“Is Mom home?” she asked.
“No.”
“I need to talk to her.”
“About what?”
“Nothing.”
I nodded. When Kelly had something on her mind, it was usually her mother she talked to. Even though she was only eight, she had questions about boys, and love, and the changes she knew were coming in a few years. These were, I had to admit, not my areas of expertise.
“Don’t be mad,” she said.
“I’m not mad.”
“Some things are just easier to talk to Mom about. But I love you guys the same.”
“Good to know.”
“I can’t get to sleep until she gets home.”
That made two of us.
“Put your head down on the pillow. You might nod off anyway.”
“I won’t.”
“Turn off the light and give it a shot.”
Kelly reached over and turned off her lamp. I kissed her forehead and gently closed the door as I slipped out of her room.
Another hour went by. I tried Sheila’s cell six more times. I was back and forth between my office basement and the kitchen. The trip took me past the front door, so I could keep glancing out to the driveway.
Just after eleven, standing in the kitchen, I tried her friend Ann Slocum. Someone picked up long enough to stop the ringing, then replaced the receiver. Ann’s husband, Darren, I was guessing. That would be his style. But then again, I was calling late.
Next I called Sheila’s other friend, Belinda. They’d worked together years ago, for the library, but stayed close even after their career paths went in different directions. Belinda was a real estate agent now. Not the greatest time to be in that line of work. A lot more people wanted to sell these days than buy. Despite Belinda’s unpredictable schedule, she and Sheila managed to get together for lunch every couple of weeks, sometimes with Ann, sometimes not.
Her husband, George, answered sleepily, “Hello?”
“George, Glen Garber. Sorry to call so late.”
“Glen, jeez, what time is it?”
“It’s late, I know. Can I talk to Belinda?”
I heard some muffled chatter, some shifting about, then Belinda came on the line. “Glen, is everything okay?”
“Sheila’s really late getting back from her night class thing, and she’s not answering her cell. You haven’t heard from her, have you?”
“What? What are you talking about? Say that again?” Belinda sounded instantly panicked.
“Has Sheila been in touch? She’s usually back from her course by now.”
“No. When did you last talk to her?”
“This morning,” I said. “You know Sally, at the office?”
“Yeah.”
“Her dad passed away and I called Sheila to let her know.”
“So you haven’t talked to her pretty much all day?” There was an edge in Belinda’s voice. Not accusing, exactly, but something.
“Listen, I didn’t call to get you all upset. I just wondered if you’d heard from her is all.”
“No, no, I haven’t,” Belinda said. “Glen, please have Sheila call me the minute she gets in, okay? I mean, now that you’ve got me worrying about her, too, I need to know she got in okay.”
“I’ll tell her. Tell George I’m sorry about waking you guys up.”
“For sure you’ll have her call me.”
“Promise,” I said.
I hung up, went upstairs to Kelly’s door and opened it a crack. “You asleep?” I asked, poking my head in.
From the darkness, a chirpy “Nope.”
“Throw on some clothes. I’m going to look for Mom. And I can’t leave you alone in the house.”
She flicked on her bedside lamp. I thought she’d argue, tell me she was old enough to stay in the house, but instead she asked, “What’s happened?”
“I don’t know. Probably nothing. My guess is your mom’s having a coffee and can’t hear her phone. But maybe she got a flat tire or something. I want to drive the route she usually takes.”
“Okay,” she said instantly, throwing her feet onto the floor. She wasn’t worried. This was an adventure. She pulled some jeans on over her pajamas. “I need two secs.”
I went back downstairs and got my coat, made sure I had my cell. If Sheila did call the house once we were gone, my cell would be next. Kelly hopped into the truck, did up her belt, and said, “Is Mom going to be in trouble?”
I glanced over at her as I turned the ignition. “Yeah. She’s going to be grounded.”
Kelly giggled. “As if,” she said.
Once we were out of the driveway and going down the street, I asked Kelly, “Did your mom say anything about what she was going to do today? Was she going to see her parents and then changed her mind? Did she mention anything at all?”
Kelly frowned. “I don’t think so. She might have gone to the drugstore.”
That was only a trip around the corner. “Why do you think she was going there?”
“I heard her talking to someone on the phone the other day about paying for some.”
“Some what?”
“Drugstore stuff.”
That made no sense to me and I dismissed it.
We weren’t on the road five minutes before Kelly was out cold, her head resting on her shoulder. If my head was in that position for more than a minute, it would leave me with a crick in my neck for a month.
I drove up Schoolhouse Road and got on the ramp to 95 West. It was the quickest route between Milford and Bridgeport, especially at this time of the night, and the most likely one for Sheila to have taken. I kept glancing over at the eastbound highway, looking for a Subaru wagon pulled off to the side of the road.
This was a long shot, at best. But doing something, anything, seemed preferable to sitting at home and worrying.
I continued to scan the other side of the highway, but not only didn’t I see Sheila’s car, I didn’t see any cars pulled over to the shoulder at all.
I was almost through Stratford, about to enter the Bridgeport city limits, when I saw some lights flashing on the other side. Not on the road, but maybe down an off-ramp. I leaned on the gas, wanting to hurry to the next exit so I could turn around and head back on the eastbound lanes.
Kelly continued to sleep.
I exited 95, crossed the highway and got back on. As I approached the exit where I thought I’d seen lights, I spotted a police car, lights flashing, blocking the way. I slowed, but the cop waved me on. I wasn’t able to see far enough down the ramp to see what the problem was, and with Kelly in the truck, pulling over to the side of a busy highway did not seem wise.
So I got off at the next exit, figuring I could work my way back on local streets, get to the ramp from the bottom end. It took me about ten minutes. The cops hadn’t set up a barricade at the bottom of the ramp, since no one would turn up there anyway. I pulled the car over to the shoulder at the base of the ramp and got my first real look at what had happened.
It was an accident. A bad one. Two cars. So badly mangled it was difficult to tell what they were or what might have happened. Closer to me was a car that appeared to be a station wagon, and the other one, a sedan of some kind, was off to the side. It looked as though the wagon had been broadsided by the sedan.
Sheila drove a wagon.
Kelly was still sound asleep, and I didn’t want to wake her. I got out of the truck, closed the door without slamming it, and approached the ramp. There were three police cars at the scene, a couple of tow trucks and a fire engine.
As I got closer, I was able to get a better look at the cars involved in the accident. I began to feel shaky. I glanced back at my truck, made sure I could see Kelly in the passenger window.
Before I could take another step, however, a police officer stood in my way.
“I’m sorry, sir,” he said. “You have to stay back.”
“What kind of car is that?” I asked.
“Sir, please—”
“What kind of car? The wagon, the closest car.”
“A Subaru,” he said.
“Plate,” I said.
“I’m sorry, sir?”
“I need to see the plate.”
“Do you think you know whose car this is?” the cop asked.
“Let me see the plate.”
He allowed me to approach, took me to a vantage point that allowed me to see the back of the wagon. The license plate was clearly visible.
I recognized the combination of numbers and letters.
“Oh Jesus,” I said, feeling weak.
“Sir?”
“This is my wife’s car.”
“What’s your name, sir?”
“Glen Garber. This car, it’s my wife’s car. That’s her plate. Oh my God.”
The cop took a step closer to me.
“Is she okay?” I asked, my entire body feeling as though I were holding on to a low-voltage live wire. “Which hospital have they taken her to? Do you know? Can you find out? I have to go there. I have to get there right now.”
“Mr. Garber—” the cop said.
“Milford Hospital?” I said. “No, wait, Bridgeport Hospital is closer.” I turned to run back to the truck.
“Mr. Garber, your wife hasn’t been taken to the hospital.”
I stopped. “What?”
“She’s still in the car. I’m afraid that—”
“What are you saying?”
I looked at the mangled remains of the Subaru. The cop had to be wrong. There were no paramedics there; none of the nearby firefighters were using the Jaws of Life to get to the driver.
I pushed past him, ran to the car, got right up to the caved-in driver’s side, looked through what was left of the door.
“Sheila,” I said. “Sheila, honey.”
The window glass had shattered into a million pieces the size of raisins. I began to brush them from her shoulder, pick them from her blood-matted hair. I kept saying her name over and over again.
“Sheila? Oh God, please, Sheila …”
“Mr. Garber.” The officer was standing right behind me. I felt a hand on my shoulder. “Please, sir, come with me.”
“You have to get her out,” I said. The smell of gasoline was wafting up my nostrils and I could hear something dripping.
“We’re going to do that, I promise you. Please, come with me.”
“She’s not dead. You have to—”
“Please, sir, I’m afraid she is. There were no vital signs.”
“No, you’re wrong.” I reached in and put my arm around her head. It nodded over to one side.
That was when I knew.
The cop put his hand firmly on my arm and said, “You have to move away from the car, sir. It’s not safe to stand here.” He pulled me forcibly away and I didn’t fight him. Half a dozen car lengths away, I had to stop, bend over, and put my hands on my knees.
“Are you okay, sir?”
Looking down at the pavement, I said, “My daughter’s in my truck. Can you see her? Is she asleep?”
“I can just see the top of her head, yes. Looks like she is.”
I took several shaky breaths, straightened back up. Said “Oh my God” probably ten times. The cop stood there, patiently, waiting for me to pull it together enough for him to ask me some questions.
“Your wife’s name is Sheila, sir? Sheila Garber?”
“That’s right.”
“Do you know what she was doing tonight? Where she was going?”
“She has a course tonight. Bridgeport Business College. She’s learning accounting and other things to help me in my business. What happened? What happened here? How did this happen? Who the hell was driving that other car? What did he do?”
The cop lowered his head. “Mr. Garber, this appears to have been an alcohol-related accident.”
“What? Drunk driving?”
“It would appear so, yes.”
Anger began to mix in with the shock and grief. “Who was driving that car? What stupid son of a bitch—”
“There were three people in the other car. One survived. A young boy in the back seat. His father and brother were the two fatalities.”
“My God, what kind of man gets behind the wheel drunk with his boys in the car and—”
“That’s not exactly how it looks, sir,” the cop said.
I stared at him, trying to figure out what he was getting at. Then it hit me. It wasn’t the father driving. It was one of the sons.
“One of his boys was driving drunk?”
“Mr. Garber, please. I need you to calm down for me. I need you to listen. It appears it was your wife who caused the accident.”
“What?”
“She’d driven up the ramp the wrong way, then just stopped her vehicle about halfway, parking it across the road, no lights visible. We think she may have fallen asleep.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“And then,” he said, “when the other car came off the highway, probably doing about sixty, he’d have been almost on your wife’s car before he saw it and could put on the brakes.”
“But the other driver, he was drunk, right?”
“You’re not getting me here, Mr. Garber. If you don’t mind my asking, sir, did your wife have a habit of drinking and driving? Usually, by the time someone actually gets into an accident, they’ve been taking chances for quite some—”
Sheila’s car burst into flames.
TWO
I’d lost track of just how long, exactly, I’d been standing there, staring into Sheila’s closet. Two minutes? Five? Ten?
I hadn’t poked my head in here much in the last two weeks. I’d been avoiding it. Right after her death, of course, I’d had to do some rooting around. The funeral home needed an outfit, even though the casket was going to be closed. They’d done the best they could with Sheila. The broken glass had torn into her like buckshot. And the subsequent explosion, even though it did not fully engulf the car’s interior before the firefighters doused the vehicle, had only made the undertaker’s job more challenging. They’d sculpted and molded Sheila into something that bore a remote resemblance to how she’d looked in life.
But I kept thinking about what it would do to Kelly, to see her mother that way at the service, looking only superficially like the woman she loved. And how everyone would be prompted to say how good she looked, what an amazing job the funeral home had done, which would only serve to remind us of what they’d had to work with.
We’ll go with a closed casket, I’d said.
The director said that was what they would do, then, but they still wanted me to provide an outfit.
And so I selected a dark blue suit jacket and matching skirt, underwear, shoes. Sheila had more than a few pairs, and I picked a medium-height pair of pumps. I’d had a pair with higher heels in my hands at one point, then put them back because Sheila had always found that pair uncomfortable.
When I was building her this walk-in closet by shaving a few feet off the end of our large bedroom, she’d said to me, “And just so we’re clear, this closet will be completely mine. Yours, that tiny, pitiful, phone-booth-sized thing over there, is all you’re ever going to need, and there’ll be no encroachment into my territory whatsoever.”
“What I’m worried about,” I’d said, “is if I built you an airplane hangar you could fill it, too. Your stuff expands to the space allotted for it. Honest to God, Sheila, how many purses does one person need?”
“How many power tools does one man need that do the same job?”
“Just tell me, right now, there’ll be no spillover. That you’ll never, ever, put anything of yours in my closet, even if it is no bigger than a minibar.”
Instead of answering directly, she’d slipped her arms around me, pushed me up against the wall, and said, “You know what I think this closet is big enough for?”
“I’m not sure. If you tell me, I could get out my measuring tape and check.”
“Oh, there’s definitely something I want to measure.”
Another time.
I stood, now, looking into the closet, wondering what to do with all these things. Maybe it was too soon to think about this. These blouses and sweaters and dresses and skirts and shoes and purses and shoeboxes stuffed with letters and mementos, and all of them carrying her scent, the essence of her that she had left behind.
It made me mournful. And it made me sick.
“Goddamn you,” I said under my breath.
I could remember studying, back in my college days, something about the stages of grief. Bargaining, denial, acceptance, anger, depression, and not necessarily in that order. What I couldn’t recall now was whether these were the stages you supposedly went through upon learning you were going to die yourself, or when someone close to you had passed away. It all seemed like horseshit to me back then, and pretty much did now. But I couldn’t deny there was one overwhelming feeling I’d been having these last few days since we’d put Sheila in the ground.
Anger.
I was devastated, of course. I couldn’t believe Sheila was gone, and I was shattered without her. She’d been the love of my life, and now I’d lost her. Sure, I was in grief. When I could find a moment to myself, certain that Kelly would not walk in on me, I gave myself the luxury of falling apart. I was in shock, I felt empty, I was depressed.
But what I really was, was furious. Seething. I’d never felt this kind of anger before. Pure, undiluted rage. And there was no place for it to go.
I needed to talk to Sheila. I had a few questions I wanted to bounce off her.
What in the goddamn hell were you thinking? How could you do this to me? How could you do this to Kelly? What on earth possessed you to do something so monumentally fucking stupid? Who the hell are you, anyway? Where the hell did the smart, head-screwed-on-right girl I married go? Because she sure as hell didn’t get in that car.
The questions kept running through my head. And not just occasionally. They were there every single waking moment.
What made my wife get behind the wheel drunk out of her mind? Why would she have done something so completely out of character? What was going on in her head? What kind of demons had she been keeping from me? When she got into her car that night, totally under the influence, did she have enough sense to know what she was doing? Did she know she could get herself killed, that she could end up killing others?