by Stash (v5)
“The other driver—eighty-two-year-old guy with severe dementia. James Anderson. Lives in Niskayuna, God knows where he was going in Morrissey. Tore through the guardrail and plunged down the ravine. Died in the hospital about an hour ago.”
“Jesus,” Brian said.
“I know it’s terrible, but I talked to the investigator and it does appear he crossed the line and hit Gwen. It’s not final, the report won’t be complete for a few days or a week, but it was pretty obvious just from the pattern of the glass spattering and the tire marks on the road. The blood tests aren’t back yet, either, but the fact that Gwen had marijuana in her system and in her possession might complicate things.”
“You mean she’ll be responsible—”
“I don’t mean anything yet, and we shouldn’t jump to any conclusions,” Roger said. “I’m just sharing with you information that I have. Everything’s going to be okay.”
“Gwen’s going to be very upset.”
“I know—we’re all upset.” Roger finished the last swallows of his beer. “I’d better go. I’ll call you in the morning and let you know what I find out about the arraignment.”
“Roger, wait a minute. Is this the right thing?” Brian asked. “I mean you representing us—not because we’re friends, but … You know that ounce Gwen had? She said half of it was for Marlene and you.”
Roger nodded. “I know, it’s like being a fucking teenager again. Except it’s not. The stakes always get higher. I can recommend someone else if you prefer. A colleague of mine is good with these kinds of cases.”
“No, I just wanted to get that out in the open,” Brian said. “I don’t want you to feel obligated to do this and don’t want you to get exposed if it comes to that.”
“Don’t worry about that. If you want me as your attorney, I’m there all the way for you.”
“It’s up to Gwen, but I’m sure she does.”
“I think this whole thing can be cleared up quickly,” Roger said. “Gwen’s a model citizen, you know that. It was just a wrong place at the wrong time kind of thing. I can see this just going away.”
After Roger left, Brian went back inside. He had to break the news about the other driver to Gwen. But she had gone upstairs with the kids and fallen asleep on her bed with the cold pack over her eyes. The kids sat on either side of her, silent and staring.
“Is Mommy dead?” Nate asked.
“Just sleeping, honey,” Brian reassured him.
“Yes, she’s just sleeping,” Nora repeated, echoing her father. “She’s not going to die, is she, Dad?”
“Of course not. Mom’s just tired. So let’s try to be quiet.”
“Be quiet, Nate,” Nora said.
“I am quiet,” he said too loudly.
“Shhhh,” said Brian.
“When will she wake up?” Nora asked.
“In the morning, probably.”
“She’s just sleeping.”
“That’s right.”
“Will we go to the lake tomorrow?”
“We’ll see,” said Brian. “Come on, let’s take a bath.”
He ran water in the whirlpool tub in the master bathroom. The tub was big enough to fit them both. Brian let Nate pour the bubble powder, which meant the kids were buried in mountains of suds. He didn’t bother with the soap and shampoo. They sang “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” and then Brian pretended to be a troll under the bridge while Nate and Nora played billy goats he wanted to eat.
As the tub drained, Nate started in with the numbers. “4-3-9-4-9-6-1, 4-3-9-4-9-6-1, 4-3-9-4-9-6-1, 4-3-9-4-9-6-1 …” He’d learned their phone number the other day and now had to repeat it a thousand times.
Brian helped the kids with their pajamas and they sat together on Nora’s bed while Brian read them each a book, Franklin Rides a Bike for Nate and a chapter in Nora’s American Girl book.
He had missed too many bedtimes recently due to late work nights and was happy tonight to perform the routine with the kids by himself. Against their fragrant hair and clean, warm bodies his stress eased like a muscle cramp fading. He shuttled back and forth between Nate’s and Nora’s rooms, stroking their faces, tucking them in an extra time, stealing kisses from their foreheads. Okay, Nate, you can repeat our phone number ten more times and then you have to go to sleep. Nora, I’ll sing the “Nina, Nina” lullaby one more time before saying good night.
And then they were asleep, and the house quiet. Brian went downstairs to the den to log on to work and check his messages, and the comfort and love that had filled him while putting the kids to bed vanished in the time it took to download his e-mail. He scanned his new messages until he saw the one from Teresa Mascetti. He opened it.
Brian: I hope your wife is okay—please let me know as soon as you can.
Just to update you on what happened after you left: No decision about the FDA application and the conversation went back and forth on whether Zuprone marketing practices would appear unethical if scrutinized closely by FDA … they want all documents and data collected since the new business development push began, plus a breakdown of prescriptions … a summarized report by Tues. Lots of work to do but we’ll get it done. P.S. I put your laptop back in your office, bottom drawer of desk.
—Teresa
He wrote this reply:
Gwen is bruised but okay. Thanks for the update. Guess I’ll be going into the office tomorrow to start sifting through docs.
—Brian
He was reading through his other e-mails when the reply came back. What was she doing working on a Friday night? Brian was surprised she didn’t have other plans.
Oops … I didn’t expect you’d be around this weekend and so I took most of the paperwork home with me. I can meet you at the office tomorrow if you let me know what time. Though it might be easier if you came to my place and we work on it together.
—T
On the Road to College
Jude watched Dana appear from behind the gas station and walk back to the van, her gait lacking its usual athletic grace.
“It was gross,” she said. “I couldn’t even go in, so I peed on the ground behind the back of the building.”
“Hope you didn’t squat in any poison ivy.”
“It’s just packed dirt and a bunch of tires.”
Jude finished filling the tank and they got back on the road.
“How was your run this morning? Do I detect a limp?”
“My first mile was okay, but then my knee started to hurt again. I’ve been e-mailing back and forth with the trainer and she’s going to do some tests when I’m up there.”
“All that trail running this summer probably didn’t help.”
“Dad, it’s cross-country. You’re supposed to be running on trails.”
Instead of Jude’s Lexus, they’d taken the restaurant’s van, a commercial Ford 150. They needed the van because Dana couldn’t leave for college without her snow globes, desk chair, the standing lamp with the shade her friends on the track team had autographed, a minifridge, two trunks of clothing, television, three boxes of books and notebooks, the new laptop, and who knows what else.
“I got you tea,” Jude said, pointing to the cups in the holders.
“I wanted a grande chai latte.”
“Very funny. Be thankful for the tea, the coffee’s like burnt toast.” Even with three packs of sugar and two creams it tasted bitter and stale, filtering through his stomach like spent motor oil.
Last night at Gull he had thrown a party for Dana, which lasted well past the usual 2:00 A.M. closing time. His daughter had worked in his restaurants longer than any of Jude’s regular employees, folding napkins when she was just four years old, arranging flower vases and filling sugar bowls at age ten, setting tables at thirteen. Throughout her senior year and over this past summer, she worked Saturday nights to earn spending money for college. Jude gave her the option and Dana chose busing tables over the more glamorous and visible hostess position. She didn’t like to dress up and d
idn’t seek the limelight, but everyone at Gull was friends with her—boss’s daughter or not—and the party rocked, especially after the dining room stopped serving and Jude hung the sign on the door that said CLOSED FOR PRIVATE PARTY. Many of his staff used the open bar as a free ticket to get hammered, but not Dana. Not his good girl. Not his runner.
It pleased him to see so many people show affection and good wishes for his daughter. A few friends from school came as well—other girls on the track team whom he warned the bartender not to serve. No boys. As far as Jude knew, Dana had never had a boyfriend, although last year she’d hung around with this big kid Sean for a month or so before the boy’s father was transferred to a new job in another state. Other than that, nobody. He hoped she would have told him if there had been anyone.
Jude had always encouraged her to be open about her feelings; he never hesitated to answer her questions, even the tough ones. He reminded her to say no to drugs, counseled her to be careful and mature about sex—when her time came, that is. He helped her with homework, he went to her track meets. He operated from instinct rather than expertise and wondered how many ways he must have failed. Many, he was afraid.
When she was seven, he explained to her about puberty and how her body would change. By nine, she knew the gross details about sex. Her word at the time: gross. He’d been fortunate in picking the right pediatrician, a woman who took a personal interest in Dana and spent time at her yearly checkups talking about women’s bodies and how Dana’s would change and how she might feel about it. But there were many times she could have used a mother, like the night when she was fourteen and came out of the restroom at Gull and told her father she’d gotten her period, but was having bad cramps. He took her upstairs to his office and she rested on the couch curled like a shrimp, holding her belly. He covered her with a blanket. She moaned. He didn’t know what to do. She’d never complained before about pain when she got her period. Was this normal or the sign of a serious problem?
“Daddy, it hurts.”
“Do you want me to call the doctor?”
“I want it to stop. Make it stop.”
The emergency room—or two aspirin? He felt her forehead: no fever. She didn’t have the chills. Her eyes were clear, pupils set.
He picked up the phone and called downstairs and asked Angela, the hostess, to come up to his office.
When Angela arrived she asked Dana what the pain felt like.
“A lot of pressure.”
“Is your flow heavy or light?”
“It just started, so it’s not that heavy.”
“Poor thing,” Angela said. “Sounds like menstrual cramps. Have you ever had them before?”
Dana shook her head.
“Welcome to the club. Try two ibuprofen and a warm bath, that’s what I do. If the pain eases, then you’ll know what it was.”
She turned back to Jude. “See how easy you men have it?”
Right. Easy to be a single father with a teenage daughter. Might as well be a horse trying to parent a bird.
The challenges never ended, even with years of experience. Like now, driving on the Northway to send his daughter off to college, trying to articulate what he needed to say.
“I just want to remind you that you’re going to have a lot of freedom in college. I know you’ll make wise choices, but there can be a lot of distractions, too. I don’t want to hear you’ve become the poster child for campus party girls.”
The eye roll response. “I already have a lot of freedom.”
“You’ll be exposed to a new group of friends. I know what it’s like going to college. There’s lots of drinking, drugs are available.”
“There’s drinking and drugs everywhere, Dad. I’ve even seen them around Gull.”
“Who? What have you seen?”
“I’m not naming names.”
“No, you don’t need to.”
“Although who’s that guy Aaron?”
“You met Aaron?”
“At the party. Well, in the kitchen anyway. He was standing in the doorway eating.”
“Did he know who you were—I mean, my daughter?”
“I don’t think so, but who is he?”
“A new produce supplier,” Jude said, the first thing that came to his mind.
Aaron’s presence at Gull last night was Jude’s fault because one of the well-wishers at Dana’s party had been Brandon Marks, a regular customer at Gull and a personal client of Jude’s who phoned him the afternoon of the party and asked for more than Jude had on hand. He had to call Aaron to drive it down. Jude let him grab something to eat in the kitchen before heading back but didn’t invite him to join the party.
Dana said, “He asked me if I wanted to smoke a bowl.”
Jude slapped the steering wheel. “See, this is exactly the kind of situation you need to watch out for. A guy with a bad offer.”
“He seemed harmless enough.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. Don’t let anyone pressure you to change your good judgment.”
“Dad, have we had this conversation like fifty times already?”
“That’s because I don’t know if you’re listening. I’m not saying you should turn down a beer at a party, but you don’t have to be one of those students who gets roaring drunk and passes out. You don’t have to be the pothead. There are plenty of other people to play that role. You can nurse a drink along, you can still have a good time.”
“Have you ever seen me drunk?”
He hadn’t. She was an athlete, always training. He doubted she’d ever gotten high. His daughter hadn’t inherited her mother’s deadly weakness for excess.
Yet he pressed on with his mission. “You’re going to meet other boys, and you’ll be attracted to them.”
“Not that they’ll be attracted to me back.”
“Don’t fool yourself. You’re a beautiful young woman and like I said, you’re going to meet new people from all over the country. It’s going to be very different from high school.”
She made her “yeah right” face, the one that made him feel as if she were pointing to her eye and saying, “Hello? Have you seen this?”
He was sorry for the mark on her face and how it had shaped her life. A darkened eye that was the first impression she made on anyone. How many people had assumed he was beating her? How often did she answer the same questions, hear the same stupid jokes? She shouldered it, mostly with dignity, although in January she was scheduled to have surgery to shut off the veins feeding it, and the doctors said the color should fade and swelling go down.
“You remember how babies get made, right?” he said. “You know to be safe.”
“Dad, please.”
“I’m just saying—be prepared, use your head. Don’t rush into things.”
“Why aren’t you reminding me to hand in my research papers on time?”
He turned and smiled at her. “Because I know you will.”
“Well, trust me, I’m not rushing into anything.”
“I just want you to remember that you can tell me anything. There’s nothing you need to hide from me.”
“Like the same way you don’t need to hide anything from me?”
Her comment came from nowhere. He didn’t answer.
“At least with me out of the house you can bring your girlfriends home now. You do, don’t you—try to hide them from me?”
She held her chin up when she spoke, as if challenging him, but still her cheeks flushed.
She went on before he could respond. “You did it when I was little and you still do it today. You think I don’t see women coming in the restaurant asking for you? Do I ask where you’ve been all night when you stay out? Why shouldn’t I hide things from you if you’re going to hide them from me?”
It’s true, he never brought women home. His last overnight woman had been Gwen, years ago. Technically she had been at his house as a babysitter, at least until he got home and they ended up on the couch. He remembered Dana com
ing downstairs and waking them, asking Gwen: Are you going to be my new mommy? He’d never forget his daughter’s face at that moment—as if she’d been thrashing in deep water about to drown and help finally had arrived. From mortal terror to sweet salvation. A look he never wanted to see again.
It wouldn’t have been right to bring women home, having Dana get to know them and start thinking, wondering, yearning: Will this one be my new mom? Because none of them were going to be.
“I never brought anyone home because I wanted to protect you. I didn’t want you thinking that a woman friend of mine was going to be your new mother.”
“Who said I wanted a new mother? I’ve managed pretty well without one.”
“It was different when you were younger. It would have been a natural reaction on your part.”
Jude passed a double tractor trailer on a long uphill, flooring the gas pedal to give the van momentum. He said, “Do you know who I saw recently? Her name is Gwen; you probably don’t remember her, but she used to work for me at the Patriot and she would help you with your homework sometimes.”
“I think I remember her. Why?”
“Nothing, just thought I’d mention it. She came in the restaurant, it reminded me of when you were little.”
“Are you going out with her or something?”
“No, nothing like that,” Jude said. Then added, “You see, I’m not trying to hide anything; it’s just that adults have personal lives, too, separate from their children.”
“If we’re not going to talk about your personal life, then why should we talk about mine? I’m an adult now, too. I’m eighteen.” As if to emphasize her right to privacy, she put in her music earbuds and turned her gaze out the window. Conversation over.
Maybe he had pressed her too hard. Another parenting mishap. He waited a few seconds, then said, “I don’t have anyone I want to bring home. The house is going to be very quiet without you around.” Quiet without the daughter he had not wanted, yet the one he’d gotten anyway, the one who’d helped him stay in control of his life.
