Wish You Were Gone(3)
“Yes, I… thank you?” she said in the direction of Officer Kim.
“Can I get you anything?” he asked. Oddly, she thought, since this was her house and he was the interloper.
“Water, please,” she answered, not wanting to be impolite. The officer looked at Hunter and, when Hunter didn’t move, went to the Sub-Zero himself, extracted a bottle of Smartwater, and brought it back. Emma saw him noticing the cardboard over the broken window. She still didn’t know how that had gotten there. The break, yes; the cardboard, no. Had James covered it up this morning before he’d left?
She hadn’t said goodbye to him. Hadn’t kissed her husband, or told him to have a good day. She hadn’t even seen him. In fact, she had spent the bulk of the day wishing she never had to see him again. And now, she never would. Emma wondered what Officer Kim would think if he could look inside her brain. Would he be shocked? Would he arrest her on the spot?
The officer met her eyes as he handed her the water. His dark gaze was full of pity. What must he think of her? Of her family? Of this household? She cracked open the water and took a long, deep drink.
“Ma’am, I’m sorry to have to ask, but was your husband a habitual drinker?” Officer Kim poised his stylus above the iPad. It made him look childish somehow, like a kindergartner playacting at cops and robbers. “Did he often drink and drive?”
Hunter snorted.
“Yes,” Emma said, her voice firm. “Yes, to both. This is not his first… accident. But I’m sure you know that already. I’m sure you’ve run his name through the system.”
It was somehow important to her that this young man—this child, really—not think she was oblivious. That he understood she was aware of the problem.
Just last night, in fact, she had come so close to calling the police on James—to breaking that sacred household rule. Would this Officer Kim have been one of the people to respond? Probably. The Oakmont Police Department was a small outfit—not much ever happened in this one-Starbucks town with its strict noise ordinances and even stricter overnight parking rules. But her husband, well, she’d never seen him the way he was last night. The rage. The almost magenta color of his face—the lines of his neck standing out stark white as the tendons stretched and strained. What had he said to her daughter exactly? That she was spoiled? Entitled? A thief, he’d said. A liar. None of it had made any sense. And then the screaming. So much screaming. She worried, now, that she’d never get the screaming out of her head. No wonder Kelsey had wanted to sleep elsewhere tonight. There had been other fights. Bad ones, even. But never as bad as that. Honestly, she wouldn’t have blamed Kelsey if she’d asked to move out.
Emma took a breath and looked at Officer Kim. “Was there anything else… Officer?”
He started to speak, but at that moment, her daughter flew into her arms.
“Mom,” Kelsey said into her neck. “Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom.”
Emma pulled her daughter back, hands on either side of her face, and looked into her eyes even as her own blurred and stung.
“It’s okay,” Emma said firmly, hoping her daughter would hear her. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
Kelsey nodded, suddenly mute, and Emma could see her daughter choking on the words. Her hoodie was up over her hair, tied close to her chin, making her look like a baby doll.
Willow came in next, and went right to Hunter, who hugged her so hard it was almost vicious. Then Lizzie, clutching her rattan bag in front of her, the curls of her red hair sticking out in all directions. “Emma?”
A sob escaped her throat as she stood up and fell into her best friend’s arms. They cried for five or ten or a hundred minutes, Lizzie whispering that she was so sorry. So very sorry.
“We’ll call if we have any follow-up questions,” Officer Kim said quietly, and Emma pulled it together long enough to nod. When she released Lizzie, Kelsey instantly took Lizzie’s place again. Emma’s friend walked over to the garage door and cracked it open. She stood there, arms crossed tightly over her baggy sweater, shoulders shaking as the coroner’s team loaded the stretcher into the back of the ambulance.
GRAY
Gray Garrison had been expecting this call. Well, maybe not this call, exactly. A car through a wall, and Emma the one to find him. Why hadn’t he careened off the hairpin turn on Cornice Way? Or into the woods on Blueberry Lane? She’d always known the man was going to die in a drunk driving accident, but this seemed so unnecessarily messy.
Emma was crying on the other end of the line, and Gray said all the right things. She knew what her role was, as the best friend, as the wife of the business partner. But she couldn’t bring herself to feel sadness, or regret, or even anger. All she could feel, upon hearing that James Walsh was dead, was relief.
“You should have seen Hunter’s face, Gray. I don’t think he’s ever going to recover.”
Bile rose in Gray’s throat. She couldn’t imagine her own boys going through this. It shouldn’t have been this way. But maybe James should have thought about that. He should have made a change in his life long ago—for himself, his wife, his family, Darnell. He’d just never had the guts.
“I’m so sorry. It will be all right. You’re all about to go through a lot, but you will get through it. We all will,” Gray told her friend. “Do you want me to come over?”