The Last Thing She Ever Did(8)

The river was a slowly moving circus, water and people melding into an ever-changing spectacle from the put-in just above the Old Mill District to its conclusion at Mirror Pond in Drake Park. Along its banks, property owners and vacation-rental managers positioned benches, docks, hammocks—almost any sort of perch on which to sit and watch the show.

Carole’s phone rang and she glanced at the number, then called over to Charlie, “Remember, you can’t even get your feet wet. Not even a little.”

The little boy nodded, the sunlight illuminating his blond hair like a Gothic halo. “Okay, Mommy!”

Carole knew the number. The caller was an insurance adjuster. The four-thousand-square-foot house had a leaky pipe in the downstairs guest suite, and David was on a mission to get the insurance company to pay for the damages. The adjuster was equally insistent that it was a problem caused by the builder, not something they’d cover.

“Look,” she said to the man after they’d exchanged pleasantries, “just pay the claim. You don’t want us to get a lawyer, do you?”

No answer.

“Do you?”

The adjuster’s response disintegrated into static.

Carole made a face. “You’re breaking up,” she said. “Hang on.”

“Okay,” she thought she heard him say.

It made no sense to her, but lately cell reception was often better inside the house than out. If this kept up, she’d be making calls from the crawl space.

Charlie’s attention had drifted from the bird to a bunch of pinecones that had fallen during a thunderstorm a few days prior. “Stay where you are,” she called over to him.

The boy was sitting on the lawn. Next to him was a burgeoning collection of cones. “Okay! Okay, Mommy!”

Carole smiled and slipped into the kitchen, keeping Charlie in her sight through the window. “How’s this?” she said into her phone.

“Loud and clear,” the adjuster answered, “but I don’t think you’re going to like what you hear.”

“Well, I don’t think you’re hearing me,” she said, and then, although she loathed such trivial confrontations, she spent the next few minutes reiterating her husband’s position on the damage.

The fact was, she felt sorry for the contractor who had done the work. She considered him conscientious and meticulous. As far as she could tell, there was no blame to be placed anywhere. “Shit happens,” she’d told David when he dumped everything in her lap.

“Not to us,” he said. “Not anymore. We’re done being anyone’s patsy. People take advantage of people like us because they look right at us and all they see are dollar signs. I’m done with that.”

She knew he was referring to a Lexus that had been nothing but trouble. It took a year of back-and-forth—heated phone calls, nasty e-mails, and a face-to-face at the dealership that could have made the news—to get the dealer to concede the car was indeed a lemon and make good on the warranty.

But this situation was not that situation. Besides, they had the money to fix the problem themselves. They had more money than they needed in a lifetime. Her position at Google had been very good to her. It had funded the house. The restaurant. The cars. Their entire lifestyle.

Carole walked from the kitchen to the living room, her eyes fastened on her son’s blond hair, a golden bouncing ball.

“You don’t really want this to escalate into some legal battle,” the adjuster said. “Do you?”

Carole didn’t. David had kept pushing for her to make a stand, but it didn’t feel authentic to her. She knew what things were reasonable and worth fighting for. This wasn’t one of those.

“Can’t we just forget this?” she finally told the adjuster.

“No, ma’am,” he said. “Once you open a claim, we have to see it to the end.”

“Please. Just never mind,” she said. “I wish to un-report this, or whatever the term is.”

“Not able to do that,” he said. “Has to go through headquarters.”

Carole was ready to pull the plug on the whole thing. Although she probably wouldn’t tell—definitely wouldn’t tell—David about this attempted change of heart, she was all for giving the insurance company and the contractor a free pass, absolving anyone of any wrongdoing. She just wanted to get the pipe fixed, make the damaged drywall repairs, and get back to a life unencumbered by details that took her away from what was really important. What she most wanted to do.

“I’m so tired of all of this,” she said, running her fingers over a weaving of Jacob’s sheep wool that she’d finished the previous week. There was something lacking in the piece, and she wondered about it just then. Needs more black fibers, she thought. Maybe birch twigs?

“I hear you,” the man said. “I’m sorry. It’s a process. Like everything.”

“All right,” Carole conceded, a sigh leaking from her lungs as she disconnected the call.

No one seemed to hear her at all anymore. At Google she had led four international teams over a seven-year period. She was the glue that held everything together. No one made a move without her—not because she demanded submission, but because she’d earned respect from team members and suppliers.

Respect had been elusive lately. The Jacob wool weaving was her latest project. She longed to be taken seriously for her art, but it was slow going. Her weavings were good but not special enough. One time she overheard someone call her the “millionaire artist wannabe” at a dinner party, and it had crushed her. David encouraged her to keep on with her dreams, but sometimes she wondered if he really held the same view as those party snarks.