Barbara Delinsky: The Secret Between Us

Deborah called Grace. The girl picked up instantly. “Where are you?”

“Still here. I’m sitting in the police car, while they check things outside.” She tried to sound casual. “They’re reconstructing the accident. It’s standard procedure.”

“What are they looking for?”

“Whatever they can find to explain why Mr. McKenna was where he was. How’s Dylan?”

“Still sleeping. How’s Mr. McKenna?”

“Just got to the hospital. They’ll be examining him now. Have you talked with Megan or any of the others?” There was the issue of Grace climbing into the car on the driver’s side, which might have been seen by her friends, reason to level with the police now.

“They’re texting me,” Grace said in a shaky voice. “Stephie tried to call, but I didn’t answer. What if he dies, Mom?”

“He won’t die. He wasn’t hit that hard. It’s late, Grace. You ought to go to bed.”

“When will you be home?”

“Soon, I hope. I’ll find out.”

Closing the phone, Deborah tucked it in her pocket, pulled up her hood, and went out into the rain. She pulled the hood closer around her face and held it there with a dripping hand.

A good part of the road had been sealed off with yellow tape, made all the more harsh now by floodlights. Two latex-gloved men were combing the pavement, stopping from time to time to carefully pick up and bag what they found. A photographer was taking pictures of Deborah’s car, both its general position on the road and the dent in the front. The dent wasn’t large. More noticeable was the shattered headlight.

“Oh my,” Deborah said, seeing that for the first time.

John joined her, bending over to study what remained of the glass. “This looks to be the only damage,” he said and shot her a quick glance. “Think you can dig out your registration so I can record it?”

She slipped behind the wheel, adjusted the seat, opened the glove box, and handed him the registration, which he carefully recorded. Restowing it, she joined him outside.

“I didn’t think of damage,” she said, pulling her hood forward again. “I was only concerned with what we’d hit. We thought it was an animal.” She peered up at him. “I’d really like to drive to the hospital, John. How long will these fellows take?”

“Another hour or two,” he said, watching the men work. “This is their only shot. Rain continues like this and come morning, everything’ll be washed out. But anyway, you can’t take your car. We have to tow it.”

“Tow it? It’s perfectly driveable.”

“Not until our mechanic checks it out. He has to make sure nothing was wrong that might have caused the accident—brake malfunction, defective wipers, worn tires.” He looked at her then. “Don’t worry. We’ll drive you home tonight. You have another car there, don’t you?”

She did. It was Greg’s BMW, the one he had driven to the office, parked in the Reserved for President spot, and kept diligently waxed. He had loved that car, but it, too, was abandoned. When he left for Vermont, he had been in the old Volkswagen Beetle that had sat under a tarp in the garage all these years.

Deborah didn’t like the BMW. Greg had bought it at the height of his success. In hindsight, that was the beginning of the end.

Folding her arms over her chest, she watched the men work. They covered every inch of the road, the roadside, and the edge of the forest beyond where Calvin McKenna had landed. More than once, feeling useless and despising the rain, she wondered why she was there and not at the hospital helping out.

The answer, of course, was that she was a family practitioner, not a trauma specialist. And it was her car that had caused harm.

The reality of that loomed larger by the minute. She was responsible— she was responsible—for the car, for Grace, for the accident, for Calvin McKenna. If she could do nothing for him and nothing for the car, she needed to be home with her children.

Grace huddled in the dark. Each time her cell phone rang, she jumped, held it up, studied the panel. She answered if her mother was calling, but she couldn’t talk to anyone else. Megan had already tried. Twice. Same with Stephie. Now they were texting.

WER R U? TM ME!

R U THER? HELLO??

When Grace didn’t reply, the focus changed.

DUZ YR MM NO ABT TH BR? DD SHE SMLL IT?

R U IN TRBL? U ONLY HD I.

But Grace hadn’t had only one beer, she had two, and even though they were spaced three hours apart, and she hadn’t felt high and probably wouldn’t even have blown a .01 if she had been breathalyzed, she shouldn’t have driven.

She didn’t know why she had. She didn’t know why these so-called friends of hers— alleged friends, as in provable but not proved—were even mentioning beer in a TM. Didn’t they know everything could be traced?

UOK?

Y WONT U TALK?

She wouldn’t talk, because her mother was still with the police and Mr. McKenna was at the hospital and it was all her fault —and nothing her friends could say would make it better.

It was another hour before the state agents dismantled their lights, and a few minutes more before a tow truck arrived. Deborah knew the driver. He worked at the service station in the center of town and was a frequent customer at her sister’s bakery. That meant Jill would hear about the accident soon after she opened at six.

Brian drove her home, pulling into the circular drive and, at her direction, past the fieldstone house to the shingled garage. She was exhausted and thoroughly wet, but as soon as she had closed the cruiser door and was sprinting forward hugging her medical bag and Grace’s books, she opened her phone and called the hospital. While she waited for an answer, she punched in the code for the garage. The door rumbled up as the call went through. “Joyce? It’s Deborah Monroe again. Any word on Calvin McKenna?”

“Hold on, Dr. Monroe. Let me check.”

Deborah dropped her armload and hung her slicker on a hook not far from the bay where her car should have stood. Leaving her flip-flops on the landing, she hurried inside, through the kitchen to the laundry room.

“Dr. Monroe? He’s in stable condition. They’re running tests now, but the neurologist doesn’t see any evidence of vertebral fracture or paralysis. He has a broken hip. They’ll deal with that in the operating room once this last scan is done.”

“Is he conscious?” Deborah asked, back in the kitchen, drying her arms with a towel.

“Yes, but not communicating.”

“He can’t speak?”

“They suspect he can but won’t. They can’t find a physical explanation.”

Deborah had run the towel over her face and was lowering it when she spotted Grace in the corner. “Trauma, maybe?” she speculated. “Thanks, Joyce. Would you do me a favor? Let me know if there’s any change?”

Still dressed, Grace was hunched over, biting her nail. Deborah pulled the hand away and drew her close.

“Where were you?” the girl asked meekly.

“Same place.”

“All this time?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Why did the police drive you home?”

“Because they don’t want me driving my car until they’ve examined it in daylight.”

“Isn’t the cop who drove you home coming in?”

Deborah drew back to study her face. They weren’t quite the same height, but almost. “No. They’re done for the night.”

Grace’s voice went up a notch. “How can they be done?”

“They’ve asked their questions.”