If I Die Tonight

by Alison Gaylin

  Probably on his way to buy cigarettes at the Lukoil, with some ridiculous-looking fake ID in his pocket. Probably had no idea that five blocks away, a boy just a few years older than he had been run down and left for dead by a different car less than twenty-four hours earlier. Run down by Baby. Pearl had driven by the spot where it had happened. She’d seen the yellow tape on the maple trees, the cruiser still blocking off the street, the flashing lights, a few gawkers, kids from the high school she half recognized from community outreach. She’d passed them slowly and she’d thought about that boy, a friend of theirs maybe. A healthy boy, running and then motionless.

  In just a few seconds, such awful things can happen.

  Pearl’s eyes welled up. She felt as though something big and heavy were sitting on her chest. The same thing that had been there for nearly her whole life; sometimes it eased up, but never long enough for her to really breathe deeply. She grabbed her phone and checked her voice mail. Nothing. Should I have answered for you, Dad? What would you have said to me?

  Pearl needed to sleep, but she couldn’t. She so very rarely could.

  She opened her hookup app and swiped right on the first douchebag she saw—big ugly tattoo on his neck, tons of product in his hair, ice-blue eyes that were probably contacts. She could practically smell the Axe spray through the screen.

  His screen name was HudsonStud, and of course he matched with Pearl. He messaged her exactly the way she knew he would: S’up?

  She didn’t waste time. She messaged him her address, craving him like another beer. When you get here, she typed, leave your shoes by the door.

  “I WAS JUST throwing some stuff out,” Connor said.

  Jackie looked at him. “At a gas station?”

  Connor mumbled something along the lines of wanting to get some fresh air. He had no coat on and he was trembling. His nose was red and his lips were tinged blue. Jackie was terrified he might catch something—pneumonia, hypothermia even. She wanted to put her arms around him, clutch him to her until he was warm, as though he were still a baby and she had no trouble meeting all of his needs. “Get in the car, Connor,” she said.

  He did. Jackie turned the heat all the way up and they drove home in silence.

  HUDSONSTUD WAS A lot shorter than Pearl had expected. She stood eye-to-eye with him when she answered the door—something that, at five feet four inches, she wasn’t accustomed to. She may have even looked down on him a little, but once they were in bed and he was on top of her, behind her, beneath her, it didn’t really matter. If anything, their closeness in height made for smoother transitions. She liked that he didn’t talk during sex, and she was fascinated by the neck tattoo—a fairly intricate drawing of a twisting orange fish, each scale clearly delineated. It must have hurt, she kept thinking.

  “How long did it take?” she asked as they put their clothes on, backs to each other. “Your tattoo?”

  “Three and a half days.”

  “Kept coming back for more, huh?”

  “You make a commitment,” he said, “you’ve got to stick with it.”

  “Does it mean anything?”

  “Nah. I just saw the picture in a book. It made me happy.”

  “And that was enough for a lifelong commitment?”

  “Couldn’t think of a better reason.”

  Pearl turned around and looked at him. He smiled. A kind smile. He was fully dressed now in jeans and a dark blue sweatshirt with no brand logo on it, no words. She hadn’t noticed when he’d first come in, but unlike most guys their age from this area, HudsonStud wasn’t dressed in a theme: rapper, hipster, deejay douchebag. He was just wearing clothes. “What’s your name, anyway?”

  “Paul. Yours?”

  “Pearl.”

  “Wow,” he said. “Our names are practically anagrams.”

  Pearl felt herself smiling. “You want a beer?”

  “Sure.”

  He followed her into the kitchen. He didn’t sit down. She pulled out two icy bottles and used the opener chained to the fridge to crack off the caps and they both stood there, not talking, taking long, slow gulps.

  Pearl was so much thirstier than she’d thought. She closed her eyes and felt the familiar cool slide of the beer, the calming presence of the stranger standing next to her. But after a few blissful moments the calm dissipated and Liam Miller’s face eased into her mind. Again.

  When she’d first gotten home from Amy’s, back when she was still too keyed up to get into bed, Pearl had googled the name Liam Miller plus Havenkill. A lot of sports articles from the local weekly had come up—he was quarterback for the high school team, the Havenkill Ravens, and so it hadn’t taken her long to find his picture—a boy with pale blond hair and an infectious smile and a face that was so camera-friendly, it looked familiar. At first, Pearl thought he must resemble someone famous, she just couldn’t figure out whom. But soon it hit her that she really had met him before.

  It had been less than two months ago—the last week in August, when Havenkill was bathed in a heat wave, the air thick with humidity, nighttime just as oppressively hot as day. You couldn’t go outside without pouring sweat, and Pearl was taking at least three showers a day in the station locker room. Her uniform was torture. The call had come in at around 10:00 PM—a woman, saying that her neighbors, the Schwartzes, were out of town but she’d heard voices in their yard and suspected a break-in. Pearl had driven over with Ed Tally, an older cop and a war vet. Nice enough guy, but very by-the-book. When they’d gotten to the house—the type of two-story stone home that people describe as “grand” or “gracious”—they’d caught four high school boys outside by the pool. Liam Miller had been in his swim trunks, bouncing on the diving board, some buddy of his ready to capture the moment on his phone. She could still recall the way he’d dived in—the graceful arch of it, the way he’d entered the water like a blade, his hands and feet barely making a ripple. She remembered the expression on his face when he’d come up for air—pure joy, then terror at the sight of Pearl and Tally in their uniforms, approaching. “Oh my gosh,” he had said.

  Tally had shaken his head. “Rich kids think they’re above the law,” he’d said. But Pearl had found it hard not to crack a smile. Liam Miller and his friends had been pool-hopping on a hot night—which, legal or not, was one of the few things for a teenager to do in Havenkill during the summer that didn’t involve the 4-H Club, drugs, or dressing up like some dork from the Renaissance.

  The way he was acting, though, you’d think he’d blown up a bank. “I’ll never do it again, officer,” he had said as his friend with the phone raised his hands in the air like the kid at the Lukoil station and the other two boys ran away. “I promise. Just please don’t arrest me. I want to go to college. I want to be a doctor.”

  Pearl finished her beer. She started to go for another but stopped herself when she saw that Paul was only halfway through with his.

  “So,” he said. “You’re a cop?”

  “Yep.” It was the one piece of true information she listed on hookup sites; she did it to keep the crazies at bay.

  “Ever kill anyone?”

  Pearl found herself looking into his eyes, which were a deeper blue in person than on his profile pic and not, as it turned out, contacts. Pearl had been right about the Axe spray, but there was no sticky gel in his hair, and he hadn’t asked to use her shower the way most of these guys did, looking for an excuse to stay. He seemed decent and normal, which meant she’d never see him again. And so she saw no reason to lie.

  “Yes,” she told him. “I killed my mother.”

  ONCE JACKIE HAD pulled into the driveway, Connor unlocked his door and started to get out.

  “Stop,” she said. “Wait.”

  He looked at her, eyes dry, his gaze direct and unreadable. “Cindy Weston called,” she said.

  “Yeah?”

  “She told me why you hit Noah, and I think . . . under the circumstances . . .” She opened her glove compartment, removed his phone, a
nd handed it to him.

  He smiled a little. “Thanks, Mom.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  He took a breath, let it out slowly. “I . . . I felt bad for Wade,” he said. “And you too.”

  “Me?”

  “I mean . . . I know how worried you get about us. You want us to be happy, Mom.”

  “Of course I do.”

  “But . . . I mean . . . That’s kind of a lot to expect.”

  “You can’t blame me for that, can you? Wanting you to be happy?” She ruffled his hair and tried smiling at him. He didn’t smile back.

  Once they were both out of the car, Jackie noticed Wade, sitting on the front step. She saw him put out a cigarette but pretended not to see. She’d cross that bridge later, along with the hospital, the way those kids had looked at her, the way Stacy had said Wade’s name.

  Connor headed into the house, brushing past Wade. “I think I need a hot shower.”

  “How was the SAT?” Jackie said once he was gone.

  “I didn’t take it.”

  “What?”

  Wade’s head was bowed, so all Jackie could see was messy dyed hair, skinny legs in faded jeans, letters scrawled on them in Sharpie. She so very rarely saw his face these days and so she had to gauge her son’s emotions by the state of his hair, his clothes, the writing on his jeans. Is that a T inside a heart?

  “Wade,” she said. “Talk to me. Why didn’t you take it?”

  He looked up at her and she gasped a little. How pale his face was, how sunken the cheeks. And then she noticed the tears in his eyes. “Oh . . . Oh, honey.”

  Wade never cried, not since the day his dad had left home—a day of loud, aching sobs and then an announcement: “No one’s ever making me cry like that again.” And he’d stuck to it. Not a tear out of him until now. “Wade,” Jackie said. “Are you upset over what happened to Liam Miller?”

  Wade nodded, the movement barely noticeable.

  “It’s okay.” Jackie said it tentatively, like someone defusing a bomb. She wanted to hug Wade so badly, but she wasn’t sure it would be welcome or even that he would take it the right way. It had been so long since they’d hugged, after all, and she was afraid he might think she was trying to baby him.

  He stood up, ran a sleeve over his eyes. “Thanks, Mom,” he said. Jackie remembered Helen telling her why Wade had gone to the hospital. He was worried. He wanted to know what was going on. She felt a surge of pride. Wade cared about other people, whether they liked him or not. And that would serve him well, once he busted out of this gossipy, airless little town and found friends who deserved him.

  She put a firm hand on his shoulder, the way a father might have done. “Everything’s going to be okay,” she said. And in that moment, it felt like the truth.

  Five

  Selected posts from the Facebook page of Liam Miller.

  Stacy Davies ► Liam Miller

  October 20 at 12:45 PM

  My mom baked you M&M cookies! Get out of that hospital before I eat them all. I <3 U. Get well soon!

  Rafe Burgess ► Liam Miller

  October 20 at 2:00 PM

  Heard what happened. You are a HERO!! Hang in there. Let’s do something insane when you wake up. GO RAVENS!

  Ryan Grant ► Liam Miller

  October 20 at 3:58 PM

  Hoping and praying, for you, buddy.

  Bobby Udel: ^^^ Like the kid said. ^^^ Get better soon!!!!!!!!

  October 20 at 4:04pm

  Tamara Hayes ► Liam Miller

  October 20 at 4:50 PM

  Please post on your page when you feel up to it. We’re all worried about you and we just want to know you’re okay.

  Stacy Davies ► Liam Miller

  October 21 at 12:37 AM

  EVERYBODY IN HAVENKILL PLEASE PRAY FOR LIAM.

  320 people like this

  October 21 at 9:45 AM

  We are deeply sorry to announce that our beautiful son, Liam Franklin Miller, was pronounced dead at 3:30 this morning. We want you all to know that he died as he lived, trying to help another person. Late Friday night a woman’s car was stolen. Instead of ignoring her screams, as most boys his age would have done, Liam rushed to the scene and charged straight for the car in an attempt to save it, only to be run down and fatally injured.

  We are very grateful to the lovely woman who told us the story, and to all of you for your kind wishes and memories and words of hope for Liam. We can still use them. Perhaps now more than ever.

  We are doing all we can to help the police find and capture the monster who killed Liam.

  God bless you all,

  Sheila and Chris Miller

  Six

  Last night had been the type of night Jackie hadn’t experienced in she didn’t know how long: both boys with her at the kitchen table, devouring the lasagna she’d made and talking to each other. Really talking. Connor had mentioned needing to change his science project, and Wade, attentive and bright-eyed, had suggested new ideas. Wade, listening and speaking, participating in a conversation . . . Even Connor had looked surprised.

  “Did you know,” Wade said as he served scoops of rocky road ice cream, “that yeast breathes?”

  “Gross,” said Connor.

  “It’s not gross. It’s just alive.”

  To Jackie, it felt as though Wade’s tears that afternoon had brought down a wall that had surrounded him for years. Or at the very least, made a few cracks in it so the three of them could breathe again. Throughout dinner, neither Wade nor Connor had looked at their phones or listened to music. They’d even helped with the dishes. Well, Connor had helped. But Wade had brought his to the sink without being asked. Together, they’d watched a few old episodes of The Office on Netflix and then they’d all gone to bed early, Jackie avoiding both Facebook and her bottle of Xanax and drifting off peacefully and naturally with no nightmares, no dreams at all.

  She’d slept in a bit, waking up at nine thirty and checking in on her boys to hear both of them sleeping behind closed doors, snoring away just like their father.

  Jackie made coffee in silence, forgoing the Hudson Valley cable news station she usually watched in the kitchen on Sunday mornings. When the coffee was done, she poured herself a cup, breathed in the steam of it. And it was only then, as she made her way to the laundry room, warm mug pressed to her palms, that she really heard the silence and understood how she’d been avoiding local news, social media, her phone—all links to the suddenly chaotic world outside her house. Jackie saw it now: she had been avoiding Liam Miller. Maybe that’s what had led to the previous evening. Maybe her boys had been avoiding Liam too.

  She pushed the thought out of her mind. Tabled it, the way she’d table a call from a potential client when she was carpooling or buying groceries. Jackie would come back to the outside world, but for now she was focused on the laundry—the never-ending disappointment of it. The washing machine was filled with damp and wrinkly clothes that smelled vaguely of mildew. Jackie sighed. She’d put these clothes in Friday afternoon before running off to the Leones’ closing, asking Connor and Wade to transfer the load to the dryer as soon as it was done. Thanks, guys.

  As she scooped clothes out of the washer, she heard light footsteps in the kitchen, the sound of the refrigerator opening. One of the boys, awake. She thought about marching whichever one of them it was in here and forcing him to transfer the load, but why bother? It would take longer to nag and criticize than just to do it. She pulled open the dryer door. Then she stepped back, staring.

  There were clothes in the dryer.

  She put the wet laundry on the folding table and pulled it all out . . . Black hoodie. Black T-shirt. A pair of dark jeans with one of the pockets ripped off. The same clothes Wade had been wearing the night before last, when she’d seen him on the front step.

  Why had he run them through the dryer?

  In the kitchen, she heard the squeak of a chair. “Wade?”

  No answer, and when she retu
rned to the kitchen, she saw Connor, sitting at the kitchen table, staring into his hands, into his phone screen. “Any idea why your brother . . .” She stopped. Connor was looking up at her, phone still clutched in front of him. His jaw was tight, his lower lip trembling so slightly, she doubted anyone other than a mother would notice. “Liam?” she said.

  He nodded. Jackie went to him. He didn’t start crying until she took him in her arms.

  “HE’S GONE,” SAID Udel as soon as Pearl emerged from the locker room, showered and blow-dried and in uniform, remnants of beer hangover like cobwebs in her head. “Liam Miller. He’s gone.”

  No . . .

  Pearl said nothing. A strong wind barreled past the station, rattling the frail windows. A threat. Pearl remembered Liam’s face on that hot summer night, the drops of pool water glistening on his cheeks. I’ll never do it again, officer. I promise.

  Udel was looking at her as though he expected her to say something. What she wanted to tell him was this: bad things happen and they happen for no reason and there’s nothing you can do about it. Paul had said that to her yesterday after she’d told him about her mother: “You live through those things. That’s what you do. You live through more and more of them until you say, ‘Okay, I get it.’ Then you stop living.” Paul was a paramedic as it turned out, so he ought to know.

  “We’d better get going,” Pearl said. “We’ll be late.”

  “That’s all?” Udel said. “That’s all you’re going to say?”

  Sentences flipped through her mind. Apologies, niceties. But what came out was something else Paul had told her: “A word never brought anybody back to life.”

  AT THE START of each shift, the sergeant met the on-duty officers in the conference room and gave them their assignments. They’d been called beats back in Poughkeepsie, where Pearl had worked before coming here, but in such a small town and with just nine cops counting the sergeant, all of them except the sergeant working part-time, “beats” seemed a little pretentious. During one of her first weeks here in Havenkill, she’d referred to her patrol as “the Orchard Street beat” and the guys had all laughed at her. For weeks, they’d called her Danno after the by-the-book cop from the old TV show Hawaii Five-0—a nickname that fortunately didn’t stick.