It’s after ten o’clock and they’ve been at it since seven in the morning. Now finally they’re done and the buzz of a big release is slowly wearing off, replaced by the exhaustion of fifteen hours of mental taxation.
Ben says “I’ve got this,” as he gathers the cups, paper plates, and mostly empty pizza boxes. “You all go on.” It’s a job for one—he’s really almost done—and so they do go on. The motion activated lights switch on just ahead of them as they pass through the hall and out the office lobby. Most of the group heads to the right, towards the parking lot, but Gary cuts left.
“You taking the train?”
“You bet.”
“Why don’t I give you a ride? It’s not far out of my way.”
“I’m good. I think it’ll do me some good to just ride and decompress.”
“I can get you home sooner.”
“No no, I’m good. But thanks.”
“Alright then. You take care.”
He walks past buildings with just a window or two lit from within. The street is slick with rain, black and shining, but there isn’t really anything coming down. Not much anyway. There’s a wide crosswalk and he has to wait longer than he’d like for the walk sign, against a total lack of traffic. He crosses, swipes his pass at the platform terminal, and waits.
It’s called the westbound train because where it ends is west of where it starts. But for almost all of his ride the train actually runs due north. Only a hundred feet or so before his stop does it turn sharply and then it really is going west. This turn, in its way, frees him to unwind, to pay no attention to his surroundings, almost even to sleep a little on days like today. He can almost imagine that he’s the one who moves the train. He can almost imagine that he wakes by his own power when the moment comes. But it’s the turn — the shifting of weight through the turn really — that brings him back around, lets him know it’s almost time to stand, exit, and make the short walk home.
This time of night the train is almost always empty, or very close to it. Today he shares the car with only one person, a young woman who reminds him a little of his oldest daughter. She is about the right age, just on the edge of adulthood. But she is Black and his daughter is white. Not that it matters, he says to himself. They do not make eye contact. He sits in his usual seat, all the way in the back, train left, facing forward. He leans his weight into the corner there where the back wall and window come together. It’s a matter of small degrees but this one seat is ever so slightly more comfortable than all the others if you want to rest. The hood of his jacket is pulled over his head to block the harsh interior light that bothers his tired eyes. He watches the paler warmer lights of the city reflect on the round droplets of rain on the window. The street lights and traffic lights are reflected clearly when the train is stopped, but when the train is moving that clarity is disturbed periodically by small and sudden vibrations. He wonders what causes these vibrations. Only after watching and wondering about this for a few minutes does he realize it is his own head, bouncing gently against the large flat pane of glass as the train car jostles, that shakes the window. He taps the glass with a finger tip and it diffuses a thousand pinpricks of red and yellow light in a thousand individual drops. While the train moves, if he is careful not to disturb the scene, the effect of the droplets is intensified. Each drop contains a small microcosm of the entire outside scene. The way they all move at once, but each slightly different, gives him the impression he’s looking through so many peepholes at so many different possibilities.
For some reason this image engages him so intensely that he misses the turn completely. He almost misses the stop. When he does realize, the door is already open. It is apparently open only for him because now he is completely alone in the train. He jumps from his seat and jogs to the door, catching it just as it starts to close. It beeps impatiently at him but yields and he steps out into his neighborhood. Only then does he realize the young woman has herself just exited. She is some ten or twelve paces ahead of him on the platform. He isn’t following her, but he’s following her. She turns right. He isn’t following her but he turns right too. She glances back discretely and hurries her pace almost imperceptibly. Only then does he realize: She is worried. He feels something between dismay and incredulity. He thinks for a moment of slowing down. Stopping even to let her continue on, through the next light. But she has no reason to be scared of him. Him of all people. As well, its a public street. He has every right to be here. She reaches the intersection and waits for the light. He closes the distance but holds back a few paces giving her space. They cross together, he some steps behind her. He can see pools of light from the intermittent street lights block after block ahead. The way is shadowed deeply in the spaces between. She glances back, quickens. He keeps his pace calm and steady. No reason for her to be afraid. She hugs her bag closer to her body. She is entering one of the dark places now.
It happens fast. She looks back once more, then breaks into a run, cutting across the street. Why is the street so wide? Why are the lights spaced so far apart? Why is the speed limit so high? Why is she so afraid? Later he’ll remember thinking all these things as it unfolded, but it doesn’t seem like there is enough time for all that. He’ll ask these questions so many times in the days to come that they will wrap themselves around the memory of the event until all of it becomes one thing. The pools of light, the hugging of the bag, the breaking left, the 2017 black Dodge Charger. They don’t even touch the brakes, it all happens so fast. Two seconds maybe from beginning to end. And the impact itself, oh God, he is watching it happen from half a block away, framed by that damn pool of light like some specimen in a horror museum. It happens fast but the moment of impact itself seems to slow down so that in the end the impact consumes the event, becomes the event. Her body seems for an instant elongated like some alien Dali nightmare before snapping back into shape. As though her legs have to catch up with the rest of her. Oh God, it happens so fast. He is so tense his tooth cracks but he won’t realize it until tomorrow.
He remembers it all so vividly. Turns it around in his head.
The car slid to a stop, turning sideways in the street. He ran to them but he had no idea what to do. He vomited on the sidewalk, took out his phone, but the driver was already calling someone. The girl lay still as stone on the street. No. A dead child is stiller than stone. He had no idea what to do. You aren’t supposed to touch them, right? Or was that baby birds?
“You saw that, right?” the driver called? “She jumped right out in front of me. You saw that right?” He was ashen and pacing.
He would remember for the rest of his life that the police officer was preternaturally kind. She put her hand on his shoulder as he sat on the curb.
“You take your time,” she said.
She said many other things, mostly words of comfort. Somewhere in there was the phrase “unfortunately she did die.” Why did she say it that way? “Did die” instead of “is dead.” Like it was an act.
He stared at his hands.
“I think… I think I scared her.”
“Did you say something to her? Threaten her in some way?”
“No, no. Nothing like that. But she saw me. I mean I saw her see me and I think …”
“And you scared her?”
“Well it’s late. It’s dark. She was scared.”
“By your presence?”
He almost whispered, “by my presence.” And then, not in a whisper, “But I didn’t do anything. I didn’t do anything at all! I would never… I’m a nice guy.”
The officer bore an expression of deepest patience and understanding. “Mr. Waters, I understand how you feel. You can’t blame yourself for what happened here. You were a witness to a tragic accident. It’s going to be ok. Can I call someone for you?”
“No.” He gestured exhaustedly. “I live right here.”
She handed him a notebook. Each page was divided into repeated sections with blanks for bits of information. She had already filled out the second slip on the page with all his contact information and a sentence describing his report. He only had to sign. He could not help noticing the information on the first slip on the page. “Day, Cassandra”. “17”. Her address was there too and it was so close to his. Just three blocks away. But inconceivably, a block he’d never stepped foot on.
He signed.
“I don’t— I don’t— I don’t know know what to think.”
They were sitting at the dining table together. His wife had been waiting there playing a game on her phone when he walked in the door. Even after all these years she did not like to go to bed until he got home. It took her only a moment to realize something was terribly wrong. And then it all came out. And now she was crying. She held him.
“I think right now you need to get some sleep.”
Breakfast.
“I should go talk to her family. Should I? People do that right? I guess they do it when they, like, save someone. But what if they just witnessed it? My God it’s so horrible.”
His wife was clearing the breakfast dishes. Normally he would do this but he was just pacing with a single dirty dish in his hands, egg yolk threatening to drip on the floor. So she took it from him and finished the job.
“What would you say to them?”
“I don’t know. Just make sure they know this wasn’t my fault.”
“I don’t think anybody thinks this was your fault.”
“I just. I should tell them something. I have to say something don’t I?”
She hugged him again. She had been doing this constantly all morning. “How would you even know how to find them?”
“I have their address.” She stopped and turned, serious. “I saw it on the police report.”
Tears welled in her eyes again. “Gary, I don’t think you should go see them.”
He couldn’t work. He went to work but he couldn’t focus. He couldn’t sleep. He searched online for news of the event but he only found two tiny reports. How could all these articles about all these things warrant so many words, and this so few? The reports were nearly identical, terse and factual. Neither mentioned him. Neither even questioned why she might be crossing the street outside the crosswalk in the dark, and in the rain. People would think this girl was an idiot. Or worse. He thought about calling the paper. He could set the record straight. It wasn’t her fault. It was… Well it was nobody’s fault.
He wasn’t eating well.
He could see them gathered around the gravesite. It was a small group, huddled close. In the center, an enormous man in a black suit, and beside him a small and erect veiled woman. There were others too, and they seemed to be each supporting the others so that only through the effort of all of them together were any of them standing. A girl of maybe 16 was visibly sobbing. A lanky boy had his arm around her.
Why had he never cried about this. Not even once? He was a few yards off, unsure what to do. The small woman spoke something in her husband’s huge ear, and then she came to him.
“Hello. I’m Mrs. Day. I don’t believe we’ve met. Did you know my daughter.” Her posture was like a lamppost. My God this woman is strong.
“No. Not really. I.” He stopped. He had absolutely no idea what to say.
“Can I help you Mr. …?” She extended her hand to make clear she was asking his name. He did not take it.
“I was there that night. I saw it happened.”
She winced so discretely he could never be sure it was really there. “I see,” she said. “Well Mr. Waters.” (How did she know his name?) “I do appreciate you coming to give your condolences. It was kind of you. I’m sure this experience was difficult for you. And now, I think if it would be alright, we would like to be together as a family.”
She turned and went back to the group. Several people in the group gave her questioning looks but she only shook her head as if to say: Not now. Not here. It doesn’t matter.
There was a memorial of some kind that night. He saw it on the flyer. Who ever heard of a memorial after the burial? It was at the big church a few miles away. He had seen it almost daily for years but had never been in. The walk from the parking lot to the building seemed to take longer than should be allowed. He found a restroom and sat on the toilet without using it. He had no idea what to do.
There were tables set up in a sort of gymnasium. A long table of pot luck food formed a barrier on one end. He stood in the entry looking in at all these people. It didn’t look like any memorial he had ever seen. No one wore black. There was color everywhere, and it seemed to him, in this moment, irreverent.
The guests began to notice him. He stuck out like an apparition among these people. The young girl from the gravesite approached him, guarded.
“Can I help you?”
“Are you part of the family?”
“Yes.” Her eyes had him in a headlock. Where do women like this come from?
“I just wanted to come and…” He choked on his own words, started over. “To talk to the family. I wanted you to know what happened. To your…” He realized he had no idea how this girl was related to that girl.
Her eyes were a funeral pyre and her voice was ice. “What do you mean, what happened to her?”
The room was huge but others throughout the room seemed to sense the tension in the conversation. The mother, sitting by her husband at a table near the food, watched them tiredly. The lanky young man was walking their way.
“Look,” he said, “none of this was my fault. Ok? I just want to make sure you know this isn’t my fault. There was nothing I could do.”
“I think you need to leave.”
“Can I just talk…”
“Sir.” She was calm as summer evenings, enunciating every word. “I am asking you to leave.” She turned away.
His heart was racing. They were so angry. And with him. But he was just trying to explain. He took one long stride toward her, reaching out to call her back. He felt the world shut down around him. He was on the floor. His head was pounding. The young man was standing over him. He was saying something.
“Pretty sure she said leave.”
Two men helped him up, straightened him out, and escorted him to the door. The kid who had hit him was following them. “Walk away,” he said. “Don’t come back.”
He stumbled through the front door. His head was swimming. His pants were torn.
“Gary! Oh my God what happened?”
She ran to him, helped him to the couch and looked him over. In a moment she was digging through the freezer. “Where the hell is the ice pack?” she raged. She brought him a ziplock bag of ice cubes wrapped in a towel, and pressed it gently on his eye. “What happened to you?”
“I had to talk to them.”
“You did not. Gary you did not go harass those people on today of all days.”
“I didn’t harass them. I talked to them. I had to make sure they know this isn’t my fault. It’s killing me.”
She was angry. Somehow she was so angry at him, but still holding the ice to his eye so gently. For a long time she said nothing. Finally she broke her silence. She looked pained and almost stopped before she started, almost looked away, but then she straightened and she would not look away.
“God damn it Gary you listen to me. No you look at me!” She turned his head so his one open eye looked directly at her. He had never seen her like this before. “Listen to me: This is not your fucking tragedy. That girl is dead. Those people lost their baby girl. None of that is about you. Not one bit.” Her voice softened just a note. “You have got to get that through your head.”
Tears filled his one visible eye. She pulled the ice from the other and tested the bruise with her fingertip. She kissed it. “Sweetheart. You’ve got to find a way to get over this without bringing those poor people into it. I know this is hard. But you’ve got to find a way.”
He lay on the couch until late that night. And then he put himself to bed.
The bruise would not heal. In went from swollen and red to deep blue to a sickly yellow. But the sickness refused to fully disappear. His wife offered to apply concealer but he refused. He didn’t wear sunglasses. He wore his bruise like a stigmata. He still was not working. His diet was poor. He hung around the house. His wife’s patience wore thinner.
Eight days after the punch he awoke early, showered, shaved, put on his most sombre suit, and left the house before 8:00. It was a Saturday. His wife was at her yoga class. He walked the three blocks to the home. It was a small neat house on block with some mix of well kept and unkept lawns. He recalled the house number effortlessly, saw it scratched there in the notepad in that pollyanna police woman’s hand.
For the first time in two weeks he felt confident. He pressed the button and heard a bell ring faintly through the door. She opened the door. The mother. Behind her on the couch, pressed into the darkest corner of the room, he could see the hulking husband.
“Mr. Waters. I was not expecting you. Won’t you come in.” She held a white handkerchief in her left hand and gestured with it.
He entered the small room. The man did not stand. He did not move. Did not even make eye contact. Gary looked around the room, taking in a life in two dimensions. Photographs covered the walls and the gently worn furniture. The couch was covered in a clear plastic to protect it from stains and spills. On the coffee table he could see photo albums in a disorganized stack as though they had recently been opened and had not yet been returned to their semi-forgotten cloister. They stood in defiance to the otherwise perfect neatness of the room.
“Would you like to sit?” She gestured to a chair next to a small upright piano. He sat and so did she, next to her husband. He still did not make eye contact and Gary found it accusing.
“Now. Mr. Waters. What can we do for you?” Her politeness was unnerving.
“I’d like to apologize. To you both.” He looked at her husband but he still did not return the look.
“And what are you apologizing for?”
“For what I did at the service. I should not have gone there. That was wrong of me.”
“I see,” she said. Her face was unreadable.
He waited for her to say more but she only looked at him. She did I not break eye contact and then he could not hold it any longer and he looked down.
“And…” he said. He stared at the albums on the coffee table. Finally he went on, stiffly. “And I’m sorry for any part I may have played in what happened to your daughter.”
“I accept your apology,” she said. And she sounded like she meant it.
Again he waited for her to say more, but she only looked at him. She was holding her husband’s hand now, and he looked as though he were straining against some terrible urge.
Gary gestured lamely. And then he said “I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me.”
She said nothing. Nothing at all. She only watched him in her calm and unnerving way.
Finally he said, almost in a whisper, “It wasn’t my fault.”
Then she broke her silence but she was still deadly calm. “If you bear no responsibility then why are you asking for forgiveness?”
Her husband made to stand but his wife laid her hand gently on his arm and he settled back into the couch. She stood instead, approaching Gary. “Walk with me.” She took his arm in hers and led him out the door.
Her eyes were tired and she stood before him unashamed of the tears that were once again forming on their corners. She dabbed at them with her handkerchief.
“It’s not my job to judge you, Mr. Waters. You seem to be doing plenty of that yourself. It’s my job to grieve the loss of my daughter, and to help my family heal.”
“And what is my job? Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”
“I don’t know. It’s also not my responsibility to tell you what to do. You do understand that, don’t you?”
He stood silent for some time, not looking at her. And then he nodded and walked away. It was stiflingly hot. He could feel the radiant heat of the sun through the sleeve of his suit jacket. He walked to the corner, turned to the right, and stopped, looking carefully for cross traffic. But this was a quiet neighborhood street. Safe as houses. There were no cars in sight at all. He began to step off the curb and as he did he heard a voice call out to him.
“Mr. Waters,” she said. She was still standing where he had left her.
He turned just his head. His foot hung in the air, about to step down from the curb and onto the street. He held it there as he turned. Held it as he waited for whatever she had to say. Held everything within him not knowing what to expect. He would right now allow himself to hear anything and he would not react at all.
“You’ll be ok,” she said simply. She raised her hand in a small wave. She was still holding the handkerchief. “You’ll be ok.”
She turned, and at the same time tucked the handkerchief into the pocket of her pants. She opened the door of her home. The conditioned air washed over her, touching her everywhere and for the first time in so long she felt a small moment of pleasure. But it did not last. Her husband still sat motionless on the couch. He did not turn to look at her and she knew that if he did, if he truly allowed her to see him, he would cry. And that was something he could not allow himself to do. Not now. In time, perhaps. She knew too that she would have to help him with that. She picked up a photo album from the table and sat next to him, taking his huge hand in hers. With her free hand she let the book fall open randomly. Together, in silence, they studied the forever child they found there.