Conundrum (25 page)

As evening descended, I wondered about Jeremy. Would he come back here or return to Daniel’s? Did I dare call him at work?
Had
he even go
ne
to work? I pictured him driving, screaming in the car, pounding the dash with his fist, the way he had pounded the wall those few weeks ago, before he moved out.
That argument
now
seemed so long ago—years.
I tried to imagine how he felt, what he would do now. Would he sell the store and move back to Montana, leaving me behind
?
What did he mean by “I’m done. I’m outta here”?
Done with me, our marriage? Did he mean here, as in our home, or did his words imply some larger concept that I just couldn’t grasp
?

I went into the house. The message light blinked on the
answering machine
. The first message was from Anne. She was on her way. She noted the time in her message, which meant she’d be arriving shortly. The second message was from Daniel, wondering what was up with Jeremy.
My husband
had come into work, locked himself in his office briefly, then left the store without a word. Daniel needed to find him, to ask about a purchase order, and did I know how to reach him.

Did I? Apparently, I didn’t. I had no clue how to reach Jeremy—literally or emotionally.
I figured Jeremy needed time alone, to sort this all out, if it could be sorted.

I had a sudden image of Raff and Kyle, over at Anne’s house, working on their play adaption of Dante’s
Inferno
.
The two boys would try out scenes on Anne and me, their captive audience. Raff would tell us to hush, that this was serious stuff, but how could we keep straight faces when Raff, dressed in a ridiculous costume made of sheets, spouted lines from
The Divine Comedy,
the stilted translation reworked into modern slang
?
And what was with that title, anyway? What was so comedic about nine cir
c
les of hell, where all manner of horrors await
ed
those in the underworld—beatings, burnings, being buried in ice up to your neck, buried headfirst in the ground while your feet roasted in flames?
I heard Raff’s voice
,
but this time the words haunted rather than amused me.

“
All hope abandon, ye who enter in.
”
No problem—done.

Dante
wa
s
in a crisis. He
ha
d
strayed from his path and
found
himself lost in a dark wood. “Death could hardly be more severe,” he note
d
. After straying down a hill, he realize
d
he ha
d
just
survived
a night of sorrow, that he had endured the pass that never
had
let any man survive. I picture
d
Jeremy as Dante, facing the
bearded
ferryman Charon at the riverbank.
T
he ferryman
told
Dante and Virgil they
would
not
be permitted to
cros
s
—that only dead people
were
allowed to enter his boat and travel to the other side.
And then I hear
d
Jeremy say, “I’m already dead. You must let me cross.”

I shook my head, dispelling these
rancid
thoughts. My brain was wandering crazy paths in order to av
o
id reality.
I called Daniel’s number and he answered. He told me he hadn’t seen or heard from Jeremy. I asked him to call me if he got word. And then I heard a rumble on the driveway. Anne’s car materialized in the twilight.

Anne pushed Buster down as she got out of her car.
For someone with great compassion for mistreated children, she had zero affection for animals. That made no sense to me. But maybe it wasn’t a motherly instinct that made her protective of her
s
tate charges. Maybe it was her love of justice and equity that impassioned her. I realized I had never heard her speak longingly for a family of her own
. Maybe she had no interest in getting married and having kids. Funny that I didn’t really know how she felt about
that
.

I could tell from her clothing that she had rushed out of her house to come
over
. Usually, she never wasted a minute changing out of her work clothes and into comfortable jeans and sneakers. That simple act of loyalty touched my hurting heart.

“What gives?” she asked, studying my face as she approached the front door, where I stood.

All I could do was shake my head. We hugged for a long moment. “Thanks for coming, Anne. I know this is a long way for you to drive—”

She scolded me with her snarl, but I knew it was an attempt to lighten my heavy mood. “Like I have some hot, heavy date on the horizon? Well, even if I did, you know I’d cancel. You look a mess. Where’s Jeremy?”

I sighed and gestured her to come in. While I put some water in the kettle to boil for tea, she made herself at home, rummaging through my fridge and finding a carton of yogurt. I’d never thought anything of it—the way we freely fe
d
ourselves at each other’s homes, but we’d been doing it since kindergarten. It struck me that she
seemed
more at ease in my house at that moment than I did.

I showed
her
the letter and she whistled and smoothed back her hair from her forehead. She collapsed into one of the dining chairs and
devoured the carton of yogurt while making disapproving grunting noises.
The letter had a similar effect on Anne—stole away her words. I waited in desperate anticipation for her to say something, anything, that might give me a shred of hope. She wasn’t a lawyer, but she knew lawyers—plenty of them. And she knew how the court system worked, knew every municipal and superior court judge.

I
told her I
couldn’t count on Jeremy to
battle
alongside
me, but I was not ready to call it quits. Not without a fight—whatever the cost. What did I have to lose now, at this point? I’d already lost my family’s love—if I ever really had it at all. I grunted in self-condemnation. So much for my altruist endeavor to solve my father’s death—in the hope of bringing my family closer, of rescuing Raff from the clutches of his Jabberwock.
I saw now the futility and naivety of my mission.

We spoke in subdued tones for about an hour. Anne looked weary and exhausted as she kicked around ideas with me. She
stood to leave
a little
after nine, assuring me she would bring to bear all the resources at her disposal, and call in favors from friends and coworkers.
She tried to sound hopeful and positive, but I knew she was just as befuddle
d
as I. We had just been broadsided by a car coming out of nowhere and were s
tumbling dazed and injured
across a highway, trying to get our bearings.
She held me a long time in a bear hug, then wiped her face and drove off. Not a minute had passed
,
when the phone rang.

I tensed, resisting answering. What if it was my mother—or Harv Blake? Then again, it could be Jeremy. I let it ring two more times, thinking the machine
would
pick up. I stared at the phone, then watched the recording light come on. I heard my pat instructions to leave a message after the beep.

I didn’t recognize the male voice. “Hello, I’m trying to reach Lisa Bolton. This is Officer Sean Wilson with the Marin County
Sheriff’s
—”

I grabbed the receiver and clicked off the machine. “I’m Lisa Bolton. Who
are
—what are you calling about?”
I had images of a sheriff’s car zooming up my driveway, telling me I had to get out of my house, that I didn’t live there anymore and had no business being there.
I then figured out it was probably another one of those calls for donations—to help fund the extraneous events the local sheriff’s department sponsored. I was in no mood to sit through a pitch about buying tickets for some corny country-western concert.
“I’m sorry, could you call back another time
?
I’m not—”

The voice cut through my speech. “Mrs. Bolton? I need to speak with you about your husband
,
Jeremy Bolton. Mrs. Bolton?”

I pulled the receiver away and shook my head as if I had water in my ear. I could hear the officer’s voice as I stared at the receiver in my hand. “Mrs. Bolton, are you there? Your husband’s been in an accident—”

Chapter 17

I slowly brought the phone back up to my ear. “Accident? I don’t understand.” What accident?
How?
Jeremy didn’t have accidents.
I narrowed my eyes and tried to focus. “Where? How? I mean, what—”

“He’s alive
, but he sustained some bad injuries
. An ambulance is on its way to Marin General. He flipped his truck taking the curve too fast around the Nicasio Reservoir
.
 
.
 
.
went over the guardrail
.
 
.
 
.
”

The Point Reyes
r
oad out of Petaluma. We’d taken that drive
dozens
of times out to the coast, to the wildlife refuge and lighthouse. Had picnics on the beach, hiked the trails.
A repository of some of our best times together.

I traveled the road in my mind and stopped at the bend before Willow Road.
I knew just where Jeremy had flipped his truck.
The low metal guardrail wrapped around the narrow two lanes, with a shoulder of loose gravel and a steep long plunge off the other side to a creek below. I tried to guess how far his truck must have fallen. Fifty feet? One hundred feet? Would the truck
have
flip
ped
and land
ed
on its roof?
Would it have crushed Jeremy as it smacked into the rock face of the cliff as it tumbled? Had
Jeremy w
orn
his seat
belt?

The officer said accident.
It had to have been an accident
.
Or d
id Jeremy gauge just how fast he’d need to go to crash over the railing and
spill
over the edge? Was his body only following where his spirit had already gone?
I couldn’t fathom the thought of Jeremy purposely crashing his truck.

I
thought of him deliberating as he took the straightaway to the reservoir, blankly pressing his foot all the way down on the gas pedal
.
The image
took my breath
away
. I could see him stare down the railing
a half mile off
, it beckoning him, his eyes squeezing tears away as he gripped the wheel, determined not to lose focus, lose his nerve.

An audible whimper came from my mouth.

“Mrs. Bolton, are you okay, still there
?
”

“Yes
.
 
.
 
.
” I found it hard to listen, to focus. His voice was lulling me, like a soporific. “I’m sorry. You said he’s okay.”

I heard a sigh. “You need to come to the hospital. Can you drive?” Meaning, was I in any condition to drive
?
I wasn’t even in any condition to breathe, let alone drive.

“
But, h
ow is he—I mean, what can you tell me so far?”

“
He’s unconscious, some broken ribs. They don’t know yet the extent—punctured lung, and internal bleeding. He’ll be in Emergency in a few minutes.”

I
went
numb. I tried to stir up some emotion but nothing registered.
I
was
made of stone.
Maybe I was in shock. I heard the officer clear his throat. “Mrs. Bolton, there’s something else.
A note on the floor
of the cab
—to you.”

A note? What did that mean? I thought I asked this in my head, but I must have spoken the words aloud.

“
I think you should wait to read it. You need to come to the hospital. Is there someone you can call, to take you over there?”

I replaced the phone on its cradle
and heard the line click
.
I thought of
how
Jeremy’s
eyes looked when he spoke those last words to me—the gray smokiness clouding over, the way a fog bank settles into the crevices of the hills
, blotting out the sun, obscuring vision.