Defending Jacob(130)
Later, after some wandering, he would have settled somewhere far away, somewhere no one had ever heard of the Barbers, or at least where no one knew enough about the story to bother with it. Somewhere out west, I think. Bisbee, Arizona, maybe. Or California. Who knows? And in one of those places, one day he would have held his own son in his arms and looked down into that baby’s eyes—as I did with Jacob many times—and wondered, Who are you? What are you thinking?
“Are you all right, Mom?”
“Of course.”
“What are you doing? This is dangerous.”
88, 89, 90. The minivan, a Honda Odyssey, was actually quite heavy—not mini at all, its name notwithstanding—and had a powerful engine. It was easy to speed. It felt very stable at high speeds. Driving it, I was often surprised to glance down at the speedometer and discover I was doing 80 or 85 miles an hour. But above 90, it began to shudder a little and the wheels began to lose contact with the road.
“Mom?”
“I love you, Jacob.”
Jacob pressed himself back against his seat. His hands scrabbled for the seat belt but it was already too late. There were only a few seconds left. He still did not understand what was going on. His mind grasped at explanations for the speed, for Mom’s bizarre calm: a jammed accelerator, a rush to avoid being late for the interview, or maybe her attention had just wandered.
“I love you and your father both.”
The minivan began to slip into the breakdown lane on the right side of the road, first the right wheels stepping over the line, then the left—only seconds remaining now—and continued to pick up speed as the road went down a little hill, assisting the engine, which was beginning to top out as the vehicle hit 96, 97, 98.
“Mom! Stop!”
She launched the minivan directly at a bridge abutment. It was a molded-concrete wall built into the side of a hill. The abutment was guarded by a Jersey barrier, which ought to have guided the minivan away from a direct impact. But the vehicle was going too fast and the angle of approach was too direct, so that when Laurie edged into it the Jersey barrier lifted the right-side wheels, causing the vehicle to skitter up the wall and, disastrously, to flip. Laurie lost control of the car immediately but she never let go of the steering wheel. The van scraped and skidded up the Jersey barrier and vaulted off the top of it, its momentum catapulting it up into the air as it rolled three-quarters of the way to upside down, like a ship capsizing to its port side.
With the minivan in the air, rolling counterclockwise, the engine racing, Laurie screaming—a fraction of a second, that’s all—Jacob would have thought of me—who had held him, my own baby, looked down into his eyes—and he would have understood I loved him, no matter what, to the very end—as he saw the concrete wall flying forward to meet him.
BY WILLIAM LANDAY
Mission Flats
The Strangler
About the Author
WILLIAM LANDAY is the author of two other novels: Mission Flats, which won the Dagger Award for best debut crime novel, and The Strangler, which was nominated for the Strand Magazine Critics Award for best crime novel of the year. He lives in Boston.
www.williamlanday.com