The Accident Season

by Fowley-Doyle, Moïra

“Alice—”

  “I’ve had worse.” Alice gives a dry little laugh. “We all have.”

  Maybe it’s because she has mentioned the accident season, however indirectly, but Bea doesn’t push the point. Instead, she takes out Alice’s phone, dials Nick’s number, and holds the phone up to Alice’s ear.

  While she talks to him, Sam and I do our best to clean and disinfect her cuts. The crowd disperses, until we are alone behind the counter. Because we are so close to Alice, we can all hear both sides of her phone conversation.

  “Where were you last night?” is the first thing Nick says when he answers the call.

  “Hey, Nick,” Alice says in a falsely casual voice. “I’ve just had a bit of an accident and I don’t want to bother my mom. Are you free now? Could you drive me to the hospital?”

  It’s as if Nick hasn’t heard her. “Where were you last night, Alice?”

  Alice makes a curtain of her hair and hunches over, as if that’ll stop us from hearing. “I was with Cara and Bea. We just hung out at home.”

  Nick’s voice gets lower, but I think I can make out the words. “You were supposed to be hanging out with me.”

  “Nick, I’m sorry. My mom broke her wrist, so I had to stay home.” Alice lowers her voice to match his, but hers is soft where his is all knives. Beside me, Bea crosses her arms and makes an angry, impatient noise.

  Alice seems to go through this a lot, with Nick. My mother says he’s awfully insecure for someone so popular, but Alice says it isn’t insecurity, just jealousy. Just love. I don’t know anything about that kind of love, but I imagine that if you feel that strongly for someone, you do end up getting a little possessive. My mother calls theirs a firecracker romance.

  Alice winces as Sam sticks some butterfly bandages over the cut on her arm that won’t stop bleeding. “There must have been broken glass on the road,” he says in an undertone.

  Nick must have heard what Sam just said, because when he speaks again, his voice is completely different. “Are you okay, love?” he says through the phone to Alice.

  “A car crashed into her,” Bea says, very loudly, next to the phone.

  Alice winces again. “I’m fine,” she says over Nick’s sounds of concern. “I just need a lift to the hospital. I’m in the corner store across from the library.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  When Alice hangs up, she looks even paler, but she turns to Bea with her head high. “Don’t make a fuss,” she says.

  Nick drives up five minutes later. Alice stands once he comes inside.

  Every time I see him, I’m surprised by how beautiful Nick is. His hair is dark and falls in waves to his jaw and his eyes are kind of intense. He is tall and broad and he crackles energy.

  “Okay,” Bea says in a tight voice. “Let’s go.”

  Nick glances at Bea, who seems to be looking anywhere but at him. “I’ll take her,” he says. “You don’t have to wait with us.” He turns back to Alice and strokes her cheek softly. “Come on, then, love,” he says to her. “Let’s get you patched up.”

  Sam says, “I’ll come with you too. I’m supposed to be meeting up with Martin in the city later anyway.”

  Nick doesn’t look too happy about having a third wheel, but he says, “Okay, man, I’ll drop you off outside the hospital. But I’m going in with Alice.”

  Bea scowls, but Alice gives a tight little smile. She thanks Nick with a kiss and turns to me and Bea. “Don’t make a fuss,” she says again. “And don’t tell Mom. I’ll spend the night at Nick’s so she won’t worry. You guys go home,” she says. “Nick will take care of me.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure he will,” Bea mutters darkly. I look over at her sharply. She frowns as she watches them drive away.

  When Nick’s car is out of sight, I run across the road (looking both ways carefully before crossing) and up to the library just as the librarian locks the door.

  “No no no,” I say, standing in front of her to block her path. “I really need to find a newspaper article,” I say, very quickly. “It isn’t online and it’s really important and I know the library’s closed tomorrow and I can’t go in to Ballina or Castlebar because I’ve got school and then it’s Halloween and anyway I don’t know exactly what newspaper the article’s in, so I’d have to go to both and I really can’t wait until Monday, please can you give me just five minutes?”

  The librarian raises her eyebrows. “Library’s closed, love,” she says. “You should have done your homework earlier if it was that important.”

  Bea appears behind me. “It’s not for homework,” she says. “But it really is important. It’s for a friend. It was an article from a couple of years ago about the bridge that collapsed and the council was supposed to rebuild. Do you think we could just take a few minutes to see if we can find it?”

  “I’m afraid not,” the librarian says. “I have to pick up my son from training at a quarter past.” She pockets the keys and starts to cross the parking lot. “But if it’s information about the bridge you want, you might catch someone at the council offices if you hurry. They’d have copies of certain articles on file.”

  Bea and I practically run to the council offices. We get to the front door, breathless, just in time for the man in the gray suit inside to flip the sign from OPEN to CLOSED. Bea knocks on the glass and I try to plead with the man to talk to us, but he just shakes his head, points at the CLOSED sign, and disappears back into the building.

  “Dammit!” I stamp my foot in frustration. I turn to Bea, but she is engrossed in her phone.

  She looks up and says, “They’re still on the road.”

  I sigh and walk away from the offices. “Alice’ll be fine,” I try to reassure Bea. “Like she said, we’ve all had worse. And she has Nick to take care of her.”

  Bea just scowls. All the way home, her face is a storm. We stop at the river, where the wooden bridge is being rebuilt. I lean against the picnic table and look out at the water. I wish we’d been able to talk to someone about Elsie. I feel like I need someone to remind me that she’s real.

  Bea is muttering things about asshole musicians under her breath. When I ask her why she suddenly hates Nick so much, she reminds me about his and Alice’s fights and his three-a.m. calls, about Alice stamping up the stairs after she’s been with him and all the times she says he’s not talking to her for some reason or another, and as Bea speaks, it feels kind of like a blurry picture’s suddenly becoming clear.

  “A big part of Nick’s appeal is sex,” Bea says. She lights up a cigarette and passes me another one. Her mouth is hard and thin when she smokes. “He’s good at it, and he’s good at making Alice feel good.”

  I kind of squirm back when she says this, not really comfortable with knowing the details of my sister’s sex life. “Well, that’s . . .” I don’t really know what that is.

  “But something he’s really good at is emotional manipulation.” Bea’s mouth puckers around the sounds. I nod slowly and say I can see that. The huffs he goes into, the way he wears his popularity like a bright tie that’d choke any other person. Bea lowers her voice and talks to the strangled grass underneath the bench.

  “Alice told me something earlier,” she says. “About Nick.” She kicks at the tufts of grass. “Just before the summer, Alice went to one of the senior parties and they got drunk and played truth or dare, right, and she and Kim were dared to run out onto the road in their underwear.” Bea’s foot taps restlessly against the bench. “So, the next morning,” she goes on, “Alice went to Nick’s place and told him all about the party and how he should come along next time, but he didn’t like that she was drinking without him and that people’d seen her in her underwear.”

  My cigarette’s hanging in my hand by my side. I flick away the column of ash and take a drag. Bea keeps going. “So they had a fight about it, and then they made up and had sex.” She says
the next part a little bit faster. “So, he likes to tie her up.” Another squirm from me. “And she’s fine with that, except for that morning he tied her to a chair in his bedroom and left her there.”

  I breathe in too sharply and the smoke scratches the back of my throat. “Hold on—what?”

  “He went out to buy smokes,” she says. “He went out to buy smokes and he left her tied up so tightly that she couldn’t get free no matter how hard she tried.” My mouth is open. “Three hours later—she could tell by the alarm clock sitting on his chest of drawers—he came back.” I blink hard a few times to get the image out of my head.

  “He said Oh, and he was smiling. He said I forgot.”

  “But how—?” I say. “Why didn’t—? How long has he—? Why is she still with him? She’s with him right now. Why did we let her—?” I have to stop and catch my breath. “Why didn’t she tell me?” My voice comes out louder and more pleading than I’d meant.

  Bea doesn’t answer. Instead, she takes out her cards. She spreads them out on the picnic table in front of us.

  “She’s attracted to trouble,” Bea says. “Because at least that way she knows it’s right in front of her and not hidden away. Not like you.”

  “Like me?”

  “That’s what this means, here.” She points to one of the cards. “You only let yourself see the good things, but that’s . . . You only see what’s safe, what you want to see.”

  “What do you mean?” Her words are like a smack. “No I don’t,” I say faintly. I can’t tell if I feel ashamed or indignant. “That’s not true. Bea. Why would you even say that?”

  “It’s not me.” Bea shakes her head. “It’s the cards.”

  “Right.” I can feel my mouth pucker up like I’ve tasted something bad, or like I’m going to cry. I don’t know when Bea suddenly became best friends with Alice and knew all her secrets. I don’t know why that’s bothering me after what Bea’s just said about my sister. There’s a lump in my throat that doesn’t budge no matter how hard I swallow. We both drop our cigarette butts on the ground and I stamp them out with the toes of my boots. Bea’s lipstick stains the grass like blood.

  11

  When I get home, my mother is sitting in the dark in the kitchen (Bea is not the only person in my life with a penchant for the dramatic). I flick the light on and she looks surprised to see me back. She tries to act normal, but I can see that she’s added an extra rug to the kitchen floor, and when I go to boil some water for tea, I see that the kettle’s gone. I also notice the date on the calendar that hangs on the back of the garden door.

  Between the weirdness of last night, and finding out that Sam kissed Bea this summer, and Alice’s accident, and what Bea told me about Alice and Nick, I had completely forgotten what day it is. I stop in the middle of the kitchen and turn to face my mother.

  “Are you okay?” I ask. It’s a stupid question; I know she’s not okay.

  My mother tries to smile, but it looks like a grimace. “I just have a headache,” she says. “I’m going to go to bed. Don’t forget to unplug everything before you go upstairs, okay? And be careful opening that cupboard—I think its hinges are loose. And don’t go near the window in the bathroom.”

  I just nod my head sadly and let her go upstairs, and I wonder where the person who was so excited about a walk in the mountains this morning has gone, but I suppose I know the answer. She’s gone back in time, in her mind, to another unseasonably warm October four years ago, and to the last of the tragedies.

  My eyes fill with tears suddenly, and my heart tries to jump at my teeth and my throat closes before it can leap from my chest. I take a few deep breaths like my mother always tells me helps when you’re in crisis—in through the nose, all the way from the diaphragm, as if you’re about to sing opera. Not that I’ve ever sung opera. I wonder who is telling my mother to breathe deep tonight.

  I call Gracie. She is eating when she answers, and the chewing sounds are loud and distorted. Her earrings clack against the side of the phone.

  “It’s the thirtieth,” I tell her. She doesn’t say Cara? because she already knows it’s me, and she doesn’t say What? because she knows what I mean.

  “Oh God,” she says instead. “I completely forgot. She was acting so normal earlier. She seemed happy.”

  “Maybe she forgot too, for a while.” Maybe she feels like forgetting makes it worse. I know I do.

  My father died in the first week of the accident season when I was eight years old. Like us, my mother broke down and slowly got back up and mourned, and many years later she stopped hiding from the world that one day in early October, and instead every year she takes us to our father’s grave and tells us stories about him so we’ll never forget. My uncle Seth died four years ago today and my mother still hides from the world on that day. But we don’t talk about that. We talk about Seth when he was alive but we never mention how he died. It’s like my mother still refuses to believe he’s gone.

  Gracie sighs over the line. “I’ll give her a call,” she says. “Talk to you soon, Cara.” When I hang up, I feel a little better. That’s what best friends are for, I think. Then I think about everything Bea said about me earlier (It’s not me, it’s the cards) and I don’t feel so much better again.

  Alice comes home before Sam. It’s close to midnight, but I wasn’t expecting her home at all; she’s supposed to be staying at Nick’s. I am in the sitting room in my pajamas with one of Bea’s mixes on for company, trying to lose myself in my book. Then Alice comes through the door and my mouth drops open and my heart hits the floor.

  Her lip is cut and her eyes are red. One of her cheeks is turning the dark pink of a new bruise. I jump up from the couch and run to her, and she drops her bag where she stands and just sort of sways on the spot as I hug her tightly. Something tells me these new bruises weren’t accidents, but I don’t know how to ask.

  Alice isn’t saying anything and I don’t really know what to do, so I sit her on the couch and go into the kitchen and microwave a mug of water because I don’t know where my mother’s hidden the kettle. I make up two improvised hot whiskeys with my mother’s Scotch and generous hunks of lemon studded with cloves. I make them very sweet, and the sugar looks like glitter at the bottom of the glass.

  We sit on the couch in silence and drink, and when we’re finished I know I’ve waited long enough to say something, so I say, “Alice, did Nick . . . ?” but suddenly I find that I can’t finish the sentence. I’m not sure what I’m trying to ask. I can’t even really look at Alice after everything Bea told me. Instead I go into the kitchen and make another couple of hot whiskeys.

  When I come back into the living room I try saying it in a different way. “Bea told me something, after you left for the hospital.” I put the tall glasses down on coasters on the wrapped-up table. Alice takes hers immediately. “About Nick.” I pick my glass up more slowly and sip, savoring the warmth.

  Alice is shaking her head, her hair making curtains over her face, shutting her off from me.

  My throat is trying to close, but I have to ask her anyway. “Nick,” I say again. It’s the closest I can get to the question.

  “I should probably finish with him.”

  I open and close my mouth a few times before I can speak. “What happened tonight?”

  “They said the shoulder was relocated properly, although apparently you’re not supposed to fix it yourself. Or get your little brother to fix it for you.” She sort of laughs. Before I can interrupt, she goes on. “Also, ten stitches . . .” She points at her right arm, the one that had the cut all down it. “Five here.” She shows me the thick padding on her right knee. “I feel like a rag doll, all sewn up.” She smiles crookedly.

  “What about that?” I point at the cut on her lip. Alice sighs.

  I whisper so low I’m not sure she hears: “Was it Nick?”

  Alice is quiet fo
r so long I’m almost sure she didn’t hear me. “I don’t know what Bea told you,” she says finally, “but it’s not like . . .” She pauses for a few beats. “We just fight sometimes. I mean, I hit him back. Sometimes I hit him first. I wanted to come home after the hospital, he wanted me to stay with him—he blocked the door, so I hit him. I started it.”

  Now I can’t stay silent. “Because he wouldn’t let you leave. And whatever about hitting him first, he clearly hits you harder. Alice”—I say her name like a plea—“he hit you. Alice, this is serious. This is so, so serious.”

  “It’s not like that. He’s not . . . It’s not like that. It was a mistake,” she says. “We have a . . . tempestuous relationship.” She smiles wryly. It’s another term my mother uses for their shouting matches over the phone.

  “But why do you let him treat you like that? Do you love him?” I don’t know where that second question came from, but suddenly I need to know.

  Alice takes a while before answering, and when she does, it isn’t the answer I was expecting. “I think so,” she says slowly.

  Frustration builds up with the lump in my throat. “But why—? How—?” I want to ask how she could possibly even think she loves him after all this, but instead I ask a slightly easier question. “What does that even mean, I think so? How can you not know?”

  “It’s complicated, Cara.” She touches my hair like she’s the one who’s comforting me. “I probably should just break up with him. But we have all this history, you know? And he gets me. Maybe that’s why we fight so much. I get him too, more than anyone. He has this fascinating soul. His darkness is part of that.” Then she sort of laughs at herself. “I sound like Bea.” She leans away from me and tilts her head slightly to one side. “You want to know a secret?”

  I’m not sure how many more secrets I can take, but I nod my head anyway.

  “There’s someone else.” Alice’s smile plays at the corners of her mouth. We are maybe a little bit drunk. The darkness is close around us and it’s almost like it’s listening. This house is taking lessons from the ghosts. “Someone new. Or rather,” she corrects herself, “someone old. Someone who’s always been there and I think I’ve always known is just right for me, but I’ve never let myself believe it, or even think it.”