She was heading west on Bridgeport Avenue, past the hospital, when she began to wonder whether the car was actually following her. So she made a quick left down Seemans Lane, gave the Volvo some gas, and checked her mirror again.
Mr. Fog Lamps had made the turn, as well. (She was thinking of him as Mr. Fog Lamps, but she had no idea who was behind the wheel or how many people might be in the car.) She tried to get a look at the car as it was making a turn, see what type of vehicle it was. A sports car, she thought. Low to the ground.
She clipped along Seemans, made another left onto Meadowside, then a quick right onto Surf Avenue, heading south toward the beach house area of South Broadway.
The other car stayed with her.
If the car really was following her, who could it be? She thought immediately that it might be the police. There was every reason to think they’d be looking for her. Her appearances had no doubt caused some consternation and been brought to their attention. But wouldn’t the police just put on their flashing lights, hit the siren, and pull her over? And did the police have sports cars?
The thought of being stopped by the police filled her with dread. But then, if not the police, then who? That possibility made her even more anxious.
She glanced up at the mirror again, just at the moment that the car’s amber fog lights went out. The driver must have cottoned on to the fact that the lights were giving him away. If, in fact, it was the same car.
At East Broadway, she hung a right, zipping past the beach houses. Pretty much all of the ones that had been damaged when Hurricane Sandy came ashore back in 2012 had been replaced or repaired. It was one of her favorite stretches in all of Milford, but not something she could appreciate right now.
When East Broadway came to an end she turned right onto the Silver Sands Parkway, a name that made it sound like a major highway but was actually no more than a two-lane road that wound its way through a tract of land known as the Silver Sands State Park. She followed it all the way out of the park and back up to Meadowside, and when she looked in her mirror again, there was no car there.
Gone.
At first she wondered whether the driver had killed his regular headlights, in addition to the fog lights, so as not to be seen, but no. There was no car behind her.
Her heart was pounding. She made a left, then pulled over to the curb to let her pulse rate return to normal, and put the car into park. Her palms were sweaty on the wheel. She wiped her hands on the tops of jean-clad thighs.
Maybe it was nothing. Maybe no one had been following her, at least not deliberately. It was someone else out for an evening drive and by coincidence were taking the same route as her. The only ones who might reasonably have followed her would be the police, and clearly it wasn’t them.
Get a grip.
She looked at her phone, sitting down in the center console. Should she call and say she’d been delayed? No, if she went straight there now, she’d only be five to ten minutes late. Not a big deal.
She took a deep breath, put the Volvo back into drive, and headed up Avery Avenue, hit Route 1 for a very short distance before turning left on Schoolhouse, by the Ford dealership.
She could see the sign up ahead.
The Motel 6.
She steered the Volvo wagon into the lot and decided, in the event that someone really had been following her, that she should park where the car wasn’t visible from the main road. She drove around to the back of the building and parked beyond the pool, under the cover of some trees.
Another deep breath.
She got out of the car, locked it with the remote, and headed into the building, a bland four-story structure. Her destination was a room on the fourth floor, so she took the lobby elevator up, stepped into the hallway, took a second to figure out which way the room numbers went, and struck off to the left.
When she got to the room she stopped and looked both ways down the hallway, as if checking that no one was watching her. You couldn’t be too careful. The hallway was empty. She was without a key, so she rapped lightly on the door. No more than five seconds went by before it opened.
“Sorry I’m late, I—”
Before she could finish apologizing, the man who’d opened the door had his arms around her and his mouth on hers. She responded in kind, pulling him in close, dropping the purse she had been carrying to the floor as the door swung shut.
They began to undress each other, fumbling with shirt and blouse buttons. They quickly decided it was easier to accomplish this task on their own. The woman stripped down, taking slightly longer than the man, who had kicked off his shoes and whipped off his pants in record time before pulling back the covers and getting into the bed.
But she wasn’t ready to slip between the sheets with him, not just yet.
“I need to talk to you,” she said.
“What?”
“I think... I could be wrong about this, but I think someone was following me tonight.”
“Following you?” he said.
She nodded.
“Did you get a look at who it was?” he asked.
“No. I thought at first it was the police, because the car had some yellow lights under the bumper. Like fog lamps.”
“I don’t think the police have those.”
“And then he turned the lamps off because he must have known how obvious it made him.”
“Or maybe he turned them off because it’s not foggy.”
“And then the car was gone.” She dropped her head, as if in defeat. “Maybe. I guess I’m feeling a little paranoid.”
“That’s my fault,” he said. “Come here.”
She crawled into the bed. Instead of having sex, they each propped themselves up on an elbow to face each other.
“It was a lot to ask, I realize that,” he said. “But I really believe it was worth it. And it’s not like you did anything illegal. I mean, what would they charge you with? I can’t thank you enough.”
“It’s okay. I liked doing it. I really got into it. And that last performance? I think it went really well.” She grinned. “Academy! Academy!”
But the man wasn’t grinning. He was starting to cry.
“What?” she said. “What’s happened?”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Shit, I don’t think I can do this. I really needed to, just to get my mind...”
He got off his elbow and dropped onto his back, stared at the ceiling.
“It’s okay,” she said, laying a hand on his chest. “Talk to me.”
The man swallowed, struggled to compose himself. “It’s over,” he said.
“Oh no,” she said.
“It happened this afternoon.”
“Oh no. Oh, I’m so sorry.”
The man nodded. “I love you,” he said. “I love you so much.”
“I love you, too.”
The woman with the black Volvo station wagon inched closer, hugged him, brought her face up close to his.
“It’s okay to cry,” she said. “Just let it go, Albert. Mommy’s gone. Just let it go.”
Monday
Thirty-Seven
Andrew
It was Monday, and we all had places to be.
I’d had two calls the previous week about possible jobs, so I was going to visit the sites today and provide some estimates. Jayne, who’d briefly considered taking a mental health day, and then an actual sick day when she woke up feeling nauseated from the pregnancy, decided in the end that she was going to go into the insurance office.
Tyler, while not exactly cheery, at least did a reasonably good impression of a human being at breakfast. He was dressed as though going for a shift at Whistler’s, in black pants and a white shirt, instead of his usual hoodie and jeans.