Barbara Delinsky - The Secret Between Us

Deborah was more comfortable with that. Nervously, she asked, “You don’t see a problem, do you?”

“Well, you killed a man with your car. Was it intentional? No. Did it result from reckless driving? No. Was there negligence involved regarding the condition of your car? No. If the reconstruction team supports all of the above, you’ll be clear on the criminal side. Then we’ll just have to wait to see what the wife does.”

Deborah nodded slowly. It wasn’t quite the rosy, all-is-well picture she wanted, but a man was dead. There was nothing remotely rosy about that.

Deborah was late reaching her father’s house. Hearing the shower, she put the coffee on and readied his bagel. When the water continued to run, she considered dashing over to the office to get ahead on paperwork, but the living room was too strong a lure.

A wingback chair stood in its far corner, upholstered in a faded rose brocade. Sinking into it, she folded her legs under her as she had done dozens of times growing up. Wingback chairs had been originally designed to protect their occupants either from drafts or the heat of a fire. Deborah had needed protection of another kind. She had used the chair to help her deal with her parents’ expectations, and it had delivered for her more times than she could count. Her parents had assumed she was strong, assumed she could take care of herself in ways that her younger sister could not. But even if she looked the part, she was often scared to death. Sitting in this chair was akin to wearing blinders. It allowed her to focus on one thing at a time.

One thing she could do. If she was dealing with Calvin McKenna’s death, she couldn’t dwell on Jill’s pregnancy, Greg’s accusations, or Hal’s betrayal of her best friend.

Pushing the last three from her mind, she relived the accident for the umpteenth time, trying desperately to see something she might have done differently. She replayed her talks with the police and, later, with Grace, but here there was no going back. Grace was her daughter, and she deserved protection. That’s what parents did, particularly ones who had made their kids suffer through a divorce.

Upstairs, the shower went off. Getting up from the chair, she started back to the kitchen, caught herself, and returned to the den for a highball glass and an empty whiskey bottle. She put the glass in the dishwasher, the bottle in the trash, and unfolded the newspaper.

Calvin McKenna’s death wouldn’t have made the morning edition. Tomorrow’s perhaps. But the local weekly would hit stands tomorrow, too. Deborah dreaded that. More, though, she dreaded telling her father that the man had died.

As it happened, he already knew. There was an impatience in his stride as he went straight to the coffeemaker. His white hair was neatly combed, his cheeks pale. The disappointment on his face made him look older.

“Malcolm called,” he explained, filling his mug. Malcolm Hart was chief of surgery and a longtime friend of Michael’s. “Looks like we have a problem.”

“Does Malcolm know anything more?” Deborah asked.

“About why the man died?” Her father drank from his mug. “No. The widow is fighting the autopsy. She doesn’t want her husband’s body desecrated. In the end, of course, she won’t have a say. Autopsy is the law after a violent death. She’ll just slow things down.”

“Doesn’t she want to know why he died?”

He shrugged, swallowed more coffee.

“But if she’s thinking of suing, she’ll need to know the exact cause of death,” Deborah reasoned, “unless there’s some reason she doesn’t want to know. Or doesn’t want us to know.”

“Like what?” Michael said, and in that instant, Deborah was grateful for Hal.

“Like alcohol or drugs. We’re insisting that they check for both.”

Her father seemed unimpressed. “If I were you,” he said, eyeing her over his mug, “I’d worry about insurance. Do you have enough personal coverage in the event that she sues?”

“Yes.” Insurance was one of the things that Greg, the businessman, had bought to the hilt.

Michael sighed and shook his head.

Deborah knew he was thinking that this would be a very public stain on the family’s reputation. Not wanting to hear the words, she said, “This is one of those instances when I’d do anything to turn back the clock.”

“And do what?” he asked kindly enough, lowering his cup. “What would you do differently?”

She should never have let Grace take the wheel in weather like that. Should never have let Grace drive. But to tell her father that, without telling the police, would be making him an accomplice, as unfair as what Hal had done to her.

So she simply said, “Go even slower. Maybe wear my glasses.”

He seemed startled. “You weren’t wearing them?”

“I don’t have to. There’s no restriction on my license.”

Her glasses were weak. Occasionally she wore them watching a movie, but that was all.

“Shouldn’t you have taken every possible precaution on a night like that?”

“In hindsight, yes.”

“Your mother would have worn her glasses.”

It was a low blow. “Did she ever have an accident?”

“No.”

But Deborah knew differently. Feeling no satisfaction, simply a thread of anger, she said, “Take a look at her personal checkbook for the year I got married. You’ll see a check she wrote for several thousand dollars, paid to Russo’s garage. While she was driving down West Elm, she was looking for something on the passenger’s seat and sideswiped a parked car.”

Her father made a face. “That’s ridiculous. I would have known.”

“Her car needed a tune-up. It had to be in the shop anyway. Ask Donny Russo.”

“Your mother would never have lied to me.”

“She didn’t lie. She just didn’t tell the whole truth.”

“Why would she do that?”

Deborah sighed. Gently, she said, “Because you want perfection, and we can’t always deliver. Is Mom less lovable because she sideswiped a car? Am I less lovable because my car hit a man? I was upset when we hit Calvin McKenna, and I’m crushed that he died. But it was an accident,” she was suddenly close to tears, “—an innocent accident, but I seem to be the only one saying that. I’m saying it to my daughter, to my son, to Hal, to the police, to my ex-husband, to you. It would be really nice if someone said it to me — because, here’s a flash, Dad, I’m not made of steel. And I’m not without feelings. Right now, I need support.”

Deborah hadn’t planned the outburst. But she didn’t apologize.

Michael eyed her strangely. “Did you tell me that about your mother so that I wouldn’t be angry about you?”

“It’s not about anger. It’s about understanding.”

“Then understand this,” he said and set down his mug. “I loved your mother. I was married to her for forty years, and during that time I never once had cause to doubt her. It sounds to me like you’re trying to find fault with her and with me to get yourself off the hook. You killed a man, Deborah. It might be best if you accept that fact.”

Deborah was startled by the attack and too long formulating her response. What she might have asked, had her father not left, was why he had endless compassion for his patients and none for her. The answer, of course, was that she was family, and that, for family, the expectations were different.

For patients, the expectations were always the same. Family doctors didn’t get sick, didn’t take long vacations, didn’t take Wednesday afternoons off to play golf or, in Deborah’s instance, to sit with Grace. Between ten in-office patients and four house calls, Deborah’s Wednesday was nonstop. Her very last patient, waiting for her when she returned to the office, was Karen Trutter.