Nicholas Sparks - A Bend in the Road

There was nothing.

Too cold to be out today?

He’d never checked for a dog. No one had.

He looked up the road, wondering. He pushed his hands into his pockets. They were stiff from the cold, difficult to bend, and as they warmed, they began to sting. He didn’t care.

Not knowing what else to do, he drove to the cemetery, hoping to clear his mind. He saw them even before he’d reached the grave. Fresh flowers, propped against the headstone.

His mind flashed to Charlie and something he once had said.

Hours passed. Dark now. Outside the window, the winter sky was black and ominous.

Sarah turned from the window and paced her apartment again. Brian was home from the hospital. The cut wasn’t serious, three stitches only, and there were no broken bones. It had taken less than an hour.

Despite the fact that she’d practically begged him, Brian hadn’t wanted to stay with her. He’d needed to be alone. He was back at home, wearing a hat and sweatshirt, hiding the injuries from his parents.

“Don’t tell them what happened, Sarah. I’m not ready for that yet. I want to be the one who tells them. I’ll do it when Miles comes by.” Miles would come to arrest Brian. She was sure of that.

She wondered what was taking so long.

For the past eight hours, she’d veered from anger to worry, from frustration to bitterness and back again, one right after the other. There were too many different emotions for her to begin to sort through.

In her mind, she rehearsed the words she should have responded with when Miles lashed out at her so unfairly.So you think you’re the only one who got hurt here? she would have said.That no one else in the world can understand it? Did you stop to think how hard it was for me to bring Brian by this morning? To turn my own brother in? And your response-oh, that was the kicker, wasn’t it? I betrayed you? I used you?

In frustration, she picked up the remote and turned on the television, scanned the channels. Turned it off.

Take it easy, she told herself, trying to calm down. He’d just found out who’d killed his wife. Nothing harder than that, especially coming out of the blue the way it had. Especially coming from me.

And Brian.

Can’t forget to thank him for ruining everyone’s life.

She shook her head. That wasn’t fair, either. He was just a kid back then. It was an accident. She knew he’d do anything to change what happened back then. Back and forth it went. She circled the living room again, ending up at the window. Still no sign of him. She went to the phone and picked up the receiver, checking to make sure it had a dial tone. It did. Brian had promised to call her as soon as Miles came over.

So where was Miles, and what was he doing? Calling for reinforcements?

She didn’t know what to do. Couldn’t leave the house, couldn’t use the phone.

Not while she was waiting for the call.

Brian spent the rest of the day hiding in his room.

In his bed, he stared at the ceiling, his arms at his sides, legs straight, as though he were lying in a coffin. He knew he’d fallen asleep at times, because the shifting light made things look different in his room. Over the hours, the walls turned from white to faded gray, then to shadows as the sun traveled slowly across the sky and finally went down. He hadn’t eaten lunch or dinner. Sometime during the afternoon, his mother had knocked at his door and come in;

Brian had closed his eyes, pretending to be asleep. He knew she thought he was sick, and he could hear her as she crossed the room. She’d put a hand to his forehead, feeling for a fever. After a minute, she’d crept out, closing the door behind her. In hushed tones, Brian had heard her speaking to his father. “He must not be feeling well,” she’d said. “He’s really out.” When he wasn’t sleeping, he thought about Miles. He wondered where Miles was, he wondered when Miles would come. He thought about Jonah, too, and what he would say when his father told him who had killed his mother. He wondered about Sarah and wished she hadn’t been any part of this.

He wondered what prison was like.

In the movies, prisons were worlds of their own, with their own laws, their own kings and pawns, and gangs. He imagined the dim fluorescent lights and the cold permanence of the steel bars, doors clanging shut. In his mind, he heard toilets flushing, people talking and whispering and yelling and moaning; he imagined a place that was never silent, even in the middle of the night. He saw himself staring toward the tops of concrete walls covered with barbed wire and seeing guards in the towers, holding guns pointed toward the sky. He saw other prisoners, watching him with interest, taking bets on how long he would survive. He had no doubt about this: If he ended up there, he would be a pawn.

He would not survive in a place like that.

Later, as the sounds from the house began to settle down, Brian heard his parents go to bed. Light spilled under his door, then finally turned black. He fell asleep again, and later, when he woke suddenly, he saw Miles in the room. Miles was standing in the corner by the closet, holding a gun. Brian blinked, squinted, felt the fear constrict his chest, making it difficult to breathe. He sat up and held his hands in a defensive posture before he realized he’d been mistaken.

What he’d thought was Miles was nothing but his jacket on the coat rack, mingling with the shadows, playing tricks with his mind. Miles.

He’d let him go. After the accident, Miles had let him go, and he hadn’t come back.

Brian rolled over, curling into a ball.

But he would.

Sarah heard the knock a little before midnight and glanced through the window on the way to the door, knowing who had come. When she opened it, Miles neither smiled nor frowned, nor did he move. His eyes were red, swollen with fatigue. He stood in the doorway, looking as if he didn’t want to be here. “When did you know about Brian?” he asked abruptly.

Sarah’s eyes never left his. “Yesterday,” she answered. “He told me yesterday.

And I was as horrified as you were.”

His lips, dry and cracked, came together. “Okay,” he said. With that, he turned to leave, and Sarah reached out to stop him, taking hold of his arm. “Wait… please.”

He turned.

“It was an accident, Miles,” she said. “A terrible, terrible accident. It shouldn’t have happened, and it wasn’t fair that it happened to Missy. I know that and I feel so sorry for you…”

She trailed off, wondering if she was reaching him. His expression was glazed, unreadable.

“But?” he said. There was no emotion in the question.

“No buts. I just want you to keep that in mind. There’s no excuse for him running, but it was an accident.”

She waited for his response. When there was none, she let go of his arm. He made no move to leave.

“What are you going to do?” she finally asked.

Miles glanced away. “He killed my wife, Sarah. He broke the law.”

She nodded. “I know.”

He shook his head without responding, then started down the hall. A minute later, outside the window, she watched as he got into his car and drove off. She went to the couch again. The phone was on the end table and she waited, knowing it would ring soon.

Where, Miles wondered, was he supposed to go? What should he do, now that he knew the truth? With Otis, the answer had been simple. There was nothing to consider, nothing to debate. It didn’t matter whether all the facts had fit or that everything had an easy explanation. He’d learned enough to know that Otis hated Miles enough to kill Missy; that was enough for Miles. Otis deserved whatever punishment the law could fashion, except for one thing. That’s not the way it happened.