Page 74 of More With You

Ahead, the hood of the car comes at me, seemingly in slow motion. I squeeze my eyes shut, praying for one more miracle. One more gift from fate. I’ll take a broken leg, if that’s the price I have to pay.

If it was sunny and dry, I could’ve done it. I could’ve weaved out of the way. But it’s not, and though I can’t see, I feel the car’s presence. Closer and closer now. Any moment, those brakes are going to work. Any moment.

“I love you, Summer. I love you, Grace,” I breathe, or maybe I just think it, as I wait for fate to make its choice. There’s nothing else I can do, now.

24

SUMMER

It’s late. Way too late. I don’t know how many times I’ve checked the clock, or dialed Ben’s number, but I know he should be here by now. We left the DuCate mansion hours ago. Two hours, twenty-two minutes, and about thirty seconds, to be exact. Grace is already asleep, having crashed from her sugar high, but it felt wrong for me to be the one to kiss her goodnight and tuck her in. I think she felt the same way, but she’s too sweet to say. Anyway, she’s in my bed. I thought she’d be more comfortable, and I won’t have to disturb her if I get a call to say her dad is in the hospital or something. I can phone Ms. T or even Cybil, if I have to, and she won’t have to stir from the warm embrace of dreamland.

I dial Ben’s number again. It rings through to voicemail, like it has the last billion times.

“Hi, it’s Summer. I was wondering where you are. Give me a call back when you get this!” I say lamely, hearing how my fear is blanketed in faux optimism.

Resuming my frantic pacing, back and forth across the back porch, my head is buzzing with the mosquitos of too many thoughts. Did he go to the bungalow to drop his motorcycle off first? Did he get caught up with some painting, or some last-minute attack from his parents? Did he say he was going to Lucky’s to pick up the crawfish and then coming here? I can’t remember, but it seems like something he’d do, and then get caught up chatting to Lucky or Lou or some of the other regulars. Maybe, someone crashed on the road, and he’s stuck in traffic, trying to find his way to me? Did he crash, and he’s in the hospital? Did he break his hand or did his phone break? Is that why he can’t call to let me know he’s okay? I haven’t seen anything on the local news or social media about a crash, which comforts me a little, but the not-knowing is killing me. I’m sure it’s probably something innocent and harmless, but my heart can’t take it.

“Just call me!” I plead with the black screen of my phone, aiming to manifest it into lighting up with his name. “Call me.”

I scrunch my eyes shut and beg inwardly, clutching the phone so tight it could break. Just then, light flickers against the outside of my eyelids, hazily shining through the thin skin. Hope rears inside my chest and my eyes fly open, but the light isn’t coming from the phone. It pulses, red and blue, down the dirt track to the side of my cottage. No one uses that road. Even I park at the top because it’s a nightmare to back out without hitting the fence.

I realize how stupid I am, thinking about that as the police car comes to a standstill. The doors open and two cops get out. They don’t see me at first, but I see more than I want to: the slow manner in which they remove their hats, carrying them in one hand. Cops never do that, with one exception.

Pushing through the gate, they see me, and those hats come up to their chests in a gesture of condolence. They don’t need to say anything. I get it. I understand. I know what’s going to come out of their mouths and I don’t want to hear it. Can’t hear it. No… no, no, no, no, no… this is a mistake. They got the wrong house. If it was him, they’d go to the DuCates, not here.

My throat tightens into a chokehold as the officers keep coming, wearing expressions that reveal everything. It’s a woman and a man, and the man looks like he’s been crying recently. Everyone in this town knows Ben. Of course, they’d cry for him.

“No…” My thoughts spill out of my mouth as the officers stop at the base of the porch steps. “Go away. Please, go away.”

The man clears his throat. “Are you Summer Larson, Ma’am?”

“No, no, that’s not me.” I shake my head violently, trying to spin out the revelation that’s fast approaching. “I’m married to Ben DuCate. I’m Mrs. Summer DuCate.” I don’t know how I manage to get the words past the strangling of my throat.

The man nods solemnly. “Apologies, Mrs. DuCate.” He clears his throat again, but his voice still sounds wet. “He was a friend of mine. A good man. Never caused no trouble, had a smile for everyone.”

“Please, don’t…” I huff out wheezing breaths, stumbling into the nearest wooden post just to hold myself up. If I dig my palms into the wood hard enough, and let the splinters bite me, maybe I’ll wake up and I’ll be in bed with Ben, tasting the crawfish spice on his lips as I kiss him.

The man coughs and bangs on his chest. “I’m sorry, Mrs. DuCate, but… as Ben’s wife, it’s my duty to inform you that…” He trails off and turns his back, letting his colleague take over.

“I’m so very sorry, Mrs. DuCate, but your husband died two hours ago in a traffic collision on the bridge,” she says quietly, awkwardly, like the words don’t fit properly in her mouth. Just as they don’t fit anywhere in my head. “We didn’t know he was married, but Lou was on the bridge—he told us you should be the first to know. I’m sorry. I really am.”

My legs can’t hold me up anymore. I crash to the porch, but there’s no pain. I’m beyond physical pain. I know because the crushing blast that detonates in my chest sweeps the feeble impact away. The shock boils through itching veins that I long to tear out, layering pain on pain, my stomach filled with a thousand wasp stings that jab in and out, setting off fresh blasts of pure, incendiary horror, and all I can do is cry out “No!” over and over and over, in stuttering chokes.

The female officer is at my side, her hand rubbing circles between my shoulder blades. The motion jars something in my gut, pulling all the strings of my insides taut. With nowhere else to go, acid rises up my throat and I lurch forward, straining as sour misery spurts from my mouth. It splatters on the deck, corroding my throat, as the next wave comes.

“Tell me this… is a… j-joke.” Hiccups stutter my words.

The female officer bows her head. “I’m sorry, Mrs. DuCate.”

“Grace… What am… I supposed to tell…” I can’t finish. This is impossible. I just kissed him. He just held us in his arms. We just promised we were going to begin again in New Orleans, and I was going to get a job in a coffee shop while he tended to his gallery, and I was going to make friends with Lyndsey and become an awesome stepmom. He’s not gone. He can’t be gone. Maybe they got the wrong Ben. Maybe it’s his father who’s dead. That has to be it.

The officer glances back at the porch door. “I can tell her, if you want me to?”

“Which Ben?” My voice sounds composed for a moment. A glimmer of hope on my tongue.

It’s the man who speaks, finding his voice again. “Your husband, Mrs. DuCate. His motorcycle crashed into an oncoming vehicle. He died instantly. I’m sorry. I wish there was more I could do.”

Every word is like a scalpel cutting into me. Tears lash down my cheeks, hot and salty and vicious. My body shakes so violently, I know I’m going to shatter into pieces. I don’t care if I do. This isn’t real. It can’t be. There’s no way that fate would do this to us when it brought us together, giving us so much hope. Not even the gods are that cruel.

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