Дэвид Балдаччи - Wish You Well

“Jack, California is not the answer, it’s just not. You have to understand that,” said Amanda. “You won’t be happy.”

His expression was pained. “I’m tired of wonderful reviews and awards for my shelf, and then not even making enough money to support my family. All my family.” He glanced at Lou, and there appeared on his features an emotion that Amanda interpreted as shame. She wanted to lean across and hold him, tell him that he was the most wonderful man she had ever known. But she had told him that before, and they were still going to California.

“I can go back to teaching. That’ll give you the freedom to write. Long after we’re all gone, people will still be reading Jack Cardinal.”

“I’d like to go somewhere and be appreciated while I’m still alive.”

“You are appreciated. Or don’t we count?”

Jack looked surprised, a writer betrayed by his own words. “Amanda, I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry.”

Lou reached for her notebook. “Dad, I finished the story I was telling you about.”

Jack’s gaze held on Amanda. “Lou, your mother and I are talking.”

Amanda had been thinking about this for weeks, ever since he had told her of plans for a new life writing screenplays amid the sunshine and palm trees of California, for considerable sums of money. She felt he would be tarnishing his skills by putting into words the visions of others, substituting stories from his soul with those that would earn the most dollars.

“Why don’t we move to Virginia?” she said, and then Amanda held her breath.

Jack’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel. Outside there were no other cars, no lights other than the Zephyr’s. The sky was a long reef of suspect haze, no punctures of stars to guide them. They could have been driving over a flat, blue ocean, up and down exactly alike. One’s mind could easily be tricked by such a conspiracy of heavens and earth.

“What’s in Virginia?” His tone was very cautious.

Amanda clutched his arm in her growing frustration. “Your grandmother! The farm in the mountains. The setting for all those beautiful novels. You’ve written about it all your life and you’ve never been back. The children have never even met Louisa. My God, I’ve never met Louisa. Don’t you think it’s finally time?”

His mother’s raised voice startled Oz awake. Lou’s hand went out to him, covering his slight chest, transferring calm from her to him. It was an automatic thing now for Lou, for Amanda was not the only protector Oz had.

Jack stared ahead, clearly annoyed by this conversation. “If things work out like I’m planning, she’ll come and live with us. We’ll take care of her. Louisa can’t stay up there at her age.” He added grimly, “It’s too hard a life.”

Amanda shook her head. “Louisa will never leave the mountain. I only know her through the letters and what you’ve told me, but even I know that.”

“Well, you can’t always live in the past. And we’re going to California. We will be happy there.”

“Jack, you can’t really believe that. You can’t!”

Lou once more rocked forward. She was all elbows, neck, knees—slender limbs seemingly growing before her parents’ eyes.

“Dad, don’t you want to hear about my story?”

Amanda put a hand on Lou’s arm even as she gazed at a frightened Oz and tried to give him a reassuring smile, though reassurance was the last thing she was feeling. Now was clearly not the time for this discussion. “Lou, wait a minute, honey. Jack, we can talk later. Not in front of the kids.” She was suddenly very fearful of where this might actually go.

“What do you mean I can’t really believe that?” Jack said.

“Jack, not now.”

“You started this conversation, don’t blame me for wanting to finish it.”

“Jack, please—”

“Now, Amanda!”

She had never heard quite this tone, and instead of making her more afraid, it made her even angrier. “You hardly spend any time with the kids as it is. Always traveling, giving lectures, attending events. Everybody already wants a piece of Jack Cardinal, even if they won’t pay you for the privilege. Do you really think it’ll be better in California? Lou and Oz will never see you.”

Jack’s eyes, cheekbones, and lips formed a wall of defiance. When it came, his voice was filled with a potent combination of his own distress and the intent to inflict the same upon her. “Are you telling me I ignore my children?”

Amanda understood this tactic, but somehow still succumbed to it. She spoke quietly. “Maybe not intentionally, but you get so wrapped up in your writing—”

Lou almost vaulted over the front seat. “He does not ignore us. You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re wrong! You’re wrong!”

Jack’s dense wall turned upon Lou. “You do not talk to your mother that way. Ever!”

Amanda glanced at Lou, but even as she tried to think of something conciliatory to say, her daughter proved swifter.

“Dad, this really is the best story I’ve ever written. I swear. Let me tell you how it starts.”

However, Jack Cardinal, for probably the only time in his life, was not interested in a story. He turned and stared directly at his daughter. Under his withering look, her face went from hope to savage disappointment faster than Amanda could take a breath.

“Lou, I said not now!”

Jack slowly turned back. He and Amanda saw the same thing at the same time, and it pulled the blood from both their faces. The man was leaning into the trunk of his stalled car. They were so close to him that in the headlights Amanda saw the square bulge of the man’s wallet in his back pocket. He wouldn’t even have time to turn, to see his death coming at him at fifty miles an hour.

“Oh my God,” Jack cried out. He cut the wheel hard to the left. The Zephyr responded with unexpected agility and actually missed the car, leaving the careless man to live another day. But now the Zephyr was off the road and onto sloped ground, and there were trees up ahead. Jack heaved the wheel to the right.

Amanda screamed, and reached out to her children as the car rocked uncontrollably. She could sense that even the bottom-heavy Zephyr would not maintain its balance.

Jack’s eyes were silver dollars of panic, his breath no longer coming up. As the car raced across the slick road and onto the dirt shoulder on the other side, Amanda lunged into the backseat. Her arms closed around her children, bringing them together, her body between them and all that was hard and dangerous about the car. Jack swung the wheel back the other way, but the Zephyr’s balance was gone, its brakes useless. The car missed a stand of what would have been unforgiving trees, but then did what Amanda had feared it would all along, it rolled.

As the top of the car slammed into the dirt, the driver’s door was thrown open, and like a swimmer lost in a sudden rip, Jack Cardinal was gone from them. The Zephyr rolled again, and clipped a tree, which slowed its momentum. Shattered glass cascaded over Amanda and the children. The sound of tearing metal mixed with their screams was terrible; the smell of freed gasoline and billowy smoke searing. And through every roll, impact, and pitch again, Amanda pinned Lou and Oz safely against the seat with a strength that could not be completely her own. She absorbed every blow, keeping it from them.

The steel of the Zephyr fought a fearsome battle with the hard-packed dirt, but the earth finally triumphed and the car’s top and right side buckled. One sharp-edged part caught Amanda on the back of her head, and then the blood came fast. As Amanda sank, the car, with one last spin, came to rest upside down, pointing back the way they had come.