The Accident

“You’re looking well,” I said, and it was half true. Joan Mueller was a good-looking woman. Early thirties, brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. Her jeans and T-shirt fit her like a second skin, and she filled them well. If anything, she was a little too skinny. Since her husband’s death, and starting an off-the-books child-care operation in her home, she’d lost probably twenty pounds. Nervous energy, anxiety, not to mention chasing after four or five children.

She blushed, tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “Well, you know, I’m on the move all the time, right? You think you’ve got them all settled down in front of the tube or doing some crafts and then one wanders off and you get that one and then another one’s on the go-I swear it’s like kittens in a basket, you know?”

I was only a couple of feet away from her and was pretty sure I could smell liquor on her breath.

“Was there something I can help you with?”

“I-well, um-I’ve got a tap in the kitchen that won’t stop dripping. You know, maybe sometime, if you had a second, but I know you’re busy and all-”

“Maybe on the weekend,” I said. “When I have a minute.” Over the years, especially during other periods when work was tight, I’d done small jobs, unrelated to the company, for our neighbors. I’d finished off the Muellers’ basement on my own a few years back over a month, working every Saturday and Sunday.

“Oh sure, I understand, I don’t want to cut in on your free time, Glen, I totally understand that.”

“Okay, then,” I said, smiled, and turned to leave.

“So how’s Kelly getting along? I haven’t had her here, after school, since, you know.” I had the feeling Joan Mueller did not want me to go.

“I’ve been picking her up every day after school,” I said. “And she’s at a sleepover with a friend tonight.”

“Oh,” Joan said. “So you’re on your own tonight, then.”

I nodded but said nothing. I didn’t know whether Joan was sending out a signal or not. It didn’t seem possible. Her husband had been dead for some time, but I’d lost Sheila only sixteen days ago.

“Listen, I-”

“Oh, look,” Joan interrupted with forced excitement as a faded red Ford Explorer whipped into her driveway. “That’s Carlson’s dad. You really should meet him. Carlson! Your dad’s here!”

I had no interest in meeting the man, but didn’t feel I could vanish now. The father, a lean, wiry man who may have been in a suit but whose hair was too long and straggly for him to have a bank job, came up the walk. He had a kind of slow swagger. Nothing over the top. The kind of thing I’d noticed in bikers-I’d had one or two work part-time for me over the years-and I wondered whether this guy was a weekend warrior. He looked me up and down, just enough to let me know he’d done it.

Carlson slipped out the door, didn’t stop to greet his father and headed straight for the SUV.

“Carl, I wanted you to meet Glen Garber,” Joan said. “Glen, this is Carl Bain.”

Interesting, I thought. Instead of “Carl Jr.” his kid was named Carlson. I offered a hand and he took it. His eyes darted from Joan to me. “Nice to meet you,” he said.

“Glen’s a contractor,” Joan told him. “Has his own company. He lives right next door.” She pointed to my house. “In that house right there.”

Carl Bain nodded. “See you Monday,” he said to Joan, and went back to his Explorer.

Joan waved a little too enthusiastically as he drove off. Then she turned to me and said, “Thank you for that.”

“For what?”

“I just feel safer having you next door.”

She gave me a friendly look that seemed to go beyond neighborly as she retreated into the house.

FOUR

“What’s it like?” Emily asked.

“What’s what like?” Kelly said.

“Not having a mom. What’s it like?”

They were sitting on the floor in Emily’s bedroom amidst piles of clothing. Kelly had been trying on Emily’s outfits and Emily had been modeling the clothes Kelly’d come in, and the one extra outfit she’d packed. Kelly had been asking if they wanted to swap tops for a week when Emily blurted out the question.

“It’s not very nice,” Kelly said.

“If my mom or dad had to die, I think I’d pick my dad,” Emily said. “I love him, but it’d be worse for your mom to die because dads don’t know a lot of things about stuff. Do you wish it was your dad instead?”

“No. I wish it hadn’t been anybody.”

“Wanna play spy?”

“How?”

“Have you got your phone?”

Kelly had it in her pocket and dug it out. Emily said, “Okay, so we hide in the house and try to get pictures of each other without the other person knowing about it.”

Kelly grinned. This sounded like fun. “Like, just pictures, or video?”

“You get more points for video.”

“How many?”

“Okay, you get one point for a picture, but you get one point for every second of video.”

“I think it should be five points,” Kelly said. They debated this briefly, and came up with five points for each picture and ten points for each second of video.

“If we both hide at the same time, how do we find each other?” Kelly asked.

Emily hadn’t considered that. “Okay, you hide first, and then I’ll try to find you.”