The radio filled the silent spaces as we drove to the city, Kelly flipping between stations before settling on sports talk—God knows why; maybe she hoped all that repetitive chatter would annoy me out of my funk.
She dropped her voice and started mimicking the deep-throated bombast of the host. “We still don’t know if he can play quarterback in the National Football League!” She killed the volume and poked my shoulder. “As opposed to playing quarterback for the P.T.A. or the New York Stock Exchange?”
I stared through the windshield, the world nothing but asphalt and yellow lines. She switched back to her announcer voice.
“We still don’t know if he can play quarterback for the National Association of Calligraphers.” Again, she poked my arm. “Hey, not even a smile?”
My lips offered a weak lift. Kelly groaned.
“That’s a death mask, not a smile. Okay, I get it. I’ll shut up.”
“I’m sorry. It’s not you—I’ve still got that headache from yesterday.”
“I respect your right to privacy, but please don’t lie.” She switched off the radio. “It’s not a headache.”
“I’m okay.”
“You’re not even in the same zip code as ‘okay.’ That guy said something to you in the basement last night, and obviously it wasn’t happy news. I get that you’re not going to share, at least not now and certainly not with me. But hey, this is my goddamn vacation …please don’t ruin our day in the city because you have hurt feelings.”
Hurt feelings! How dare she minimize this as ‘hurt feelings’? They weren’t hurt—they were kicked, stabbed, pummeled, and pulverized.
I couldn’t stop dwelling on it. Had Amy tried telling me but backed off, afraid I’d blame her and not Mr. Ronan, my head so far up my young playwright ass that I couldn’t see how someone helping me could also be hurting her.
He took her—Amy’s words the morning that Sarah Carpenter disappeared. He took her. I had never believed it, but it was the truth, only the “her” wasn’t Sarah; it was Amy herself.
And I had done nothing but sleep.
Kelly switched the radio back on and glared out the window, even though, on this stretch of the Parkway, there was nothing much to see. What would she do if I told her the truth? I could already feel her withdrawing, as if her body were dematerializing, becoming translucent. By the time we reached the tunnel would anything remain beside a few red flecks of her nail polish and the feint scent of her conditioner? The exodus had begun, and even as I sat behind the wheel silently pushing her away, I knew how much I’d miss her.
I struggled for something to say, as if the sound of my voice could somehow save us.
“You know that gas station where Phil Leotardo is shot in the last episode of The Sopranos? The one where his head gets rolled over by the SUV? I know where that gas station is. It’s out of the way, but maybe we could stop there later.”
Kelly turned, inventing a new facial expression for the phrase “you’re an idiot.”
“That’s okay. I’m good,” she said. “Hey, this is my fault, too. You warned me this trip might get weird, and I insisted on coming. And now things are weird. At least you kept your word.”
“I’m sorry. Trust me: it has nothing to do with you.”
“I know, and that’s a problem, Donnie. If we’re a real couple, then this should have something to do with me. Because everything would—that’s what it means to be with someone.” She picked at her cuticle, pulling the dead skin. “I assume whatever that cop told you last night is connected to her. Are they getting back together?”
“No …”
“Hey, lucky you; you’re still in the game.” Her tone was bitter and sharp. “I miss my cats. I think I hate New Jersey.”
We drove on in silence, the exit signs collecting behind us as we neared the Hudson River. Over the years I’d driven the Parkway so many times I could switch to autopilot, and as I thought about Kelly, and Amy, and the disaster I’d created for both of them, my attention began to drift.
I knew that if I stayed my normal course, keeping Kelly at bay, holding the truth inside, failure loomed; our relationship would fester and decompose, shooting bile through my veins for the next fifty years, or however long it might take for me to die a sad, bitter old man. I called this the Einstein option, from his famous quote defining insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
For the past twenty years, since the day that Sarah Carpenter had disappeared (since the day she died! You know what happened. Say it!) I’d been living in a Witness Protection Program of my own creation, always on edge, waiting for the moment when someone I cared about would shake my bones and say, “It’s all your fault.” My ex-wife Kristin was convinced I was cheating on her. “What are you hiding?” she’d ask, thinking I was sneaking off to bang waitresses in some $79 a night room at the Motel Six. I wasn’t—yet she’d nailed me on the “hiding.” A few times I came close to telling her, but always held back.
This is how I roll, I told myself. But I knew how that roll always ended.
Yet I still had the chance to subvert Einstein’s maxim and try a different course. In three miles we’d hit the next rest stop, the last
