I don’t reply. My mouth tastes acrid and angry. Of course it’s my fault; the driver was trying to kill me. And I didn’t listen to Brent and file a report, because I was more concerned about my brilliant career. I feel sick and guilty, and most of all, in the dark and twisted pit of my stomach, I feel a powerful fear. I don’t want to lose Brent like I lost Mike.
I close my eyes to the picture forming in my head, the one of the car slamming into Brent’s body. It’s like a nightmare, a waking nightmare, and one that I had on so many sleepless nights after Mike’s death, as I pictured the car slamming into him on his bike. I close my eyes to the horrific visions, trying to squeeze them out. But they bring me to see something, something I hadn’t seen before. I sit up in the plastic chair.
“You gotta go to the ladies?” Lombardo asks.
I’m amazed at what I’m thinking. I face Lombardo, but I can’t say anything. What if? What if there’s a connection between what happened to Mike and what happened to Brent?
“My husband was killed last year by a hit-and-run driver.”
“Jesus, Mary, I’m sorry. Jeez, Mary, if I hadda known. Jeez.” His beefy face flushes with embarrassment.
“What I’m saying is maybe it’s connected to what happened to Brent. Brent was hit by a hit-and-run driver too.”
Lombardo takes the toothpick out of his mouth.
I struggle to make my argument, to find the right words. My brain is tired, so tired, and I can’t think fast enough. “Tom, couldn’t it be the same driver? Let’s say someone is very angry at me, hates me for some reason. They even kill my husband, hit him with a car. They write me hate notes, they call me, they stalk me. They break into my apartment, they break my husband’s picture-”
“Yo, wait a minute-”
“Let me finish. Then, almost a year later, about the same time they killed my husband, they try to kill me. The same way, even. But they hit Brent by accident. Right before it happened we were dancing around on the curb.”
“What did they rule your husband’s death?”
“An accident. He was riding his bike by the river. It was an accident, that’s what we all thought at the time.”
“Why do you think it wasn’t?”
“Because of what happened to Brent, Tom! The same thing!”
Lombardo blinks, dully. “He wasn’t on a bike, was he?” He pops his toothpick back into his mouth and reaches for his notebook.
I grab his hand. “No, Brent wasn’t on a bike. He was walking.”
“You said it’s the same thing. It’s not the same thing.”
“But it is. They were both hit by a car. A hit-and-run.”
“It’s not the same thing. One is on a bike and the other is walking.”
“All right, it’s not the exact same thing.”
“You can say the exact same, you can say the same. It’s not the same thing.” Flustered, Lombardo smooths down his nylon windbreaker.
I feel like screaming. “But they’re both hit-”
“There are other differences.”
“What?”
“Different time of day. Different place. With the construction on Walnut, it was probably an accident.”
“But it makes sense!”
Lombardo looks at me gravely, like I’m crazed from my recent widowhood. “Mary, you’re upset. Let me take care of-”
“For Christ’s sake, will you fuckingthink! ”
“That’s it! Stop talkin’ like that!” He jabs the air between us with his toothpick. A nurse, walking by, looks back with concern.
Suddenly, the double doors to the operating room swing open and the surgeon, an older man, walks out. I stand up, and Lombardo surprises me by taking my arm. I search the doctor’s eyes for a sign about Brent, but there is none. He tugs down his green half-mask and walks over to us, heaving a sigh.
The sigh, I recognize. The sigh, I know. It happened just this way the last time. Oh, no.
“I’m sorry. We did everything. The injuries were extensive. There were massive chest and skull fractures. The carotid artery was severed. There was just too much bleeding.”
Oh, no. Just what they said with Mike. Chest injury. Skull fracture. Brain lacerations. The medical mumbo- jumbo that provides the background noise for the worst news of your life.
“We fought very hard. So did your husband,” he says.
My husband. Not my husband. Oh, no.
“It wasn’t her husband,” says Lombardo. “It was her secretary. A male secretary.”
“I’m sorry,” the doctor says awkwardly. “Well, your secretary fought very hard. I’m very sorry.”
I nod and feel Lombardo’s solid grip on my arm. He leads me to the elevator, and we leave the hospital. Jack and his friends, smoking nervously at the hospital entrance, take one look at us and know Brent is dead. I go over to Jack, but he breaks down and his friends close around him. They sob openly, this pale group of too-thin gay men. The two security guards exchange glances, but there’s no compassion there.
Lombardo leads me to his squad car and drives to my apartment. Neither of us says anything on the ride home. I leave Brent at the hospital, just like I left Mike at the hospital. My husband, not my husband. I hear the voice, faint and far away, from within:
I tried to warn you, but you wouldn’t listen. I tried, it says, and then deserts me.
“Mary?”
It’s Lombardo, opening the car door for me. He helps me out of the car and walks me up to my apartment. “You’re gonna be okay, you’ll see. Just get some rest.”
“Would you look inside my apartment? Just to make sure?”
“Sure. Sure.” I hand Lombardo the key and he walks in. He finds the light switch and I hear the floors of my apartment groan, unaccustomed to such a heavy tread. In a minute he’s back at the door. “Everything’s okay. There’s nobody here.”
“Thanks.”
“I’ll do some checkin’ about your husband. When AID investigates, they make a report. Those guys are real thorough.”
I nod. Lombardo gives my shoulder a squeeze and climbs down the stairs. Cautiously, I go into the apartment. Alice sits on the windowsill, her hidden body making a hump in the tangled blinds. I walk over to the window and peek through the blinds.
The car that killed Brent isn’t on the street. I watch Lombardo’s squad car pull away from the curb. When I turn around, the red light on the answering machine is flashing. I pound thePLAYBACK button with a clenched fist.
The first message is silence, thenclick.
Fuck you! Fuck you! I scream in my head.
The second message is Ned. “Are you out there gallivanting around? Call me. I’m Cooooool.” There’s the sound of mechanical laughter, thenclick.
It has to be him. It just has to.
He’s trying to mind-fuck you, Brent says.
He’s too cool, Judy says.
Nine times out of ten, it’s an old boyfriend, says Officer Tarrant.
I check my watch. It’s 4A.M.
I’m going crazy.
I’m going to see Ned.
Watch your step, Mary.
