Eve Silver - Push

I pull out my phone and call him. Through my open window, I hear the faint sound of his ringtone inside the house. He forgot his phone. Again.

And the battery’s probably almost dead. Again. He has a habit of forgetting to charge it.

I duck back in through the window and head to his room. No phone on the dresser, but there’s a low oval dish that Mom used to keep potpourri in. I stare at it for a minute, really seeing it for the first time in ages. It’s full, but not with aromatic leaves. There are matchbooks in there.

I exhale a shocked breath. Dad wouldn’t smoke. He wouldn’t. He quit as soon as Mom was diagnosed. I don’t believe he’d start again.

I pick up a matchbook and open the flap. All the matchsticks are there. Same with the next one and the next. So he’s just collecting them; he’s not using them. I run my fingers over the glossy covers. Blue Mill Tavern. Dante’s Inferno. La Ronda Bar. Elk Bar. Dad must like that one; he has at least a dozen of their orange matchbooks.

My stomach clenches. I feel like I’m going to puke. All those nights Dad’s been out, he hasn’t been going to AA meetings. He’s been going to bars.

Is that where he is now? Is that why he’s so late?

I remember what Dad said to me back at the beginning of September, the words playing through my thoughts. I don’t have a problem. It’s all under control. I’m not one of those after-school specials, passed out on the couch, with three empty bottles of gin on the floor.

No, he’s not passed out on the couch. And the bottles aren’t gin. They’re vodka, like the one I found in his office when I was vacuuming.

He’s been lying to me. Lying to himself.

Am I supposed to forgive him for that? I need him. And he’s nowhere to be found. Not even when he’s sitting right across the dinner table from me.

I give up on finding his phone and stalk downstairs to the den. I pace to the front window, pull back the drapes, and stare at the empty street. Then I pace back to the couch.

I dial Carly’s number. She doesn’t answer.

I put my phone on the coffee table, line it up parallel to the converter, rearrange Dad’s fishing magazines so they’re perfectly straight. With a cry, I draw back my arm and swipe the surface, sending everything tumbling to the floor.

Then I pace back to the window and just stand there, waiting for the flare of headlights.

When the cruiser turns into my driveway, I’m not surprised. When the two police officers get out and walk to my front porch, settling their hats on their heads as they move, I’m not surprised.

And when I open the door and they start to speak, I’m not surprised.

I’m numb.

I don’t hear their words. They run together into a blur of sound.

I struggle to focus.

I pull the door wide as they step inside, removing their hats. Why did they put them on just to take them off again? It feels like such an important question.

“No shoes in the house,” I mumble.

I think they ask me my name, or maybe who I am. “Miki,” I say. “I’m Miki Jones.”

One of them asks me something else. I blink. Stare at them. He asks again. They want to know who else was in the car. She didn’t have ID. Do I know who she is?

“She didn’t need her wallet because she was just coming here,” I say. “She didn’t need money or anything. She didn’t want to go to the dance.”

The officer nods like I’m making perfect sense, but I think that maybe I’m not.

“Can you tell me her name?”

“Carly Conner.” I pause and stare at them and they stare back at me like they want something more. I rattle off her home phone number and address because that’s all I can think to do.

They keep talking. I stop listening. Not on purpose. I just . . . shut off.

Then one word jumps out at me: hospital. I nod. Out of habit, I pull a coat out of the front closet, get my key, lock the door.

But I’m not here.

I’m not living this moment.

It’s just a shell of me walking to the police car, staring straight ahead, feeling nothing. Nothing at all.

I sit in the waiting room, my forearms on my thighs, my head hanging down. There’s a TV in the corner, set to some local news show, droning softly. I can’t hear the words. I don’t care about the words.

I’m alone. Just me and my thoughts.

The two officers were in the hall until a few minutes ago. I heard little snippets of their conversation.

. . . head-on collision . . .

. . . blood-alcohol level point one eight . . .

. . . more than twice legal limit . . .

They’ve left. I don’t know when. I don’t even know how long I’ve been here.

I don’t know how bad things are. I don’t know anything about Dad or Carly other than they were both alive when they were brought in. I can only pray that’s still the case now.

When we got here, the officers spoke to someone, a woman, maybe a nurse. She pointed us here. They deposited me in a chair and went out in the hall.

I haven’t seen or heard from anyone since.

Not a nurse or a doctor. I want to go try to find someone to talk to, but I’m afraid to leave this spot in case someone comes to talk to me.

Burying my face in my hands, I try to make sense of things. How can it be that Carly survived a Drau attack only to be in a car crash a few hours later?

How could that happen?

It doesn’t make sense. Nothing makes sense.

I need it to make sense.

There’s a commotion in the hall. I lift my head. Carly’s parents come into the room, clutching each other’s hands, clinging to each other. They look old. Really old. As if twenty years have passed instead of the handful of hours since I last saw Mrs. Conner.

I cringe inside.

This is my fault. I could have stopped it.

If I’d driven Carly myself.

If I’d made her call her mom for a ride.

If I’d made her sleep over.

If I’d checked to see if Dad had been drinking.

He said he wouldn’t drink and drive. Promised me. I believed him. I really believed him.

This is on me and I’m never going to be able to forgive myself.

I force myself to my feet, meeting Mrs. Conner’s gaze, expecting . . . I don’t know what. That she’ll scream at me? Hit me? Lose it totally.

She lunges forward. Grabs me. Drags me against her chest, her whole body trembling as she hugs me tight. “They’ll be okay,” she whispers. “We have to believe that. They’ll be okay.” Then she starts sobbing, holding me and sobbing, and all I can do is stand there and stare over her shoulder at the poster for flu vaccines that’s on the wall, because if I do anything else, I’m going to burst into a million tiny specks of nothing.

Pulling back, she studies my face. She’s talking, but I can’t hear what she’s saying. My ears buzz. My head feels like it’s going to explode. For a second, I’m terrified that I’m getting pulled. Then I realize it’s my anxiety taking over my senses. I’m just a bundle of raw nerves.

“What do you know?” she asks. I get that more from focusing on her lips than actually hearing the words.

What do I know? Not much.

“Did you talk to the police?” I ask. Silly question. Of course they talked to the police. How else would they have known to come here?

Mrs. Conner nods. “They phoned us as soon as you gave them Carly’s name. Have you seen a doctor? A nurse? Has anyone said anything?”

I shake my head.

“Did they tell you anything?” I ask.

“Not much at all. A nurse brought us here and they said someone would speak with us as soon as possible. She said Carly’s being sent for a CT scan and it could take a few hours for the results.”

“And an MRI,” Mr. Conner says, his voice gravelly and rough. “They told you nothing about your dad?”