“You were not there. I know who was there.”
“Nobody saw me.” The caller said crazy things, but she did not herself seem crazy. What awful event could have made someone so young act this way? What life circumstances would shape a person to make such calls to strangers?
“Okay, okay,” I said. “I’ll listen. Not right now. I’m driving in a blizzard...”
She said, “I know.”
Of course. It was suddenly obvious. This person, whoever she was, knew Stefan was getting out today. She was a prison crank, a crime junkie.
“How about I call you some other time?”
“I should tell someone,” she said, sobs gargling through her words. “I should tell everyone.”
“Tell me.”
“I can’t. But listen. Tell Stefan not to talk about that night. Would you do that? That’s the important thing. Tell him not to say anything about that night. And tell him I’m sorry.”
I thought she would hang up then. But she did not. Once more the damp sound of her crying filled the void. Maybe she was one of the groupies who’d never met Belinda but who identified with her, as they should, as they must.
“Maybe you just want to feel important. Like you want to pretend you’re part of some big sensational story because you don’t have a real life of your own,” I said. Might a little squeeze of lemon over my words draw her out? I thought so, but I repented when she cried even harder.
“You could help me have a real life of my own,” she finally said. “But you’d just hate me for what I did.”
“Why would I hate you? I don’t even know you. In my experience, people who come close, then run away, want someone to run after them.”
Stefan was back now, struggling with the door that had frozen shut in mere minutes. I pushed with all my weight against the inside door panel.
“No,” she said. “I’m not like that. You’ll never find me.” She hung up.
Ah, I thought. You underestimate me.
2
We weren’t even halfway home when the snow kicked up harder. I slowed again to a crawl, the world a featureless dazzle. I was digging my fingernails into my palms to keep alert. We were the only car on the road, or so I believed, until I glimpsed a bright blue smudge gaining on me faster than seemed possible. A break in the cloud around us showed me the river bridge ahead where the road rose high over the sandbars below. Even though it was a four-lane highway, the strange vehicle seemed to take up all the space, and then it swerved, nearly sideswiping us. I jerked the wheel quickly and felt the sickening float of a doughnut spin. Because time seems to drop into slideshow slowness at moments like these, I was able to observe everything—Stefan’s clenched jaw, him not talking because you wouldn’t, you couldn’t, the face of the driver of the other car, which I thought, in some crazy reach, might be Jill. But it was some Unabomber look-alike, a figure in a huge hoodie, a ball cap and mirrored sunglasses, hunched over the wheel. Tense, my arms coursing with electrical prickles, I let him gain the distance, then when he was out of sight, I picked up speed just a little.
“Take a picture of his license plate,” I told Stefan, pointing to my phone.
“I can’t even see the car much less the plate,” he said.
But then we did see the car. Out of the veil emerged that same blue glow, that same vehicle, clearly a newer car with those odd, too-bright headlamps. It was not moving, but parked under an overpass just ahead. I slowed down, scanning quickly for an exit or even a death-trap rest stop. Nothing. Stefan said then, “There is no license plate.” I had to go on, so I sped up; but as I passed the driver, he spun the car around and hit the gas, this time aiming straight at us. I switched to the far lane and dropped back. He made a fast stop...what did he have on that car? Tank treads? I had no other way to go but to pass him again. Why would some person I never saw before in my life try to run my car off the road? I proceeded slowly, but the lone driver gunned it. This time he actually did clip my bumper, and our car skidded, spinning around once, twice, then ploughed a backward path across lanes and the shoulder into the snow, toward the edge of the river bluff. Stefan and I slammed against our seat belts as our car finally lurched to a stop, both of us afraid to glance to the right, as if that glance would dislodge us. Finally I looked down, down the sixty feet or more to the riverbed. Our car had stopped just short of going over the ledge. Just beyond us, the phantom vehicle had pulled over on the shoulder, and the driver stood there beside it and stared down at us through his mirrored glasses. He wagged a warning finger. It seemed an older man’s gesture, but this guy looked young, around Stefan’s age. Then he got back in his car and pulled away.
I opened my mouth. I shut my mouth. “We’re okay,” I finally said. “We’re okay, right?”
“We’re good.” He said, “Do you think he’s going to be waiting for us up ahead?”
“I’m going to call Triple A,” I said. But the thought of the two hours it would probably take for them to reach us yawned like a cave. “I’m going to call the police.”
We stared at each other. No police.
“I’m going to call Dad,” I said.
“It will just worry him,” Stefan said and suggested, “Maybe we can get ourselves out.” He managed to carefully shove the door open then edge his way out safely, bless his new boots. For a brutal, soaking half hour, he pushed against the car bumper as I kept the wheel turned tightly toward the road until, in a miracle of four-wheel drive, the car finally gave a little jump and struggled up, lipping the shoulder. My hair was plastered to my face with tears. I hadn’t realized I was crying. Stefan hopped back in and we drove on.
“Who do you think that was?” Stefan finally murmured as he warmed his hands on the dashboard vents.
“Some lunatic. Right?” I glanced at him, terrified even to blink. “Right?”
Right, but neither of us felt remotely assured, instead we were certain that a madman sat, nudged up behind a big highway sign, eyes shrunken to dark points, lying in wait for no one but us. But the blue car never reappeared. My body remained on high alert. Even the collar of my parka was damp with sweat. We came to an exit, stopped to examine the crumpled fender, drank burned coffee and ate cellophane-sealed doughnuts. Then we headed on in silence, unable by then even to bear listening to an audiobook, the stale news loop or sports talk, hypnotized by the sound of the wind and the crunch of the tires.
It was then that Stefan said, “I’m so sorry, Mom.”
“Is this about the hotel room again?” I sounded sharper than I meant to.
“No. Everything, everything.”
I glanced at him. He was crying, his fingers pressed against his eyes. “I screwed up your whole life. You probably wish I was never born.”
“Never,” I assured him.
Letter after letter from prison echoed the same strains:
Happy Birthday, Dad. I feel like an idiot even saying, hey, have a great day, because I should be there being someone you could be proud of as you turn the big four four, not somebody you have to be ashamed of...
Dear Mom, Happy Mother’s Day. Kind of ironic, right? Here I am congratulating you on something you probably wish never happened...
His words reeked of self-pity, but then again, who could blame him for feeling sorry—for us and for himself? We wrote back each time, alternately reassuring and admonishing him. When he was down on himself but could at least write to us, we could be pretty sure he was marginally okay. It was when he didn’t write that fear consumed us.