But she was reminded again of how much she hated it on the afternoon of Valentine’s Day when she walked out of court having won some minor point for one of her clients. She had allowed herself to get talked into filing a motion against the woman’s ex-husband more for its nuisance value than for any real legal reason, and the judge had correctly scolded her for it, but granted the motion. The victory was hollow for her as a result, and she felt stupid as she drove back to the office.
“Did you lose?” Jean asked when she saw her walk into the office. Liz looked tired and annoyed and seemed irritable when she picked up her messages on the way into her office.
“No. We won. But the judge said it was frivolous, and he was right. I don’t know why I let her talk me into it. All she really wanted to do was annoy him. Jack would have put his foot down.” But Jack wasn’t there anymore to discuss things with, or bounce things off of, or make her laugh, and keep their clients in line. He had made it fun for her, and kept their practice exciting. Now it was just drudgery, and she no longer felt she was doing the best possible job for their clients. “Maybe my mother was right two months ago, and I should close the office.”
“I don’t think so,” Jean said quietly, “unless that’s what you want to do.” She knew the insurance money had come in the week before, and Liz could afford to close the office for a while and decide what she wanted to do, but she thought she’d be miserable sitting at home with too much time on her hands. She had worked for too long, done it too well, and had enjoyed it too much to just give it up now. “Give it time, maybe it’ll get to be fun again for you, Liz. Or maybe you just have to put your foot down with your clients, and be more selective about the cases you take now.”
“Yeah. Maybe.” She left early that afternoon, and didn’t tell anyone where she was going. There was something she wanted to do, and she knew she had to do it alone. She stopped and bought a dozen roses on the way out of town, and she drove to the cemetery, and stood at his grave for a long time. There was no headstone yet, and she laid the roses down on the grass, and then stood there and cried for an hour, racked by sobs.
“I love you,” she whispered finally, and then walked away in the chill wind, with her head down, and her hands deep in her pockets. She cried all the way home, and she was just a few blocks away when she missed a stop sign, and rolled blindly through it, just as a young woman left the curb and dashed across the street. Liz’s Volvo and the young woman’s left hip collided instantly, and she crumpled toward the ground with a startled expression as Liz stomped on the brakes, put the car into park, and leapt out of the car to help her. There were still tears on her face as she helped the young woman up, and three cars honked at her, and people shouted out their windows at her.
“What are you? Crazy, or drunk? I saw that!”
“You hit her! I was a witness … You okay?” the driver shouted to her victim, as both women stood trembling in front of Liz’s car, and tears continued to pour down Liz’s face.
“I’m so sorry, I … I don’t know what happened. I didn’t see the stop sign,” she said to her victim, but she did know what had happened. She had been to the cemetery to see Jack and she was so distraught she had hit the woman who had every right to be crossing the street. It was entirely Liz’s fault, and she herself knew it.
“I’m okay … don’t worry … You just barely touched me,” the young woman reassured her.
“I could have killed you,” Liz said in horror, and both women were holding each other’s arms, as though to hold each other up, and the woman who’d been hit looked at Liz, and realized Liz was in a daze.
“Are you okay?” Liz nodded in answer, barely able to speak, desperately sorry about what had happened, and frightened of what could have.
“I’m so sorry … my husband just died … and I was at the cemetery just now … I shouldn’t have been driving …”
“Why don’t we both sit down …” They both got into Liz’s car, and she offered to take the woman to the hospital, but the young woman insisted she was fine, and told Liz she was sorry about her husband. Liz was in far worse shape than she was.
“Are you sure you don’t want to go to a doctor?” Liz asked her again, but the young woman smiled, grateful that nothing worse had happened.
“I’m fine. The worst I’ll get is a bruise. We were both lucky … or at least, I was.” They sat there together for a little while, exchanged names and telephone numbers, and a few minutes later the young woman got up and went on her way, and Liz went home, still shaking. She called Victoria from her car and told her what had happened, since personal injury had been her specialty. Victoria whistled through her teeth when Liz told her.
“If she’s as nice as you say, which I doubt, from experience, you were goddamn lucky. You’d better give up driving for a while, Liz, before you kill somebody.”
“I’ve been okay … it was just today … I went out to the cemetery … it’s Valentine’s Day …” She started to sob and couldn’t say more.
“I know. I’m so sorry. I know how hard this is.” But she didn’t. No one could possibly know, Liz knew now, unless they’d been through it. She realized that all the times she had told people who had lost someone how sorry she was, she hadn’t been able to dream, for a single instant, of what it meant to them, or what it felt like.
She told the children about the accident that night, and they looked frightened, they were clearly worried about her. But when she called the young woman to see how she was, she still insisted she was fine, and she sent Liz flowers the next morning at the office, which stunned her. The card read “Don’t worry, we’re both going to be okay.” Liz called Victoria as soon as she got them.
“You must have hit an angel,” Victoria said in disbelief. “All of my clients would have sued you for emotional distress, brain damage, spinal injuries, and I’d have collected ten million dollars for them.”
“Thank God you retired.” Liz laughed for the first time since it had happened. There was nothing to laugh about these days.
“You’re damn right. And damn lucky. Now are you going to stay off the road for a while?” She was genuinely worried about her.
“I can’t. I’ve got too much to do.”
“Well, you’d better be careful. Take this as a warning.”
“I will.”
She was exceptionally cautious after that, but it sobered her a little, and made her realize how distraught and
