“Is he gonna be okay?” Tiny asks, her voice so fragile, her words so tragic, that I want to scoop up each syllable and pretend they were never spoken. Put them away in the junk drawer with the duct tape and never look at them again. They are too awful to consider.
“They don’t know,” I manage to say. “The police and firemen are helping. They’re looking for… for him.”
Benny starts crying. Mom sits on the floor too. I hold them, all of them, and I can’t let go. I don’t know how long we sit like that, lost in the wave of emotion sweeping over my dirty kitchen floor. My house so hot, stale, my skin wet with sweat and salty tears.
Finally, Mom stands and turns on the TV.
“No,” I croak.
“Please?” Benjamin says, transfixed by the story as the news comes on.
“We need to know, Penny. We need to know what’s happening,” Mom says.
Benny and Tiny are only four but they understand the images. And maybe it’s better this way. To see it for what it is. Honestly, it’s better than me trying to explain. Better than their mother saying their father’s truck went flying over a guardrail, and that there is no body but really, how could anyone survive that fall?
It’s not a story I want to tell. It’s too ambitious. Too awful. Too real.
The stories I’ve written are silly, frothy, fun. Stories of money fixing problems and love wiping all the blues away.
Instead of talking, we watch the same story on repeat. Grand Slam Transit releases a statement, but the words are politically correct — a tragedy, investigating, our prayers are with… I can’t listen.
When my phone rings, I grab it, answering without thinking because maybe it’s Ledger. Maybe this was all a misunderstanding. It’s not his truck. He’s almost home.
“Hello?” I pant.
“Shit, Penny, I wasn’t sure you’d answer.” It’s Jack Barrett, Ledger’s closest friend. He got Ledger his job at Grand Slam three years ago, shortly after they met, and they’ve been thick as thieves ever since.
“My mom’s here,” I manage to say. “We’ve been watching the news.”
Hearing his voice feels like a hard rock of reality hitting me in the stomach. I know wishing this away won’t make it come true. And hearing Jack on the phone makes it feel all too real. We don’t talk like this. We talk when Jack comes over to help Ledger in the garage, rebuilding an engine. We talk when Jack comes for dinner, throwing Benny in the air so high I look away, Ledger laughing, his hand on my waist. We don’t talk like this: one on one.
“God, you should turn that off,” he says. “Ledger would hate you seeing this.”
I walk down the hall, pressing my forehead to the wall, my voice soft, cracking. “Do you think he survived?”
“I sure as hell hope so. You need anything? I can come over.”
“I’m okay for now. Thanks, though,” I say, shaking as I walk back into the kitchen, sinking back to the floor, my back against the refrigerator.
“If you do,” he says, “I’m here for you.”
“Thanks,” I say, my voice paper-thin. “But be honest, do you think… do you think there might be a chance that he’s…”
“Alive?”
“Yeah.”
The line is quiet. Jack isn’t a talker; that’s why he and Ledger got along so well. The two of them could hangout all day, cracking open Bud Lights, listening to a ball game, never saying a word.
“I hope he is,” Jack finally says.
“Me too.” I look over at my children now asleep on the floor in front of the television. My mother is carrying dishes to the kitchen sink. She holds Benny’s long-forgotten breakfast bowl. Her eyes meet mine as I finish the call.
“He can’t be gone, Mom.”
She sets the dishes in the sink, and kneels down, wrapping me into a hug. “The video footage looks pretty final, Penny.”
I pull back, wiping my eyes. My hair falling wildly into my face, the house so hot, the day stretching out so long. It’s only three in the afternoon. How will I get through this? One never-ending day after the next with Ledger never walking in through the front door.
“There’s a chance,” I say, my voice cracking.
Fuck realism. I’m choosing hope. Crazy lovesick hope.
He can’t be dead.
And if he’s alive somehow, some way, he needs us to believe in him.
Chapter Five
I tell myself this isn’t hard.
I can hold onto hope that my husband is still alive. Ledger is a truck driver. He leaves for long stretches of time. It’s easy to pretend this is just like that. The trip is just slightly longer than we expected. My real regret is that I didn’t think of this charade before the children saw the news. Because then they could play make-believe along with me.
I tuck them into Benjamin’s bed, kissing their freckled cheeks, their upturned noses. I brush their curly black hair away and kiss their foreheads.
“I love you and Papa loves you and nothing will ever, ever change that,” I tell them.
“Love you more,” they say.
“Love you most.” They have their own rooms but tonight they want to be together. I don’t argue. I let them snuggle and dream and stay close because, in the end, this is all we have. Each other.
I need Ledger at home.
“This isn’t healthy,” Mom says as I walk into the kitchen. I don’t need her to elaborate.
I’m putting my energy toward convincing myself he’s not dead. She’s putting hers toward eradicating every germ from our house. Toilets, sinks, floors. The house smells comforting, like lemons and bleach. I let her hug me.
I nestle my chin on her shoulder and I blink, looking out the kitchen window. The grass needs to be cut. My ambitious summer plan of homegrown vegetables wilts in the wooden beds Ledger built me for Mother’s Day. The front yard is mostly dead from the summer heat, but the back yard has lots of shade, and the grass is lush, thick, long. I have an urge to drag the lawnmower from the garage, rev the engine, and chop it all down. To drown out the noise in my heart with the hum of the motor.
“You’re not saying anything.” Mom’s words bring me back to the moment. A sponge is in her hand and she sprays the counter with disinfectant, swiping away the germs.
“What would I say?” I ask, pulling open the fridge and grabbing the box of white wine. I pull out two coffee cups and fill them both. Mom shakes her head, refusing the mug that has the words Write Epic Shit on the front. Ledger gave it to me for Christmas. He was trying to be encouraging. At the time, it felt like pressure; now it feels like I want to wrap it in tissue paper and never let anyone use it again. What if there is never another Christmas gift from him?
I pour the contents of her mug into mine and take a sip of the cardboard-tasting pinot grigio.
“I don’t know,” she says, sighing, sitting down at the table, her fingernails tapping the wooden tabletop. “You could call your friends? Let people know?”
I shake my head. “Your phone has been buzzing all night. I’m sure you’ve let anyone who needs to know, know.”
“It’s on Facebook, the local Riverport page is blowing up about it. So many people care about you, about the kids. Everyone is heartbroken for you, Penny.”