Jessa James - Pretend I'm Yours

I almost turn right, to avoid the traffic building up, but for some reason I don’t. Maybe it’s the fact that everyone loves to see a traffic accident. We all secretly like to see the car that flipped upside down, to try to figure out how it happened. Wipe our figurative brows and sigh with relief that it wasn’t us, as we drive away.

Anyway, I’m listening to NPR, and drumming on the steering wheel as I wait for the cop to wave me through. I crane my head to look at the accident as I wait, judging the distance between the two cars.

There’s no question of anyone ever driving either vehicle again. Hell, if people didn’t die in such a savage wreck, they should thank their lucky fucking stars.

Car A is a shiny new black Dodge Charger, and it’s smashed up pretty bad. Car B is laying on its side, undercarriage facing me, and it has clearly rolled a couple of times. It looks like Car A t-boned Car B, and Car B rolled to a stop, frozen on its side like that.

I try to make out what kind of vehicle it is, but all I can figure is that Car B is a dark SUV. A tingle of foreboding runs down my spine. Britta drives a dark SUV, a black Nissan Pathfinder.

Easy, I tell myself. She’s at the library, probably wondering where you are.

I edge up, progressing slowly through the line. Finally it’s my turn to be waved through, and I carefully move forward. I can’t help but stare at Car A and Car B, and at the numerous police walking around, making notes and taking pictures.

I’m almost past the wreck entirely, about to speed up, when something catches my eye. One of the police officers is cataloging some personal effects that probably came from Car B, and she’s putting a blanket in a large evidence bag.

The blanket is heart-stoppingly familiar to me. Made for a baby, it depicts a scene with two bears fishing in a river. The thing is, I’ve only seen that blanket design in one place: on a handmade blanket, made for Sarah by Britta’s mother.

I stomp on the brakes while my brain starts to overheat, working overtime. Maybe Britta’s mother bought the blanket, and there are multiples out there is the world. Or maybe—

The car behind me honks, jolting me. I move forward again, pulling over as soon as I’m clear of the accident. My heart is pounding, all the blood rushing through my head, making it hard to think.

I turn around, looking back at the accident. The blanket is no longer visible. I try to make out what model the SUV is, but from this angle, it’s impossible.

I start to shake as I unbuckle my seatbelt and pull my phone out of my pocket. Britta beams at me as she holds Sarah; that’s the picture on my screen as I dial her number with clumsy fingers.

It rings four times. I glance in my rearview mirror on the fifth ring, and see the woman who is bagging things pick up one of the bags.

My heart goes into freefall when I see that she’s holding a cell phone.

No.

No, it can’t be.

I get out of the car, conscious of the fact that the edges of my vision are swimming around, growing unclear. That’s the first sign of a panic attack, but just now that’s the last thing on my mind.

“Sir?” a young woman steps in front of me as I start to charge over.

“The accident,” I say, not even looking at the officer. I’m too focused on looking at the things still on the ground, trying to see if I recognize anything. “Where are the people who were hurt?”

She reaches out to stop me when I try to move closer. “Sir, you need—”

I grab her wrist, my gaze locking with hers, desperate. My heart begins to beat faster, so fast that I think I might faint. My breath comes in short gasps, my vision is hazy, my hands tingle.

I am totally out of control.

“It might be my wife,” I manage. I let go of her wrist, clawing at my open collar. “My daughter. I just need to know—”

I push past her, ignoring the fact that she’s saying, “Sir? Sir!”

I walk determinedly toward Car B, until I see a faded silk rose on the ground, surrounded by a million tiny pieces of glass… and blood.

A whole body’s worth of blood.

I clutch at my heart, my legs locking up. I look to my right, and there’s an older male police officer by Car B. He’s talking into his phone, making observations. He doesn’t even see me, he’s too busy examining the damage to the SUV.

“It’s a shame,” he says, shaking his head. “Drunk driver comes along, kills a woman, nearly kills her baby, and yet he walks away unscathed. A damn shame.”

No.

It can’t be true.

The first officer catches up with me, grabbing my elbow, shouting for some help. I fall to my knees, feeling my knees looking at the silk rose again.

No.

Not Britta.

It isn’t possible.

There must be some mistake.

“Are you okay?” the officer who has my elbow asks.

I look at her, and the blackness threatens to overtake my consciousness. Both of my hands scrabble for purchase over my chest. I try to speak, but I don’t have the breath to do much more than whisper.

“My heart,” I say.

Everything goes black.

2

Current Day

Why won’t this stuff come off? I fume, trying to scrub harder.

I’m way up on a ladder that is propped up outside my mother’s house. Scratch that — my mom died three years ago, and before that she didn’t really take care of the massive old Victorian house.

That is why I am on this ladder right now, furiously scrubbing at the spiderwebs and other black crud that has gathered along the eaves.

I guess that makes it my house now.

I’ve got on an old long sleeve shirt, my oldest pair of jeans, and I have my long blonde hair tied up in a kerchief. It may be the summer, but it doesn’t get very warm here on the Oregon coast. At best, it will get into the sixties.

So really, cleaning the eaves of the house is a necessary task, but it also allows me to sunbathe a little. I soak up the vitamin D, hoping that it will somehow make me happier. Too bad that it can’t do anything about this black gunk on the side of the house.

At last I manage to chip away a piece, and it comes off.

Ah. I just have to chip and peel it away, I think.

As I work, I have to wonder how Mom let it get this bad. The house is right in the middle of what I think of as Pacific Pines downtown area, a huge open area of grass surrounded by houses and shops. My mom’s house — my house now — is two stories, gray-green and gabled.

At some point in the past, my mom paid to have the house converted into a duplex. Both sides of the house are decorated in bold, lurid designs that harken back to the early 1970s. But that’s my mom for you — Big Ruth, people called her. The elementary school principal, a serial philanderer, and a textbook narcissist if ever there was one. She didn’t do anything halfway, especially not home decor.

I intensify my efforts, and am rewarded when a big strip comes off. The whole point of coming back to Pacific Pines is to sell this house and use the proceeds to move to New York. I’ve been here for six months, working at the library and hanging out with my Aunt Mabel, my mother’s much older sister.

Unfortunately, like all things that had to do with my mother, it’s not a simple matter of putting the house up for sale. I’m going to have to fix the place up first. From the shutters hanging loose, to the paint peeling — inside and out — to the massive pile of rusting junk in the back yard…

This is going to be a massive project. And since I don’t have the money to throw at fixing it, I’m doing all the reasonable stuff that someone who is five feet tall can do. Today is the first time that I’ve ever put any elbow grease into the house, and I’m finding it…