The Accident

“How does that help me?” she wanted to know.

I stepped in. “Because if my company is run well, it makes more money, and that helps you.”

“So you can buy me more stuff?”

“Not necessarily.”

Kelly took a gulp of orange juice. “I’d never go to school at night. Or summer. You’d have to kill me to get me to go to summer school.”

“If you get really good marks, that won’t happen,” I said, a hint of warning in my voice. We’d already had a call from her teacher that she wasn’t completing all her homework.

Kelly had nothing to say to that and concentrated on her cereal. On the way out the door, she gave her mother a hug, but all I got was a wave. Sheila caught me noticing the perceived slight and said, “It’s because you’re a meanie.”

I called the house from work mid-morning.

“Hey,” Sheila said.

“You’re home. I didn’t know whether I’d catch you or not.”

“Still here. What’s up?”

“Sally’s dad.”

“What?”

“She was calling home from the office and when he didn’t answer she took off. I just called to see how he was and he’s gone.”

“He’s dead?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh jeez. How old was he?”

“Seventy-nine, I think. He was in his late fifties when he had Sally.” Sheila knew the history. The man had married a woman twenty years younger than he was, and still managed to outlive her. She’d died of an aneurysm a decade ago.

“What happened to him?”

“Don’t know. I mean, he had diabetes, he’d been having heart trouble. Could have been a heart attack.”

“We need to do something for her.”

“I offered to drop by but she said she’s got a lot to deal with right now. Funeral’ll probably be in a couple of days. We can talk about it when you get back from Bridgeport.” Where Sheila took her class.

“We’ll do something. We’ve always been there for her.” I could almost picture Sheila shaking her head. “Look,” she said, “I’m heading out. I’ll leave you and Kelly lasagna, okay? Joan’s expecting her after school today and-”

“I got it. Thanks.”

“For what?”

“Not giving up. Not letting things get you down.”

“Just doing the best I can,” she said.

“I love you. I know I can be a pain in the ass, but I love you.”

“Ditto.”

It was after ten. Sheila should have been home by now.

I tried her cell for the second time in ten minutes. After six rings it went to voicemail. “Hi. This is Sheila. I’m either on the phone, away from it, or too scared to answer because I’m in traffic, so please leave a message.” Then the beep.

“Hey, me again,” I said. “You’re freaking me out. Call me.”

I put the cordless receiver back onto its stand and leaned up against the kitchen counter, folded my arms. As she’d promised, Sheila had left two servings of lasagna in the fridge, for Kelly and me, each hermetically sealed under plastic wrap. I’d heated Kelly’s in the microwave when we got home, and she’d come back looking for seconds, but I couldn’t find a baking dish with any more in it. I might as well have offered her mine, which a few hours later still sat on the counter. I wasn’t hungry.

I was rattled. Running out of work. The fire. Sally’s dad.

And even if I’d managed to recover my appetite late in the evening, the fact that Sheila still wasn’t home had put me on edge.

Her class, which was held at the Bridgeport Business College, had ended more than an hour and a half ago, and it was only a thirty-minute drive home. Which made her an hour late. Not that long, really. There were any number of explanations.

She could have stayed after class to have a coffee with someone. That had happened a couple of times. Maybe the traffic was bad on the turnpike. All you needed was someone with a flat tire on the shoulder to slow everything down. An accident would stop everything dead.

That didn’t explain her not answering her cell, though. She’d been known to forget to turn it back on after class was over, but when that happened it went to voicemail right away. But the phone was ringing. Maybe it was tucked so far down in her purse she couldn’t hear it.

I wondered whether she’d decided to go to Darien to see her mother and not made it back out to Bridgeport in time for her class. Reluctantly, I made the call.

“Hello?”

“Fiona, it’s Glen.”

In the background, I heard someone whisper, “Who is it, love?” Fiona’s husband, Marcus. Technically speaking, Sheila’s stepfather, but Fiona had remarried long after Sheila had left home and settled into a life with me.

“Yes?” she said.

I told her Sheila was late getting back from Bridgeport, and I wondered if maybe her daughter had gotten held up at her place.

“Sheila didn’t come see me today,” Fiona said. “I certainly wasn’t expecting her. She never said anything about coming over.”

That struck me as odd. When Sheila mentioned maybe going to see Fiona, I’d figured she’d already bounced the idea off her.

“Is there a problem, Glen?” Fiona asked icily. There wasn’t worry in her voice so much as suspicion. As if Sheila’s staying out late had more to do with me than it did with her.

“No, everything’s fine,” I said. “Go back to bed.”