Sharon Cadwallader I can certainly understand. Sharon Cadwallader, a high-ranking official on the neighborhood council, and the one who fought to have traffic calming measures installed around the community: speed humps or traffic circles, or those ridiculous speed display boards that flashed when one drove too fast. She purchased her own radar gun and sat on her front porch, vetting every car that drove by. I’m quite certain she called the police about everyone who breached the twenty-five mile per hour speed limit.
“Mrs. Cadwallader clocked your husband going forty-eight miles per hour on your street. That’s nearly double the legal limit,” the detective says to me. “And Mr. Hart says there was some run-in with his son. Just a few weeks ago. The boy’s rubber ball had rolled into the street, it seems, and when he went to fetch it, Nick came tearing around the bend.” He concludes with this, “It was a close call,” and an exaggerated sigh through the phone line. And I picture the speed of Nick’s passing car creating a breeze, eddying the brown hairs on Teddy’s head, his eyes wide with fear as he groped for the ball. Theo in the background, screaming, and Emily at a window, watching the commotion from afar. Did Theo and Nick exchange words in the middle of the street? Was there a blowup, name-calling, or were punches thrown? Did Emily know, and if so, why didn’t she tell me? I have a hard time picturing it. Nick is a pacifist. He avoids conflict at all costs, and is quick to apologize even when he’s done nothing wrong. Anything to avoid a fight. I have no doubt that he was speeding through the neighborhood, whizzing home at forty-eight miles per hour to see Maisie and Felix and me. This comes as no surprise to me.
But I also see him rushing out into the middle of the street to see if Teddy is all right; I envision him apologizing demonstratively about the near-miss with Teddy and the rubber ball. He would have apologized for it all; he would have atoned for the misdeed.
So why call the police?
“Seems your husband had quite a history with speeding,” Detective Kaufman says, and I hear the words he says but also those he doesn’t say: Nick’s frequent speeding is the cause of the crash out on Harvey Road. It’s Nick’s fault that he’s dead. Nick took the turn too quickly and lost control of the car. His speed is the reason he ran into that tree.
All roads lead to Nick.
I think of the woman I’ve just met, in the window, smoking her cigarette, and about the car she’d seen leaving the scene of the crash, veering into oncoming traffic. A black Chevrolet.
“I’ve taken the liberty, Detective Kaufman,” I say, echoing his own words, “of speaking to some of the residents who live off Harvey Road. Just to see if anyone saw or heard anything at the time of the crash.” His sigh is long and loud.
“And?” he asks, his words stultified. I’m boring him, it seems. I reach into the back seat to pat Maisie’s knee.Almost done, I mouth. Almost done, and then she can have the phone back. Almost done, and then I can ask about her injured hand.
“There was a woman,” I tell him, “driving home from the market at the time. She came upon the scene just seconds after the crash, passing a black car along the way. It was driving erratically down the road. A black Chevrolet,” I say, pushing from my mind the drug possession charges I spied online for Melinda Grey, wondering if it’s at all possible Nick was under the influence of something at the time of the crash. I won’t put this suggestion in the detective’s mind.
“Did she get a license?” he asks, but I tell him no, blaming the sun. It was so bright that day she could hardly see a thing. “Then how did she know it was a Chevy?” he asks sagely.
“Well, that she saw,” I say, knowing how foolish it sounds. “The emblem on the front of the car was easy to see. She remembers seeing the golden bow tie.”
“What is this woman’s name?” he asks, and I tell him. “Betty Maurer,” I say, and he promises that he’ll speak to her. “Many cars travel on that road every day,” he tells me. “It’s a shortcut, a nice alternative to highway congestion. Just because it was there, passing by around the time of the accident, doesn’t make it a crime,” he says, but I press again, asking if he’ll speak to Betty, and he says that he will. I thank the detective for his time. He says, “Just doing my job,” and we end the call.
As I pass the phone back into Maisie’s expectant hand, asking whether or not her scratch is okay, I’m floundering and confused. Did Nick die because he was driving too fast? He had a history of speeding, that much I know. But there’s so much more to consider, from the canceled life insurance funds to the agent’s suggestion that suicide or homicide are to blame. And then there is the restraining order, and the fact that some man in a hat and gloves has been skulking around my home.
Was Nick driving too fast because he was chasing someone, rather than the other way around?
Was he the pursuer and not the pursued?
And then Maisie’s words come to me again, about the bad man following her and Nick, the obvious fear imbuing her eyes. That can’t just be for show. Maisie saw something that terrified her.
I watch in the rearview mirror as Maisie—happy as a lark now, having forgotten all about the pilfered phone—points out the window and says to me with decision, with arrant conviction and delight, her voice decked out in a singsong cadence, canarying the words, “An elephant, Mommy. Look, Mommy, an elephant’s in those trees,” and God help me, I look, even though of course there isn’t an elephant in those trees. An elephant wandering around in suburban America? How absurd.
“You silly girl,” I say soberly, watching the way the day’s sunlight glints off the white of her eye. “Why would an elephant be here?” I ask, and as she chirps, “Just taking a walk, Mommy,” I’m filled suddenly with a sense of unease.
Did she tell Nick that there was a car following them? Did she make it all up, and for this he drove faster, manically, anything to get away from the phony car?
For the first time, I ask Maisie. I ask her about the car. My words come out guardedly, carefully chosen, cautious not to use the wrong ones. “Maisie, honey,” I say, my voice purring the words, “did you see the black car like you just saw that elephant in the trees? The car that was following you and Daddy?” but at the mention of a black car, she goes silent. She turns away from me and peers out the window, any sense of a smile washed clear from her face.
No, I tell myself. No. Of course not. Nick is much more commonsensical than this. He would never give in to the whims of a child.
But then I see them in the grocery store together, Maisie set in the basket of a shopping cart, begging,Faster, Daddy, faster, and I see Nick run like greased lightning up and down the aisles, not caring what other shoppers thought because all he cared about was his little girl in the shopping cart, happy, smiling, laughing.
This has happened. Many times this has happened.
And now, from the back seat comes Maisie’s crooning voice again as she spots the playground off in the distance, the one we’re en route to, the slides, the swings, the monkey bars mere specks on the horizon. “Faster, Mommy, faster,” she squeals, eager now for a day at the hippo park as my foot presses down on the gas pedal without intent, and the car casually picks up speed.
NICK
BEFORE
Driving home that night, I have every intention of telling Clara about Kat. Every intention in the world. It’s one of the cardinal rules of a happy marriage: no secrets, and this detail—a visit with a former flame—seems too large, too uncontainable, to omit. It’s not the same as the imminent malpractice suit or the sorry state of our finances. This is different. If Clara found out some other way, she’d be hurt, and a completely meaningless reunion would alter into something more, something sordid and wrong, something unforgivable. And so I fully intend to tell her.
But as I come into the house, I find Clara sound asleep on the living room sofa, her back pressed into the cushions for lumbar support. It’s later than I usually get home. I phoned Clara hours ago and told her that I’d be late—thanks to a few emergency evening appointments, I claimed, when what I really needed to do was cool off for a bit, to collect myself. And I did, thanks to a single dose of Halcion I pulled from the locked storage cabinet once the office ladies left for the night. It made me calm, sleepy and forgetful all at the same time.
I probably shouldn’t have driven myself home, but I did.
