Accidents of Marriage (8 page)

“Don’t worry.” Evanne took his arm. “The shaking is shock. Normal after a trauma.

“My wife?” he repeated.

“She’s being cared for.”

Was she lying?
Jesus, Maddy, where are you?
Was she dead?

Evanne and a male EMS worker brought him onto a portable cot, where he lay, arms spread on either side of the narrow slab of foam, his exhaustion profound. Still, he struggled to his elbows, working against the searing pain, then falling back.

“You should remain flat, sir,” Evanne suggested. Ben found her throaty voice soothing.

“No. No. I’m all right.”

“Please, sir, it would be better to lie back for now.”

Lying back didn’t seem like a good idea. Already it felt as though fate had simply picked him up and thrown him on the ground.

Evanne took his pulse. She held his chin and looked into his eyes. Her breath was mild peppermint, her hands lemon-scented. Maybe she wasn’t a smoker. Ben pictured her life, showering with yellow soap, buying Life Savers, not knowing what each day would bring. Broken bodies. Guns. Him.

Ben slowly turned to look in every direction. Bright orange cones held cars back. A barely moving line of traffic crept around the accident scene. He turned his head to the left. Pain shot through his upper back.

The Expedition was about fifteen yards away. Even seated, the young driver seemed tall. He sat sideways, legs hanging out, one big hand cradling a phone, the other covering his free ear. Dark-black shades, despite the rain, covered his eyes. He appeared okay, but his front fender was smashed. Shards from the taillights were scattered over the asphalt. Expedition had his own EMT next to him. A white guy. Older. Probably didn’t smell of lemon and peppermint.

Careful, his back stiffening, something jabbing him each time he
breathed, Ben twisted his head as far as possible, searching for Maddy. Flashers from three ambulances made kaleidoscopic patterns in the growing puddles.

Wet broken glass reflected in the ambulance lights.

He forced his neck to the right. Before he even knew he’d done it, he reached for Evanne’s hand.

A red briefcase, open, papers strewn over the road, had landed about twenty yards from the car. Ben felt light-headed. He squinted through the rain. Two men laid a woman on a backboard. A red sandal swayed off her right foot; her left was bare.

Dirt streaked the woman’s blood-covered blouse. The men wheeled her still body toward a waiting ambulance. As they positioned the stretcher to enter the vehicle, the woman’s face became visible.

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, please, no.

Under the oxygen mask was Maddy, the gray pallor of her skin visible even through the rain.

Asleep

August

CHAPTER 7

Emma

More than anything, Emma wanted to leave the community center’s dank locker room. She’d been on edge since the morning, when an army of water rats ran along the nearby wharf. Despite the way she’d pretended to be brave with her campers, now, with the camp day over, her stomach turned in skittish little jumps, unease growing as she waited impatiently for Caro and Sammi to finish changing their clothes.

Emma inspected herself in the wavy unbreakable mirror for the umpteenth time. Her thighs appeared bigger every day and her nose looked like a missile. Her eyes were too close together. The fact that Zach even looked at her was some sort of miracle.

Of course, she didn’t have to worry about whether or why Zach liked her anymore. The way her parents were acting, it would be years before she was allowed to see him again.

Seething thoughts looped, the fury she’d put away while working with the kids returned. With camp dismissal over, she could give full rein to being angry with her idiot parents.

Emma turned to Caro. “I’ll probably never be able to leave my house again this summer.” Emma threw her backpack over one shoulder,
her head suddenly pulled back as her braid got caught in the strap. “Help,” she yelled.

Caro lifted the fastening and pulled out Emma’s hair. “Doesn’t it drive you crazy having it that long?”

Emma shrugged. “Not really.” She couldn’t admit how much she loved leaning back on her mother’s legs, going into a dreamlike state as her mother slid the brush through her hair—making French braids or just bringing out the shine with a hundred strokes while they watched television.

Not that she’d ever let her do it again.

“Can you at least get ice cream with us?” Sammi pulled a tight white T-shirt over her head, muffling her tentative voice, which ended on a rising note as though questioning her own idea.

“Everyone’s meeting at Kelly’s—including
Zach
.” Caro gave Emma an annoying smile as she singsonged Zach’s name.

Emma shook her head. “My mother’s picking me up.”

“How long are you really grounded?” Sammi opened the wide metal doors of the community center, blinking as the wind whipped her brown hair around her face.

“I told you. Until school starts.” Hatred of her parents shuddered through her.

They walked along the beach wall. Two joggers ran by, almost knocking down a toddler gripping a plastic bucket. Afternoon sun slanted over the gritty beach, blurring the trash and gray-black tones of the sand.

“Wait with me?” Emma asked as she climbed up on the wall.

“No can do.” Caro said this as though Emma’s idea was absurd.

“How come?” Caro shouldn’t be acting so high and mighty; she should pray her mother didn’t call Caro’s about them sneaking out last night.

“You know why. The boys are waiting. Should we tell Zach to come see you here?”

Emma groaned. “Just what I need, my mother driving up and finding Zach. I can hear her now.
Where do you live? What do your parents do? How much did you weigh when you were born?
”

“Sooner or later she has to meet him. You’ve been going out since we started working,” Caro said. “What are you waiting for?”

Emma wanted to keep Zach to herself a little longer. Not have her mother tell Kath, and Grandma, and Aunt Vanessa, and Olivia, and every neighbor on their street that Emma had a boyfriend. She didn’t want to listen to her mother make a big deal about Zach being a sophomore, while Emma was just starting high school, or hear it become her mother’s drama:
Jesus, if Emma has a boyfriend, how old does that make me?
She and Kath would talk it to death until they chewed every bit of juice from her and Zach.

Anyway, Emma wasn’t exactly looking her best. Vomit traces stained her shirt from where Iggy Miller had thrown up, despite how many times she’d scrubbed the spots. “Just tell him I had to go home, okay?”

When they left, Emma rummaged in her bag until she found a pack of almonds. Her mother threw this stuff at her every morning, making sure she didn’t starve to death, as though they lived in some remote Appalachian village where she’d have to trek fifty miles for food.

God, her mother was late again. Now she wished she’d let Caro send Zach. At least she’d have something to do besides stare at stupid boys showing off—battling to be the first to knock each other from the retaining wall, then looking to see if Emma was watching. The doggy smell of sand they’d kicked up mixed with the odor of throw-up from her shirt. She brought her arm up to her nose and sniffed. Vomity. She brought her braid around to her face. Dried sweat.

Where was her mother?

Salty nut dust coated Emma’s mouth. She jumped off the wall and walked to the fountain in the square. Three boys about Gracie’s age took turns forcing the water pressure and spraying one other.

“Excuse me,” she said.

They turned to her with a
whaddya want
look.

“Do you mind?” She gestured toward the spigot.

They moved back. Slowly. She bent over the fountain, taking her time. Gross and warm, but at least the water washed the salt off her tongue.

“
Emma.
”

Emma turned, recognizing her brother’s screech. She wiped her mouth with the bottom of her T-shirt, puzzled at not seeing her mother’s car.

“
Come on, Emma!
”

She blocked the sun with her hand but still couldn’t see her mother or the car.

“Over here, darling.” Grandma Anne stepped out of her blue Volvo and waved at her over the car roof. It was her mother’s mother—if it had been Grandma Frances, she’d have thought the world had come to an end.

Emma hurried over. “What are you doing here, Grandma?”

“Mommy’s hurt,” Gracie whispered out the window, as though it were a secret.

Emma opened the passenger door and got into the empty seat. Her grandmother slid back behind the wheel.

“What happened?” Fear hit Emma in the stomach first. A small cramp had already begun.

“Put on your seat belt,” her grandmother said. “Mommy was in a car accident. Daddy also. They’re in the hospital.”

“Daddy only had a bruised chest.” Gracie held a knuckle to her mouth, talking around it. “He’s not in a room.”

“She means a bruised rib. He hasn’t been admitted.” Grandma took a deep breath. “They’re both going to be fine. Just fine.”

“How did it happen? How bad is Mom hurt?”

“It’s all a little confusing, darling.”

“But she’s all right, isn’t she?”

“Everything will be okay.”

Emma tugged on the whistle hanging from her lanyard. “Does she have to stay there?”

“We’ll find out when we get to the hospital. I’m sure it will be okay.” Grandma’s voice shook. Emma didn’t know what else to ask.

Her grandmother reached into the pocket of her denim skirt and gave Emma a pile of wet naps. “Wipe your face, you’ll feel better. Give some to Caleb and Gracie. Everyone should cool off.”

Emma handed one to each of the kids. They opened the square foil packets in unison and wiped the alcohol-saturated squares over their faces. Grandma started up the car.

•  •  •

Children younger than twelve weren’t allowed in the surgical waiting room, so Emma had to watch Caleb and Gracie in the main lobby. For hours. At eight that night they were still huddled on a hard bench. Sick-looking people hunched against their pain kept appearing through the revolving hospital doors. Others came from the elevators, heading over toward the nearby cafeteria or going outside.

Some were too scary to look at, dragging bags of fluid hanging from poles or with faces so swollen they looked about to burst. Why were they going outside? To smoke? Get air?

Other people, healthy-looking people, carried in bright gift bags, plants, and piles of magazines, but they were also frightening, with their faces all pinched with worry.

The wooden benches and chairs afforded no comfort. Caleb’s head lay in Emma’s lap; Gracie leaned against Emma’s other side. Daddy wanted her, Gracie, and Caleb to go home with Aunt Vanessa. When Aunt Vanessa wouldn’t leave the hospital, he suggested that Kath or Olivia pick them up, but Emma refused to go anywhere.

What if her mother died?

No one told Emma what was going on.

Daddy said he was fine and it was nothing, but he’d walked all bent over when they’d seen him. Bandages wrapped his chest so thickly that he couldn’t button the middle part of his shirt. How could it be nothing?

She didn’t want him to make her leave, so she just stayed quiet, taking care of Caleb and Gracie and waiting for news.

“Is Mommy going to die?” Caleb’s thumb in his mouth muffled his words.

“Of course not. Don’t even think that.” Emma smoothed his hair.

“But she could, right?” he insisted. “It’s possible.”

Gracie sat up. Red marks from Emma’s shirt seams lined her face. “Could Mommy die?”

Hours of crying had left her sister’s eyes red and swollen. Finally, frightened that Gracie’s loud sobs would attract attention and their father would be called, Emma warned her that Daddy would send them home if Gracie didn’t stop. The effort of not crying contorted Gracie’s face until it looked as though pain twisted her features.

“She’s not going to die,” Emma said. “We just have to be good. And pray.” Emma didn’t know why she said that—praying was a foreign concept—but she had nothing else to offer.

Gracie laced her fingers and pressed her palms together. Her mouth moved silently as she clasped her hands. Caleb picked at his sad grimy bandages. None of them had received anything resembling religious training, unless you counted going to the bar mitzvahs of second cousins, or having Passover at her mother’s parents’ house and Easter at her father’s. Christmas and Chanukah meant no more than food and presents.

Should she pray to the God of Jews or Catholics? Emma made secret little crosses on her chest, imitating Gracie, trying to make deals with God. She’d obey her parents for the rest of her life if God kept her mother alive. She’d take care of everyone and never be mean.
Baruch Atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech Ha’Olam,
she chanted in her head. Emma didn’t know what the words meant, but Grandma Anne said them each year as she lit the Chanukah candles.
Baruch Atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech Ha’Olam, please keep my mother alive.

“But she
could
die,” Caleb repeated. “Mommy could die.”

“Shut up, Caleb, or I’ll send you to Aunt Vanessa’s house.”

“You can’t do that. Aunt Vanessa’s not leaving.”

“Yes, I can. Uncle Sean is there. I’ll put you in a cab and send you right this second.”

“You’re not the boss.”

“Yes, I am,” Emma said. “I’m the boss until Daddy or Grandma comes back. And imagine what Daddy will do if I tell him you’re saying scary things about Mommy.”

Caleb rose and went to a mud-colored bench away from Emma and Gracie. He crossed his arms and started kicking the wooden slats with his heels. If her father saw, he’d kill her. “Stop or they’ll throw us
out.” Her brother looked up; his dark-brown eyes reminded Emma of war orphans in
Time
. “Come back here.”

He shook his head, not looking at her, using his dirty camp T-shirt to wipe underneath his eyes.

“Come on.” Emma patted the seat next to her. “I’ll get you a candy bar.”