Good as Dead(12)

She rolled me up to a pew toward the back, where a man in a suit was sitting. A clergyman? A funeral director? He stood up as I approached.

He was tall—at least six inches taller than my husband—which would have put him around six feet four. His suit was indigo blue and a little bit shiny, with tapered legs and strong creases. He had the face of a star quarterback, with a square jaw and dimpled chin, and his skin was so smooth I wondered if he shaved right before I got there. I always liked a close shave. My husband said it was a sign of discipline—a man with a close shave probably made his bed and balanced his checkbook. Don’t trust a guy who can’t make time to shave, he always said.

“Mom, this is Evan,” Savannah said flatly. He offered his hand. I was still in the wheelchair, so I had to reach above my head to shake it.

“Hello, Holly,” he said with a smile as fake as a January tan.

“He’s paying your hospital bills,” Savannah announced. And the man did not contradict her, just stood there like a statue. Maybe he is from the military, I thought, an old buddy my husband never told me about? I had heard stories about marines taking care of the widows of their fallen platoon mates. I had thought the stories were exaggerated, but maybe it happened more than I thought?

“He also paid for all the food I brought you and said he would buy us a house,” Savannah continued. The statement was so absurd I almost laughed. But her expression was as somber as the crucifix tacked to the altar behind her. I waited for the man to correct her. He didn’t.

“I . . . I don’t understand,” I said, not really to anyone. I looked up at Savannah, at her skillfully winged eyeliner and perfectly curled eyelashes. She had adopted such a grown-up facade, sometimes I forgot she was still just a child.

“He’s helping us,” she said tentatively, as if she wasn’t entirely sure. I sure as hell had my doubts. I would have believed a GoFundMe page or a few catered meals, but a house? She must have misunderstood. I had never in my life had a house. My grandparents did. My brother and I would spend hours in their pool—every house in their Northeast Bakersfield neighborhood had a pool—practicing swimming the whole length without taking a breath. We thought traveling great distances (thirty whole feet!) underwater made us invincible. Five years later my brother was dead. So much for invincible.

“What happened to you and your husband was a terrible accident,” the man said, with enough emphasis on the word “accident” to make my scalp tingle. I never doubted it was an accident—my husband and I weren’t important enough to be targeted, I didn’t need some Brooks-Brothered goon to rub it in my face. People with more money than you love to state the obvious, like something isn’t true until it comes out of their mouth.

“Even if you knew who was driving the car,” he continued, “there’s no guarantee of a settlement.”

The word pierced the air like the tolling of a bell. Paired with that shiny suit and a face so emotionless it looked carved from stone, that word—“settlement”—and the stink that wafted from his mouth as he spoke it told me he had to be one of two things: an insurance man or a lawyer. I braced myself for the blizzard of bullshit I knew was coming.

“It’s best if you can find a way to move on,” he continued. “I’m here to make that possible.”

I had been off the heavy pain meds for two full days and was clear enough to know “helping” me was not his priority. I looked at him and his Barbasol-fresh shave, suddenly second-guessing my husband’s assessment of what made a man trustworthy. “Why?” I asked. “Why do you want to help me?”

And then Savannah said something so frightening that for a moment I forgot how to breathe. “He knows who was driving the car, Mom,” she whispered. “He works for him.”

Heat rose up the back of my neck. I felt my cheeks grow hot. The pieces suddenly fell into place—the suit, the hospital visit, the promise of a house. My voice shook when I spoke. “If that’s true, then you need to tell the police.”

But he remained stone-faced. “Savannah and I thought there was a better way to handle it,” he said matter-of-factly, as if we were talking about a naughty kid who stole a candy bar instead of a reckless murderer. “We’ll compensate you very generously, no lengthy court case needed.”

And there it was. The bribe laid out in terms even a simpleton like me could understand. I was a call girl and he was my pimp. My sex act was silence, and if I kept my mouth shut, his client would pay big. I was so disgusted, if I could have stood up, I would have slapped him. I was about to shout—No deal, no fucking way!—but he continued. “I had the surgeon who did your knee flown in from Stanford, he’s the absolute best.”

I growled at him. “Who told you to do that? I never told you to do that!”

And then he did something damn near satanic. With the pop of one eyebrow, he indicated Savannah.

I looked at her in disbelief. Her face flooded with fear. “The ER doctor said you might never walk again,” she said. “I didn’t know what to do!” Tears welled in her eyes. “Please don’t be mad,” she pleaded. And suddenly I was the adult again.

I looked at my daughter. People always said she took after her dad, with those wide Norwegian cheeks and perfect straight nose. Some days, when she smiled or blew me a kiss, I saw the resemblance, but today all I could see was my baby girl, innocent as a fawn still teetering on wobbly legs.