“Oh, man.…” Xavier’s face scowls with distress; Abe can’t stand to look at him. “We got to go anyway, the other one’s still alive. Come on, bro. I’ll drive, you can work in back.”
Abe is qualified to do the medic work, but when they reach the truck he can’t face it. He balks at the rear door. “No, man. I’ll drive.”
“You sure you can?”
“I’ll drive!”
“Okay. Be careful. Let’s go to Anaheim Hospital.”
Abe gets in. Seat belt on. He drives. He’s a blank; he finds himself at the freeway exit leading to Anaheim Memorial and he can’t remember a single thought from the drive, or the drive itself. Xavier pops his head through the window. “This one looks like she’ll pull through. Here, make a left here, man, ER is at the side.”
“I know.”
Xavier falls silent. Wordlessly they sit as Abe drives them to the ER ramp. He sits and listens while Xavier and the nurses get Lillian’s friend inside. Memory brings up to him the image of Lillian’s dead face rolling toward him, looking through him. His diaphragm’s all knotted, he’s not breathing well. He blanks again.
Xavier opens the driver’s door. “Come on, Abe, slide over. I’ll drive for a while.”
Abe slides over. Xavier puts them on the track to the street. He glances at Abe, starts to say something, stops.
Abe swallows. He thinks of Mrs. Keilbacher, his favorite among all his mother’s friends. Suddenly he realizes she’ll have to be told. He imagines the phone call from a stranger, this is the Fullerton police, is this Mrs. Martin Keilbacher? At the thought his jaw clamps until he can feel all his teeth. No one should ever have to get a call like that. Better to hear it from—well, anybody. Any other way has to be better. He takes a deep breath. “Listen, X, drive me up onto Red Hill. I got to tell her folks, I guess.” As he says this he begins to tremble.
“Oh, man—”
“Someone’s got to tell them, and I think this would be better. Don’t you?”
“I don’t know. —We’re still on duty, you know.”
“I know. But they’re almost on the route back to the station.”
Xavier sighs. “Tell me the way.”
As they turn up the tree-lined, steep street that the Keilbachers live on, Abe begins shaking in earnest. “This one on the left.”
Xavier stops the truck. Abe looks past the white fence and the tiny yard, to their window of the duplex. A light is on. He gets out, closes the truck door quietly. Walks around the hood. Come on, he thinks, open the door and come out, ask me what’s wrong, don’t make me come knock on your door like this!
He knocks on the door, hard. Rings the bell. Stands there.
No answer.
No one’s home.
“Shit.” He’s upset; he knows he should feel relieved, but he doesn’t, not at all. He walks around the duplex, looks in the kitchen window. Dark. Light left on in the living room while they’re out, SOP. Xavier is leaning his head out the window. Abe returns to the truck. “No one’s home!”
“It’s all right, Abe. You did what you could. Get back in here.”
Abe stands, irresolute. Can’t leave a note in the door about this! And the two of them are still on duty. But still, still… he can’t rid himself of the idea that he should tell them. He climbs back in the truck, and as he sits he has an idea. “Jim’s folks live up here too, and his mom is a good friend of theirs. Drive me by there and I’ll tell her and she can take over here, we can get back to the station. They go to church together and everything.”
Xavier nods patiently, starts up the truck. He follows Abe’s directions and drives them past house after house. Then they are at Jim’s parents’ duplex, well remembered by Abe from years past, looking just the same to him. Drapes are closed, but lights are on inside.
Abe jumps out and walks to the kitchen door, which is the one the family always uses. Rings the bell.
The door opens on a chain, and Lucy McPherson looks out suspiciously. “Abe! What are you doing here?”
At the question Abe loses the feeling that it made sense to come to her. Lucy closes the door to undo the chain, opens it fully. She looks at him curiously, not getting it. “It’s good to see you! Here, come in—”
Abe waves a hand quickly. Lucy squints at him. She’s nice, Abe thinks, he can remember a hundred kindnesses from her when he was the new kid in Jim’s group. But in recent years he’s noticed a distance in her, a certain reserve behind her cheery politeness that seems to indicate disapproval… as if she perhaps thought Abe was responsible for whatever changes in Jim she doesn’t like. It has irked him, and a couple times he found himself wanting to say, Yes, yes, I personally have corrupted your innocent son, sure.
Random thoughts, flashing through Abe’s confusion as he sees that tiny squint of suspicion or distrust. “I—I’m sorry, Mrs. McPherson.” Say it. “I’ve got bad news,” and he sees her eyes open wide with fear, he puts a hand forward quickly: “No, not about Jim—it’s about Lillian Keilbacher. I just came from their house, and there’s no one home to tell! You know, you know I’m a paramedic.”
Lucy nods, eyes shining.
“Well,” Abe says helplessly, “I just found Lillian in a car crash we were called to. And she was dead, she’d been killed.”
Lucy’s hand flies to her mouth, she turns to one side as if bracing for a blow. It’s as bad as Mrs. Keilbacher. No, it’s not.
“My Lord.…” She reaches out hesitantly, touches Abe’s arm. “How awful. Do you want to come in and sit down?”
That’s almost too much. Abe can’t take it, and he backs up a step, shakes his head. “No, no,” he says, choking up. “I’m still on call, got to go back to work. But I thought… someone they knew should tell them.”
She nods, looking at him with a worried expression. “I agree. I’ll go get the Reverend Strong, and we’ll try to find them.”
Abe nods dumbly. He looks up into her eyes, shrugs. For a moment they share something, some closeness he can’t define. “I’m sorry,” he says.
“I’m glad you came here,” she says firmly. And she walks him back to the truck. Something in the kindness of those words, and in the fact that his task is done, breaks the restraints in Abe, he can feel the shock of it again; and he shakes hard all the way back to the station, while X drives grimly, muttering “Oh, man… oh, man…”
Back at the station they collapse on the couch. The football game mocks them.
After a while Xavier says slowly, “You know, Abe, I don’t think we’re cut out for this job.”
Abe drinks his coffee as if it were whiskey. “No one is.”
“But some more than others. And not us. You’ve got to be stupid to do this job right. No, not stupid exactly. It takes smarts to do it right. But…” He shakes his head.
“You’ve got to be a robot,” Abe says dully. “But I’ll be damned if I’ll become a robot for the sake of some job.” He drinks again.
“Well…” X can only shake his head. “That was bad luck, tonight. Damned bad luck.”
“A new definition.” But neither of them even cracks a smile.
For a long time they just sit there on the couch, side by side, staring at the floor.
Xavier nudges him. “More coffee?”
59
Lucy returns to the duplex and wanders the rooms aimlessly. Dennis is due back from Washington late that night. Jim’s got class. Briefly she cries. “Oh, Lillian—”
Then she goes to put on her shoes. “Got to get organized, here.” She calls the Keilbachers. No answer. She’s got her sweater on, ready to go—but where? She calls the church. Reverend’s out on call, she gets his answering machine. Everyone’s gone! What is this? Vicar Sebastian, ineffectual as always, answers his phone and is reduced to speechlessness by Lucy’s news. He and Lillian were good friends, it may be he even had a crush on her. So he’s no help. Lucy finally says she’ll come pick him up. He agrees. Then she calls Helena, who thank the Lord is home, and tells her the bad news. Helena can’t believe it. She agrees to meet Lucy at the church.