed the victim’s identity, the victim’s relatives would decide whether to press charges. Williams advised them to find a lawyer. “It’s more than likely that opportunistic lawyers will reach out to the victim’s family offering their services for a percentage,” Williams noted. “Even in the case of a non-vindictive family, lawyers can be persuasive. So retain the best attorney you can find.”

  Officer Williams, a skeptic last night, seemed now to be on their side, in the new light of day, in their tidy living room, a festive Christmas tree lit and in front of a huge mullioned window looking out toward the street. It certainly couldn’t have seemed like the home of felons. Karen had won his sympathy.

  The report, he told them at the door on leaving, would go to the Cuyahoga County prosecutor’s office for investigation. The lawyer they chose would know to be in touch with the prosecutor’s office.

  “Officer,” Karen said in their foyer when he’d opened the front door to leave. He turned back. “There’s nothing happy here, but I would like to thank you for your kindness and wish you and your family a … a peaceful Christmas.”

  Officer Williams touched the brim of his hat and said to Karen, “I wish you the same.”

  And then he left. He would call again on Monday, the day after Christmas, to tell them the date and time of the funeral service. They would see him again days later at the arraignment Friday in a courtroom at City Hall, as the arresting officer, forever an ominous reminder to her of the crimes and the mechanism that could spring disaster on them at an instant.