A Curve in the Road

by Julianne MacLean

  Mom nods with approval. “I think that’s a wonderful idea. It’s the right thing. So it’s decided then?”

  I let out a breath. “Yes. That means we can have the funeral here in town.”

  She squeezes my hand. “I’m glad you want to do it here, Abbie, because I know all the right people to call. I’ll help you take care of the arrangements. You’re not alone, dear.”

  Her words comfort me momentarily, until I realize that for the first time since I walked down the aisle to marry Alan, I am alone again. There’s no escaping it.

  After about a half hour, I hear the bell over the door jangle, and I know that Zack and Maureen have arrived. I leave my mother with Winston and step outside to the reception area.

  As soon as Zack sees me, all the color drains from his face. He moves toward me, straight into my arms, and we both cry over Alan.

  “I can’t believe this is real,” Zack says. “I can’t believe he’s gone.”

  “I can’t believe it either.” We continue to hold and comfort each other.

  Maureen enters and hugs me too.

  “I brought you a casserole and a homemade pie from my freezer,” she says gently, stepping back.

  “Thank you so much. You’re a good friend.” I wipe a hand under my runny nose.

  “Mom, you look awful,” Zack says. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  Only then do I realize how shocked he must be to see my black-and-blue face, though Dr. Payne didn’t even flinch or mention it when he saw me.

  “I’m fine,” I assure him. “This is nothing, really. Why don’t you come back and visit with Winston? He’ll be so happy to see you. But you should prepare yourself. He’s sedated and weak. Let’s not get him too excited. It’s important to speak in quiet tones.”

  Ruby waves at us to go on back. Soon we are crowded around Winston’s cage, and his tail is thumping again. When he sniffs Zack’s hands, Winston’s eyes grow wet, and I’m convinced that he’s weeping with happiness and we are seeing tears of love.

  At the same time, I sense that the excitement is too much for him, and I suggest that we leave him alone to rest.

  Besides, we have a lot to talk about. There’s going to be much to do over the next few days. I’m not sure how I’m going to get through it all, and I feel tired again, as if my body weighs a ton.

  After Maureen returns to Halifax, Zack, Mom, and I get through the day together, leaning on one another through all the decisions and painful tasks that must be dealt with—visiting the funeral home and choosing a casket, speaking to the minister at our church, and setting a date and time for the service and burial.

  We then return home and are content to eat the casserole and pie Maureen cooked. I’m so grateful for it. After a brief rest, I begin to make phone calls to family and friends to let them know about Alan’s funeral. I call Alan’s father first, and he informs me that he already bought his plane ticket. I try not to get worked up about it because he’s not my favorite person in the world, but it’s his son’s funeral, and he has a right to be there.

  The rest of the phone calls to friends and colleagues are equally difficult, especially when I’m forced to listen to expressions of shock and dismay over what they had seen on television the night before. Apparently, video footage of Alan’s car wreck was broadcast on all the local news programs and the internet, and it was revealed that Alan—a prominent, respected Halifax cardiologist—had been driving under the influence. It’s a dark and dirty scandal I can’t bear to stomach.

  Though everyone I speak to is sympathetic, I’m deeply ashamed of what occurred. I want to shield Zack from what’s being said about his father in the news, but it’s not possible unless I take his phone away from him, and I don’t want to do that. I need to let him face this and do my best to talk him through it. But that’s not easy, because I have no idea why Alan did what he did or what he was doing on the road that night. The question eats away at me, on top of everything else.

  Later that night, my sister, Carla; her husband, Braden; and their two young daughters arrive from New Brunswick.

  Carla and I have always been close, and as soon as our eyes meet in my mother’s foyer, we step into each other’s arms.

  “I’m so glad you’re finally here,” I say.

  “Me too.”

  A short while later, we manage to steal a moment alone together in my bedroom, away from the children. I tell her everything about the accident and the excruciating and impossible pain of watching Alan die and being helpless to stop it.

  “I don’t understand how it happened,” I say, bowing my head and slowly shaking it. “How could he have gotten behind the wheel if he was drinking? I never imagined he would ever do something like that.”

  Carla rubs my knee. “I know. It’s a shock. But there’s got to be some sort of explanation.”

  My eyes lift. “But how will I ever know? He was alone at the time, and no one expected him to be on the road to Lunenburg. I’ve searched through all my messages, and I’ve checked his phone. I’ve talked to his colleagues. No one knows why he was coming here, let alone why he was drunk on a Sunday.”

  I lean toward the bedside table to pull a tissue from the box and blow my nose. “I’m so angry with him right now. Part of me hates him for what he did to us. For what he did to our family.”

  Carla says nothing. She simply nods and provides the sympathetic ear I so desperately need.

  “At the same time, I don’t want to think about him that way—as the drunk driver who ran me off the road. I want to remember him as the wonderful father and devoted husband that he was. That’s how I want Zack to remember him too.”

  “He will, and you will too, when the shock of this wears off.”

  After we’re finished talking, Carla and I prepare the spare bedroom for her and Braden while Mom opens the sofa bed in the den for Zack and makes beds for the children on the floor in the family room. Carla chooses a movie for them to watch, and I make a pot of coffee so that she, Mom, and I can sit down at the table and take care of some practical details about the funeral.

  Later, despite having drunk two cups of brew, I fall into a deep slumber as soon as my head hits the pillow. Still, I wake often during the night, with fretful dreams about the accident. I dream that I can’t get out from under the dash and no one comes to rescue me. I scream for help and thrash about. I pound my fists against the steering wheel. Then all the dashboard lights go out, and I’m alone in the dark ravine. Winston is gone. He doesn’t come back. But I don’t want to give up. I tell myself that the sun will come up in the morning and then it won’t be so scary. I pray that someone will find me. My heart pummels my rib cage, but I try to hold on and make it through the night.

  When I pull myself out of the dream, though, and reach across the bed in search of Alan’s warm, sturdy body, I can’t help but think that my present reality seems just as dark and hopeless as the dream, and I wish there were a way to wake from it too.

  The next day begins with a task far more pleasant than planning funerals. Zack and I head over to the veterinary hospital to pick up Winston.

  Ruby brings him out into the reception area, and the moment I see him up on his feet, walking and swishing his tail, I feel a ray of hope. Zack and I drop to our knees and greet him with hugs and kisses. He sniffs and licks our hands and faces and whimpers with emotion.

  “Is Dr. Payne here?” I ask Ruby as I rise uncomfortably to my feet on legs that still ache from the accident. “I’d like to thank him.”

  “I’m sorry—he left to pick up his daughter from school. The poor little thing’s sick. I shifted a few of his morning appointments around, so I don’t expect to see him until this afternoon.”

  “I see,” I reply. “Will you thank him for me when you see him?”

  “I most certainly will.”

  Ruby hands me a sheet of paper with instructions about Winston’s care over the next few days. Then she fastens a large plastic cone around his neck to prevent him f
rom licking his incision. She also gives me pain pills for him and schedules a follow-up appointment for us to return in a week.

  “Don’t hesitate to call if you have any concerns or questions,” Ruby says. “And I wrote Dr. Payne’s personal cell phone number on that sheet of paper as well, just in case you need to call after hours. He explicitly asked me to do that.”

  “Thanks so much, Ruby. I can’t tell you how grateful we are.”

  I reach under the cone, hook Winston’s leash on to his collar, and hand it to Zack. A few minutes later, we are buckled into my mother’s car with Winston in the back seat, heading home to her place for what I assume will be a quiet, somber day before the wake.

  But I should know by now that life doesn’t always go the way one expects.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  My father-in-law, Lester Sedgewick, surprises all of us by arriving at my mother’s house unannounced at lunchtime, when he said on the phone that he would see us at the wake. With him is Alan’s older brother, Bruce, a car mechanic I’ve met a handful of times, and their stepmother, Verna, who is Lester’s second wife. Lester married Verna ten months after Alan’s mother passed away. According to Alan, she showed very little affection or compassion toward him or Bruce—two teenage boys who had just lost their mother and were in dire need of loving arms. To Verna, they were nothing but a couple of inconvenient add-ons she was forced to tolerate until they were old enough to move out on their own. As soon as Alan left home, that was it. She made no effort to keep in touch. He reciprocated in kind.

  “My goodness. Hello.” I invite them in and hug each of them in turn, because it’s the proper thing to do. “It’s good to see you. Thank you so much for coming.”

  While I say all the words one is expected to say in circumstances such as these, I try to hide the fact that I am sickened by the stench of stale cigarette smoke on their clothing.

  Mom—who only met Lester and Verna once, at my wedding—walks out of the kitchen and greets them. “Hello. Welcome. I’m so sorry about Alan. We’re all just devastated.”

  She hugs them as well, and we take everyone’s coats.

  “When did you arrive?” Mom asks as she opens the closet door and reaches for a hanger.

  “We flew from Victoria yesterday,” Lester replies in a deep, guttural voice as he glances around the foyer and peers into the living room. Without covering his mouth, he hacks out a phlegmy cough. “Lost four hours with the time difference. Now we’re all jet-lagged.”

  “It’s a long trip,” I politely agree.

  He didn’t call to let us know where they will be staying, so I feel a twinge of unease about their expectations. We certainly don’t have room here in my mother’s house.

  “Did you book into a hotel last night?” I ask as I hang up Verna’s coat. Bruce insists on keeping his on.

  “Yes, we did,” Verna replies triumphantly. “Thought we’d make a vacation out of it, so we rented a car at the airport and drove straight to the casino hotel in Halifax. What a glitzy place! They had a minibar in the room, and Bruce won a hundred and sixty dollars at the slot machines. I’m telling you, we had a ball!”

  “Lucky bastard,” Lester adds with a chuckle under his breath, elbowing Bruce in the ribs and knocking him into the wall.

  Bruce shoves him back. “Frig off.”

  I clear my throat and try to suppress my annoyance, because everyone seems to be missing the main point, which is that Alan is dead. And yet, here is his family, celebrating Bruce’s winnings and their extravagant night in the hotel. It all feels terribly disrespectful.

  “That’s wonderful,” I reply with sarcasm, which goes right over their heads. Part of me would like to hand their coats back to them and send them on their merry way, but they’re Alan’s family, and I don’t want to cause a scene or stir up conflict, which is exactly what happened the last time we visited them in BC, ten years ago.

  We had flown across the country so that Zack could meet his grandfather for the first time. Unfortunately—but not surprisingly—Lester was his usual bigoted self. He said some horrendous, insensitive things about a neighbor across the street, and since Alan was tired of letting things slide, he stood up to his father for the first time.

  It was a loud, ugly argument that nearly became violent, but I was proud of my husband. We had originally planned to stay a full week. We returned home after three days.

  Over the years, part of me always entertained the hope that Lester might reflect upon his behavior that day and turn over a new leaf or gain some wisdom with age. I also secretly dreamed that he and Alan might bury the hatchet, but it’s too late for that now.

  Nevertheless, Alan’s wake is tomorrow night, and they flew thousands of miles to be here. I can’t be inhospitable.

  Suddenly, Verna seems to realize that one of them should say something about Alan. “We’re so happy we could be here for the service,” she mentions in a sober voice. “I can’t imagine what you must be going through.”

  “Thank you. It’s been a difficult few days.” I invite them into the living room to sit down.

  My mother joins us as well. “We’re about to have lunch. Have you eaten yet?”

  “Just breakfast at the hotel,” Verna replies demurely as she squeezes her purse on her lap. “But we don’t want to put you out.”

  “It’s no trouble,” Mom says. “The neighbors have been very generous, stopping by to deliver casseroles and all sorts of things. I have a pot of soup on the stove.”

  “What kind of soup is it?” Lester asks.

  Mom blinks a few times. “It’s beef and barley.”

  “All right then,” Lester says with authority. “We’ll take you up on your offer.”

  Mom manages a smile and returns to the kitchen, leaving me to sit with my in-laws.

  Suddenly, I feel very tired. Normally, I would be quick to fill the silence with small talk, but at this moment, I don’t care about making them feel welcome. Their tactless comments about their luck at the slot machines killed any chance of that. All I want to do is take a nap.

  “So the wake is happening tomorrow night?” Verna prods.

  “Yes, that’s right,” I reply. “Seven o’clock. I’ll get you the address of the funeral home before you leave. Where are you staying?”

  I hope that makes it clear that I don’t intend to offer them accommodations here.

  Verna smiles sweetly. “We just booked rooms at a charming B and B in town. This whole trip is turning out to be quite a treat! I feel like we’re staying with the queen of England.”

  “A treat indeed,” I reply flatly.

  Verna inclines her head. “If only it could be under better circumstances.” She points at my face. “Is that painful?”

  “Not really,” I say, touching a finger to my cheek. “My legs are a bit sore, though. I was trapped under the dash.”

  Lester slaps his knee, and I jump. I wonder if he’s about to ask about Alan’s accident, which I am fully prepared to discuss to the best of my knowledge, but he changes the subject. “Where’s that grandson of mine? He must have grown at least a foot since I last saw him. What is he . . . fifteen, sixteen?”

  “He’s seventeen,” I tell him. “He’s a senior in high school now, and we’re very proud of him.” It hits me that I just said we when Alan is no longer here, and I have to force myself to push past that thought. “He’s captain of the hockey team and president of the student council.”

  I’m not usually a mother who brags about her child, but I can’t control myself. I want Lester to know what he’s missed out on over the past decade—and what a wonderful father Alan was.

  “Is that a fact?” Lester says. “Well? Where is he then? Too busy with hockey and school to greet his grandfather?”

  I clear my throat and squeeze my hands together until my knuckles turn white. “He’s in the basement,” I say. “He wasn’t expecting you to arrive until tomorrow. I’ll go get him.”

  I rise from my chair and go downsta
irs, where I find Zack lying on the carpet in front of the television, reading on his phone, while Winston is stretched out beside him with the big plastic cone around his neck. At the sound of my approach, Winston sits up and thumps his tail.

  “Hey there.” I pick up the remote control to turn down the volume on the TV. “We have company. It’s your grandpa Lester.”

  Zack lowers his phone and regards me with bafflement. “He’s here now?”

  “Yes. With his wife, Verna, and your uncle Bruce.”

  Zack’s forehead crinkles. “Have I met Bruce before?”

  “Once, briefly,” I say, “when we visited them. You were only seven, so you probably don’t remember. But you should come up and say hello. They’re going to stay for lunch.”

  “Okay.”

  Zack moves to get up, and I wait until he is on his feet and facing me before I fill him in on the situation. “Listen . . . you know that your father wasn’t close to his family, right?”

  Zack nods at me.

  “This is the first time you’re going to meet them in person since you were little, and I just want to warn you—they can be a bit . . .” I struggle to find the right words. “They can be a bit insensitive sometimes, and I want you to be prepared. Don’t take it personally if your grandfather says something rude. They’re here for the funeral, and we just need to be polite, let the stupid things they say roll off our backs, and get through it.”

  Zack’s eyebrows lift, and he seems strangely amused. “Sounds like it’s going to be a time. Don’t worry, Mom. I can handle them.” He taps his thigh a few times. “Come on, Winston. Let’s go upstairs and meet some people.”

  Winston gets up and lethargically climbs the stairs, while I say a silent prayer that everyone will behave.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “So this is the big man on campus I’ve been hearing so much about,” Lester says as Zack enters the living room. “Look at you. You look just like your father when he was your age.”