Scott Turow - Personal injuries

"That's the worst fucking thing I've ever done in my life," he yelled. Then, I took it, he'd hurled down the camera, because the screen first jumbled, then went completely black.

The next morning, when Evon came to pick up Feaver, he was gone.

She'd waited fifteen minutes for him at the foot of the drive, her car window opened to the sweet morning air. Eventually, she went up to the house. Punctuality was normally his sole reliable virtue.

The home care worker was new. Elba had returned to the Philippines for two weeks for her niece's wedding, and her place had been taken by Doris, a stooped AfricanAmerican woman who looked as if she needed assistance herself. She had no idea where Robbie had gone, other than having heard him depart in the middle of the night.

Evon had told herself that she would never feel sorry again for Robbie Feaver. But as she'd watched his silhouette plunge wearily toward his door last night, that resolve had eroded. The truth about Feaver was that he wasn't actually anything he said he was. Not one thing. He wasn't a lawyer, obviously. And he'd never amounted to dip as an actor. He wasn't even a husband, if that meant keeping to your commitments seven days a week. But his answer to all of that was that at least he was a friend. That's what he'd told her when she demanded to `know what mattered.' His friends. And as punishment for getting caught in one of history's all-time whoppers, Sennett with his treacherous genius had pointed his shotgun at Robbie and brought him to his knees, making him look down both of the dark barrels and find out that even the one thing he said for himself was no truer than the rest.

Maybe he'd just gone out to get drunk, she figured now. Or to stare at the river.

After another half hour she realized he'd probably run.

She called McManis from a nearby pharmacy so she could use a wire line. Jim was silent so long she had to ask if he was there.

"He couldn't run," Jim said finally. "He wouldn't leave his wife." McManis stopped then. "Christ. You better get back and make sure she's still there."

She raced back down the clean suburban streets. He'd run! What had Jim said? There was never a bottom with his type.

When she arrived, Robbie was in the driveway, just emerging from the Mercedes. He walked slowly toward her. It was probably the first time she'd seen him looking sloppy. He was unshaven. His hair was stirred up and his face seemed withered by lack of sleep. A placket shirt hung limply over the belt line of his fancy slacks. He was clearly not heading to the office. From the dullness of his eyes, she thought she'd been right in the first place, that he was drunk, but he was moving too well. He turned his head to follow some thought as if it were a butterfly before his attention fell to her again.

"My mother died," he said, "last night. She had another stroke. She was DOA at the hospital, but they went through some stuff in the E.R." He flopped up a hand from his side, acknowledging the futility of those efforts, and somehow it landed on Evon's. It seemed almost accidental, but he permitted himself a brief squeeze before letting go. He looked off toward the apple tree in the yard that was heavy with pink blossoms and made a face. The stroke had been on the other side, he said, so he figured it was, all in all, better this way.

Two years ago, Evon's father had gone in for bypass. Her mother and she and five of her sibs, all the girls and one of her brothers, sat together nearly six hours in the contour chairs of the surgical lounge. In her anxiety, her mother had been herself, only more so, carping about the nurses and going from child to child finding fault. Evon had decided to leave, had actually gotten to her feet, when the doctor came out to tell them that her father hadn't made it.

He had been a large red-faced figure, with thick arms and a substantial belly straining the buttons of a gingham shirt. His thick fingers were calloused, the nails always cracked and never free of dirt. He smelled of the land at all times. She had known him mostly as a presence. He spoke little, even when he was sitting around joshing with the neighbors. He treated her mother kindly, but with the same somewhat distant air they all experienced. He was uncomfortable with feeling and always wanted to be away from it, safe in the realm of chores and routine. He'd split with his own family when Evon's mother quit the Church. He spoke to his brothers occasionally, but not his parents. In her entire life, Evon couldn't recall his mentioning his mother or father more than twice. How had he done that? He was gone, never fully known, and yet he still reared up in her dreams and thoughts countless times a day, and always with a lingering twisted pain, as if somewhere in her something had been torn up by the root.

Robbie said he had already called Mort, who was working on the funeral arrangements. Now he had to tell Rainey. Before he started up the driveway, he asked Evon to go to the office, to take care of the mail and help Mort reschedule the deps and other appointments for the next few days.

"No problem." She had no will left to rebuke him.

He looked at her pathetically, unwilling to move. She realized what he wanted. In the house, his wife would not even be able to lift her arms to him in consolation. She reached out just to touch him, but he flowed toward her and swarmed her in an embrace, which she reluctantly returned.

"You're a tough cowpoke. You're gonna make it. You let me know what I can do."

He didn't let go of her, even then. He had begun to burble. When he stood back, he grabbed his lip and continued to cry, his face crushed by the pain.

"She was just so much," he said. "She was so much."

News of the death had circulated through the office by the time she got there. There was a dismal air that seemed to go beyond mere respect for the boss. Mort was on his way out to sit with Robbie at his home, and asked Evon to follow up on several details related to cases. He stood at the opening of her cubicle. He was in his suit but his tie was already removed, an emblem that business as usual had been suspended.

"How's he going to take all this?" Mort asked her. He, too, appeared on the verge of experiencing his famous vulnerability to tears. "It's too much," Mort said. He sobbed then and smashed his face into his hand, but could not move, desolated by Robbie's future.

The funeral was the following day. Jews traditionally buried with speed, Eileen explained. Everyone from the office was going, so Evon was spared any decision.

Mort phoned as she was leaving her apartment. "We have a big problem," he said. Doris, the home care aide, had not shown up. Robbie had suspected from the start that the job was too much for her, and the notion of a hundred people traipsing through the house for visitation had apparently pushed her beyond her limit. Mort had sent Bobbie off to the funeral home, promising to handle this, but he had called a number of agencies and none of them could produce someone before the early afternoon.

"My mom was a nurse," Mort said, "so she could do it, but you know, I think he'd really want her there. Considering the circumstances. I can call one of his cousins, but I thought you might be able to think of somebody. Lorraine's sleeping most of the time now anyway, but it would be nice if it's somebody she's met."

She could tell Mort was angling. His cagier side grew more apparent each day. He kept minimizing what he was asking. There was less than an hour to the funeral, the service wouldn't last long, and a number of people would then return to the house. There seemed no way to say no, and he thanked her enthusiastically when she finally offered. But she felt exasperated once she put down the phone. She decided to call back and wriggle out. It didn't really fit the cover. People would wonder, wouldn't they, about Robbie's girlfriend caring for his wife on the day of his mother's funeral? No, she saw then, they wouldn't. They would think that's Robbie Feaver all over.