When I got home, Justin, Sandy, and Ella were playing Candy Land at the kitchen table. They were laughing, even Sandy. She seemed so much lighter and brighter. Like she was aging backward. Seeing her that way, the last thing I wanted was to tell her about her mother’s car accident—an accident that we could only hope hadn’t happened the full three days earlier. Then again, maybe knowing something, even something bad, would be better than knowing nothing at all.
“Hi,” Justin said, with a “this has been an experience” expression as he crossed the room to kiss me. He’d offered to get Ella from school and to keep Sandy company until I got back. He probably hadn’t realized what he was signing up for.
He whispered in my ear, “Everything go okay?”
I nodded and mouthed: I’ll tell you later. “How are you guys?”
“We’ve been having a great time, right, girls?” he called to them, his eyes on mine.
“Yes,” they said in unison.
“Mommy, I want Sandy to sleep over,” Ella said, running over and grabbing on to my legs, her puffy mouth wobbling between a pout and a smile. “I want her to sleep in my room.”
“Well, she is sleeping over, I think.” I glanced at Sandy, who didn’t object but kept her eyes on the Candy Land cards, sifting and resifting them into a careful pile.
“Yeah!” Ella cheered.
“But in the guest room, Peanut,” I said. “Your bed is too small.”
“Boo!” Ella called, but she looked thrilled as she ran back over and grabbed Sandy’s hand. It was sweet seeing them together, and I had to will myself not to think about the sister Ella never had.
“Ella, Daddy is going to take you upstairs to get you ready for bed. I have to talk to Sandy for a minute.” I tousled her hair and kissed her cheek. “I’ll be up to say good night.”
“Boo!” Ella went again, giggling as Justin scooped her up onto his shoulder and headed for the stairs.
When I turned back, Sandy was stacking the Candy Land cards meticulously back into the box. As if her life depended on it. She was smiling a little bit. No, not smiling. Grimacing. I pulled a chair out and sat down across from her. When I reached over and put a hand on hers, still gripping some of the cards, Sandy’s fingers were ice-cold.
“Is she dead?” she asked. Quiet, matter-of-fact, as though she’d been waiting to hear that all along, maybe her whole life.
“They found her car, that’s all we know,” I said gently. “It looks like maybe she had an accident near the Palisades Parkway.”
“The Palisades?” Sandy looked up at me. “But that’s not on her way home. That’s nowhere near anything. Where was she headed?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess no one does yet.”
“Can we go?” She stood up and looked around. “To where her car is?”
“Oh, they didn’t tell me where exactly.” Even if they had, I never would have taken Sandy out there to possibly watch her mother’s dead body being dragged from some ditch. “They promised to call as soon as they know something. And then we’ll go right away, okay?”
“Okay,” she said reluctantly, lowering herself back down on the chair.
“Let me just run upstairs and say good night to Ella. She’ll never go to sleep otherwise. If you haven’t heard from the police by the time I get back down, I’ll call them again.”
“What about Hannah?” Sandy asked. “How is she?”
“They think she’s going to be okay,” I said, though that was a bit of an overstatement. I put a hand on Sandy’s shoulder as I stood. “Right now you need to focus on taking care of yourself. I’ll bet you haven’t eaten. I’ll send Justin down to make you something.”
“Okay,” Sandy said, though it was obvious she wasn’t about to eat a thing.
Justin was in Ella’s bedroom, snuggling her deep into her sea of stuffed animals—an ice cream sandwich with big goofy eyes, three dogs, and a panda bear in a flowered sundress. Her eyelids were heavy with sleep.
“I’m going to go change,” Justin said, kissing me as he headed out of the room.
I crouched next to Ella’s bed and pressed my forehead against hers. She hugged my head with her hot hands, so hard that she almost pulled out some of my hair.
“I missed you tonight,” I said. A mother wasn’t supposed to say that. I’d heard that once. But I didn’t care anymore. Because it was true. And true had to matter more than right.
“I love you, too, Mommy,” Ella said. “To the dinosaurs and back.”
“Good night, Peanut.” I kissed her face again and again until she giggled, then I pushed myself to my exhausted feet. “Light on or off?”
“Off,” Ella said sleepily. “Bye-bye, Mommy.”
I lingered in the doorway, watching Ella fall asleep. She was so perfect right now, just like that. I couldn’t be sure of how things would turn out, but I could be sure of that much. And that was something.
I headed to the guest bedroom to pull the shades and turn down the bed. To get the room ready for what would likely be Sandy’s long and terrible night to come. The police would call any minute, almost certainly with bad news. That would be followed by the long drive to the hospital and the heartbreaking identification of Sandy’s mother, the gathering of her personal effects. It would all be tragic, devastating, and it would likely be the middle of the night by the time we got home. Sandy would be wrecked and exhausted, and I didn’t want to have to be fussing around her then.