A Curve in the Road(32)

“Oh, Sis.” Carla’s tone is sympathetic. “Don’t let Lester do that to you. He’s a mean-spirited jerk. You’ve always known that.”

“I do, but . . .” I turn to her. “Do you think there could be any truth to this? Could there have been a side to Alan I didn’t know? A side that Lester created?”

Carla lets out a laugh of disbelief. “You were happily married for twenty years. If Alan was having an affair, there’s no way you wouldn’t have suspected it. But you didn’t, because it’s not true. I think you’re just trying to deflect the pain you’re feeling.”

I continue to stare out the window, feeling suddenly unsure of everything.

“Maybe I did suspect something was off,” I say with a small shrug of defeat.

Carla’s gaze shoots to my face. She flicks the blinker and pulls onto the shoulder of the road, shuts off the engine, and faces me.

“What are you talking about?”

I take a deep breath. “I never told anyone this, but sometimes lately I worried that . . . that he wasn’t attracted to me anymore.”

“What made you think that?”

I exhale heavily. “What can I say? We were married for two decades. The honeymoon phase was long over.”

“But you were making love, right?” Carla asks.

I glance out the window and force myself to answer the question. “Over the past few years, not very often. We used to do it more, but we both got so busy with our call schedules, working late in the OR. By the time we finally fell into bed, we were exhausted. At least I was. I only felt guilty about it once in a while, whenever I realized how much time had gone by since the last time we’d been physical. Then I’d get my act together, plan a romantic date night, or we’d go for an overnight getaway somewhere.”

I feel suddenly defensive. “But he never complained. He told me he loved me all the time.”

She studies me carefully, and I find myself rambling. “It wasn’t always like that. The first few years were very passionate. I guess things started to change after Zack was born. But that’s normal, right? Having a baby is like throwing a hand grenade into the romance department.”

“I won’t argue there,” Carla replies. “It’s not easy to feel sexy when you’re up to your elbows in dirty diapers and you’re sleep-deprived all the time. All you want to do is collapse. I think every mother knows that feeling.”

And yet I can’t help but feel that with Alan and me it was far more complicated than that—that there were other issues at play. I remember waking up in the recovery room after I’d hemorrhaged on the delivery table while giving birth to Zack. I’d never seen Alan weep like that. Not ever. Not before or since, and nothing was quite the same after that.

“Sometimes, when Zack was little,” I tell Carla, “I would catch Alan staring off into space, and I’d ask him if everything was okay, and he’d snap out of it and give me a kiss, look me straight in the eye, and tell me that everything was perfect. We both knew how close I’d come to dying when Zack was born, and sometimes I felt like a part of him had pulled away from me a little.”

“Did you ever talk to him about it?”

“We did, that first year after Zack was born. He often told me how grateful he was that we both survived. He’d get emotional about it. But then we moved on because it was painful to talk about.” I pause, reflecting on some of the conversations we’d had. “A few times we discussed adopting a second child because we’d always intended to have two or three, and I wanted a sibling for Zack, but Alan was just so thankful for what we had. He didn’t want to upset the perfect balance. It was almost as if he felt like it would be greedy to ask for more. He would say, ‘Do you know how lucky we are? Let’s not tempt fate.’”

I look down at my lap. “I wish it could have been simpler. I wish I’d been able to get pregnant again and that it could have gone smoothly the second time around.”

Carla reaches for my hand. “At least you had Zack, and he’s an amazing kid. And we were all lucky you survived that day. As for Alan, I know he loved you and Zack. He was a good man. I think you’re just upset and confused because of what happened. Your whole world has just been turned upside down. You’re traumatized.”

“Maybe you’re right.”

We sit for another few minutes. Then Carla pulls onto the road, and we continue toward the accident site.

We reach the main highway and drive for about a mile before I ask Carla to slow down. I peer out the window and search for the spot at the edge of the forest where my SUV landed after rolling down the embankment.

Nothing looks the same in the daylight, but soon I catch a glimpse of skid marks on the pavement and bits of metal and glass on the shoulder. A rush of panic shoots through me as I relive the crash—the terrifying instant when Alan’s car struck mine. I feel the total loss of control as I fishtail on the pavement and can’t right the steering wheel. I tumble down the embankment. Glass smashes. Steel collapses. The noise is deafening, and I can’t stop the world from spinning . . .

I have to wrench myself out of the horrific memory, and I wonder how long it will be before I won’t feel nervous in a car on the highway.

“This is it,” I say, fighting to take a few deep breaths, to slow my pounding heart. “Can we stop?”