“Penny,” Cheryl shouts from inside the restaurant. “Come in, you’ve gotta see this. The news. Oh, God, sweetheart.”
“Yes, Mrs. Stone,” Parrish says. “There was an accident involving your husband.”
Chapter Three
Phone pressed to my ear, I walk into the crowded diner, my body moving toward the television, passing our loyal customers — men in ball caps with the insignias of their time in the service. Sheriff Lawson in the corner. I don’t offer them my usual friendly smile. Cheryl holds a remote and turns up the volume; everyone in Over Easy is transfixed by the breaking news.
“Local law enforcement say this crash is more catastrophic than any they have seen in recent years,” the reporter on the scene says, his expression grim, his tone tense. My heart falls. “A Grand Slam Transit semi-truck went over the guardrail near the Marshadow Pass, at mile marker 141. carriage plummeted down the gorge.”
I gasp, clutching my cell phone as I take in the images on the television. A helicopter is high above a massive, winding gorge that towers with layered rock walls in varying shades of gray and brown and black, the remains of the truck half-submerged in the rushing river below.
“Is he… Did he…” Tears fall from my eyes as Officer Parrish tells me what I’m seeing on screen is in fact Ledger’s truck.
“His body hasn’t been recovered. There is a team headed down to the site as we speak and we will keep you updated with any information we have.”
I sink to the floor; the diner has gone quiet, no clanging of forks or calling out of orders. Everyone in this place has known me for years. They are as glued to the television as I am.
A photo of my husband flashes on the screen. “Driver Ledger Stone has worked for Grand Slam Transit for the last three years. Reports show a clean record and we are still waiting for a statement from his company. As we speak, search and rescue is descending the gorge to recover the body of Stone.”
“Ma’am?” Parrish says loudly through the phone, and I wonder how many times he has asked for me before I heard him. “Do you hear me?”
“Yes, I’m here,” I whisper, the room spinning as I search for words to say.
“Are you alone?”
I look around. “No, I’m at work.”
“Good, stay with people who can support you; right now, that is the best thing you can do.”
“Is he dead?” I ask.
“Mrs. Stone, as of now, no body has been found, however, the river has a fast moving current this time of year and—”
“You think he’s dead?”
The line goes quiet. “Ma’am—”
I cut him off, dropping the phone. The sob that leaves my mouth is deeper, more primal than any sound I have ever made in my life.
No.
No. Not Ledger. Not my rock. My anchor. My one true thing.
No.
Cheryl is on the floor with me, wrapping me in her arms. I let her hold me, scared of being swept away if she lets go. My body shakes as someone mutes the news. An unfamiliar hush fills the greasy diner. Burnt coffee sits in the air and tears fall on the weathered faces of men who spend their hard-earned military retirement on steak and eggs, tucking a generous tip in my apron on the first of the month.
I don’t know how long I sit there on the linoleum floor. But when I finally stand, I reach for my purse. “Call my mom,” I say, to no one in particular. They all know who I’m talking about. Mom’s as townie as I am. There’s no way I can speak to her on the phone. “She needs to bring the kids home.”
Cheryl won’t let me drive. “You’re shaking so bad you’ll wreck the car.” She catches herself, eyes filling with apology. There’s no need to say sorry. Not over that. Not when Ledger is gone. Not when my life has just collapsed in one fell swoop.
I let her drive me. Because she’s right. I could wreck the car with how badly I tremble.
And I can’t do that. Tiny and Benny need me in one piece to get through this next part.
Whatever this next part may be.
The first part went like this: Five years ago, I was working a late-night shift at Over Easy. The place was empty, a half hour until closing. Johnny, the line cook, was in the kitchen cleaning the grill and I was wiping down tables, a freshly minted twenty-year-old in a too-short skirt because I wasn’t above showing my thighs if it meant extra tips.
I was saving every spare dollar for my future. And the future was so shiny, it gleamed brighter than the tabletops as I washed them down with Clorox.
He came in when I was sweeping, my back to him, but when I turned, my heart snapped. Crackled. Popped. I was a Rice Krispie treat in human form the moment I looked into his forest green eyes. Melting marshmallows and he knew it. And he didn’t look away. That’s the thing about Ledger Stone: he was never scared to look me in the eye. To say it like it is. True blue, salt of the earth, honest-to-goodness, flannel shirt-wearing man. Mine.
I knew it before he did, I think. Knew that single night was going to change everything. Change me. He sat in the booth and I slipped in across from him and he didn’t need a menu. It was obvious what he intended to order.
It all came to be without a single word: love at first sight. No one wants to hear all that. People ask how I knew, if what I’m saying is true. And I always answer the same. When I looked at him, I knew that he would never break me. And there were already so many parts that were broken. And all of them — the parts that had shattered when my father walked away after leaving mom with one too many cracked ribs, when my first boyfriend hit me, when my second boyfriend hit harder — began to heal.
My mother said nothing heals that fast. And maybe that’s true for most people. But I was never most people. And, it turns out, neither was Ledger.
“I’m Penny Carpenter,” I told him, memorizing his face. His nose was crooked in a way that made his handsome features seem dangerous. A scar across the bridge of his nose, under his left eye. He’d seen trouble. Was trouble. Stubble on his strong jaw, arched dark brows. When he smiled at me, his teeth weren’t perfectly straight and I liked that. His imperfection made him human, more accessible.
“I’m Ledger Stone.” He offered me his hand and I shook it; our eyes locked and we both felt it. We talked about it later, how the world seemed to shift then, the axis changed. Our lives were moving in a new direction.
The road, though, was one we were both on. After my shift at the diner, I climbed in his Ford truck. He leaned over me and buckled me in, and I held my breath, knowing this was it. The stories I always wrote in my notebooks, about longing and desire, were suddenly more than a fantasy.
He turned on the radio and Can’t Help Falling In Love came on, the velvety lyrics filling the cab. The song was so perfect for the moment I laughed. My whole life had felt like a struggle and then I met Ledger, and suddenly, it felt worth it. Like I could understand real love when I saw it because I’d been looking for it in the wrong places all my life.
“You don’t like Elvis?” Ledger asked, eyebrow raised.
“Everyone likes Elvis.” I looked at him, the neon lights from Over Easy illuminating us both.
“What else do you like, Penny Carpenter?”