Fortunate Lives (5 page)

The public schools had once been extraordinary but, as has happened all over the country since the 1970s, they have begun
to decline, and a considerable number of people who ardently support public education are now sending their children away
if they can possibly afford to.

Long-standing animosities and current feuds among various factions of the community endure, but when the people in West Bradford
chat at the post office, or when they meet each other at the newsstand to pick up the
Times
or
The Boston Globe
, they debate the relocation of the dilapidated town garage or the desirability of putting up the town’s first stoplight at
a particularly bad intersection. They discuss the Red Sox, the Celtics, and even the Bruins, depending on the season. They
talk about the summer theater productions, movies and also “films,” the latest PBS series, or a book they’ve just read. But
they aren’t smug. They are
as subject to terror, to passion, to pleasure as any people anywhere. It is only that in their circumstances they are fortunate.

Yet, in a town like West Bradford, everyone’s life is fairly open to observation. For instance, no tragedies are anonymous.
The survivors are identifiable right there among the citizenry: shopping at the grocery store, coaching a soccer game, teaching
first grade, styling a customer’s hair, practicing surgery.

Six years ago, September 20, on a lovely, crisp afternoon, Martin had picked Toby and David up early at soccer practice so
the boys could shower and change before they all went out to their favorite Mexican restaurant. When Martin came to a stop
on State Street, behind a car making a left turn, a young man named Owen Croft, a child of Judith and Larry Croft, a good
student, a local basketball star—that boy, tired after a hard practice and preoccupied at seventeen—had cruised straight into
the rear of the Howellses’ small blue car at thirty-five miles an hour. The front seat, with David and Martin carefully strapped
into their seat belts, was untouched, but the back seat, and Toby with it, were entirely crushed. The town was doubly wounded—anguished
for the Howellses above all, but also for the Crofts. And the numerous other calamities, disasters, and tragedies that had
occurred since then were, each one of them, personal to some degree to everyone in West Bradford.

His son’s death would be an event that crossed Martin Howells’s mind at least once every day of his life. On this mild June
day, Martin walked along the crest of Bell’s Hill and looked down at the village that lay across the valley and spread up
the first rise of the opposing mountains, and felt a curious sense of homesickness for West Bradford, even though he was within
it. He often experienced this unquenched yearning, and he had learned to hold it at bay, not to investigate it too carefully.
It was a familiar state of
mind that, in its vague manifestation, was really no more than a longing still to be held innocently within the years before
his son died.

The day was delicate, with such a persistent but gentle breeze from the west that the full-blown summer leaves of the trees
on Bell’s Hill only fluttered and rustled; even the slender saplings did not bow. In the morning the temperature was seventy
degrees, the humidity was low, and the cloud cover was complete but so transparent that the entire blue sky breaching the
gap of the valley of West Bradford from mountain to mountain was barely glazed with pale white.

Duchess had strained at her leash all the way up the hill, but as soon as Martin released her at the height of the ridge where
the trail flattened out, she had refused to move away from him at all. They continued on for a few minutes, moving along together
closer than two abreast, with Duchess crossing nervously in front of him, ears flat in apprehension and hobbling him at the
knees with every other step; but this was their accustomed routine, and Martin edged from side to side across the path in
avoidance of her without even thinking.

He stopped and threw sticks for her and leaned against a tree where he had a view of the whole town. He could see the roof
of his own house among the tops of the trees surrounding it, as well as the cars and people moving on the carefully laid pattern
of streets among the bright swards of groomed green grass. The scene was comforting and familiar, yet, in the tremulous clarity
of the day, the world splayed out before him seemed fragile, as if it were contained in an overturned porcelain teacup.

In the immediate aftermath of Toby’s death, Dinah had not allowed anyone to visit other than Judith and Larry Croft and their
son Owen, and she had not agreed to see them until several days after the private service for Toby
attended only by the immediate family. She had taken calls of concern and comfort from her mother and father and brother,
but she had refused to have them come to West Bradford from Ohio, and she had begged Martin to delay visits from any of his
family as well.

“Dinah, people want to see us because they’re so…
sad
. They need to grieve, too,” he had said, and she had looked at him and nodded.

“I know. I know what they need. But I can’t… I won’t just… give him away. I can’t deal with it right now. For once, Martin,
for once, I’m not going to
be
polite! I don’t
care
how they feel! Not any of them! Not one single one! It’s not their business. I want them to leave us alone.”

Initially Dinah had wept and paced the house, pressing her fists against the door of Toby’s room and sliding downward in a
crumpled heap as she let herself understand the fact that whenever she opened that door Toby would not ever be there again.
And she had turned to Martin and embraced him, as he had bent over her there, but she had never surrendered to him any bit
of her particular sorrow, nor had she accepted any of his. She had enclosed herself in a monosyllabic grief, clearly mustering
great energy even to respond to their youngest child, Sarah, or to David, who was so stunned by the enormity of the catastrophe
that he scarcely felt any emotion at all.

The evening they sat in the living room waiting for the Crofts, Martin looked over at Dinah and put her behavior down to anger.
He envied her for it; he was filled only with a terrible lassitude and hopelessness.

Dinah sat silently on the couch with an alarmingly open expression on her face, her eyes too wide, her mouth stretched taut
at the corners. Watching her, Martin felt an absurd but keen expectation that she would reveal something heretofore kept secret
at the very core of herself, something that would resolve and dissipate the dreadfulness of what had happened to them.

When Judith Croft had come into the room, she had stopped short at the sight of Dinah and then stepped forward again with
one hand stretching toward her. Martin had intercepted Judith with a slight hug. Martin and Dinah had known the Crofts for
over fifteen years; they had served on school boards together, exchanged dinner invitations, and been dinner guests at the
same houses. Martin automatically drew Judith toward him in an affirmation of their mutual sorrow and their long connection.

“I don’t know…” Judith had begun, “I don’t know how this could happen. I don’t know why… and Owen… Owen doesn’t know why….”
She was a small woman with an intense face. Her chin was slightly too square, and she had small, deep-set, but very brilliant
blue eyes. Martin had always thought of her as a wiry, durable person—humorless and resilient. But that evening she had suddenly
seemed gaunt and stringy and so abrupt in all her movements that it was as though she were about to fly apart. Her son loomed
between his parents, taller than either of them and mute with misery. Martin found himself standing with his arm around Judith
staring carefully at Owen, who waited with his father in the doorway, not meeting Martin’s glance.

Owen was probably considered handsome, Martin thought, although he was awkwardly lanky, and his ears were large and stood
too far away from his head. But he had beautiful, thickly lashed green eyes and blond hair, and he gave a strong impression
of artlessness and even vulnerability. Martin was confused as he studied him. He had been thinking of Owen as the boy who
had so carelessly, so recklessly, driven his car straight ahead into traffic that had stopped inconveniently, instantly killing
Toby. And although he had seen Owen Croft around town over all the years since Owen was first able to ride his bike at about
age six, Martin had imagined him as dark and sullen and sulky.
Surly and spoiled, a doctor’s son with too much money, too little caution.

“Could we sit down, Martin?” Larry finally said, still stranded at the door with Owen. And they had come into the room and
settled on the chairs, but no one spoke until Owen turned to Dinah. His voice was strained and husky.

“I know there’s nothing I can say that will change anything,” he said, and he looked to Dinah for a signal, but she had her
attention fixed on him only marginally, which made Martin cringe for him in spite of himself. Owen bent forward in his chair
with the urgency of what he needed to say. “I was just driving
home
….” It was an appeal. He was only going home; he was not rushing to any place particularly desirable. “I’d just gotten off
from practice, and I was late…. The sun was in my eyes and I didn’t
see.
…” His face suddenly tensed in an effort to fight tears, his mouth crumpled inward at the corners, and still Dinah simply
gazed back at him, abstracted. “I didn’t
see
….” He couldn’t go on with what he was saying until he looked down at his hands and took a long breath. “I don’t even remember
thinking about it….” Finally he couldn’t go on at all, but just bent his head to his hands. The adults were frozen where they
sat, with Owen’s words hanging over them.

Judith had begun to cry then, and she reached out her open hands in an appeal to Dinah. “Oh,
Dinah
! What do we do now? What do you want us to do? What can we do?”

For the first time since the accident, Dinah’s attention seemed to become engaged. She blinked at Judith and her mouth quivered.
“What can we do?” She spoke as though she were repeating a phrase in a foreign language whose meaning wasn’t entirely clear
to her. “Well… I don’t know.” She sat back in her chair, giving way to exhaustion all at once, her face becoming less taut,
her eyelids drooping. “Well…”—and she gestured outward with one hand—“we just go on, I guess.” And Judith leaned her head
against the back of her own chair and closed her eyes while tears ran down her face.

Larry Croft looked from Dinah to Martin, but he didn’t speak for a moment. “Owen’s talked to the police, of course. We don’t
know what charges…”

But Dinah held her hand up to negate what he was saying, what she was hearing. She rose from her chair in oddly uncoordinated
slow motion and turned away from all of them, making her way slowly off down the hall, her arms extended slightly, palms outward
as though she were moving in the dark.

Larry got up, and Martin rose with him, although Judith continued to sit with her eyes closed in silent weeping. Owen had
straightened up, but he was teary and he didn’t look at anyone. They were all helpless in the silent room, and Martin realized
that that was what Dinah had understood almost at once when she had heard about Toby’s death—the pointlessness of all their
overwhelming sorrow.

“Maybe this was the wrong time to come,” Larry said. “What we wanted you and Dinah to know is how sorry we are.” He paused
again and ran his hand over his head where his hair had receded. “Oh, God… I don’t know any way for you to know how sorry
we are.” He leaned toward Martin and grasped his upper arm in an attempt to draw forth Martin’s comprehension of what he was
saying. His tone was confiding. “I mean, here we are with our own son standing right here. But we aren’t making any excuses,
Martin. Owen’s not either. He never did. He never did to us or the police….”

Martin found himself overtaken with an unspecified sensation of pity so powerful that he felt light—unfettered by his own
body. A sweet, metallic taste rose in the back of his throat, and he shook his head to stop Larry from continuing. “We just
go on, Larry. We just go on. Dinah’s right. We’ll just have to go ahead.” He looked over inclusively at
Owen and Judith, who was drying her eyes and rising from her chair.

And Martin, remembering all this, saw now that after that meeting they all had gone ahead—what alternative had there been?—but
they had only progressed in fits and starts, and the amorphous sorrow and shock in the town concerning Toby’s death had been
left unresolved, glimmering through the air over West Bradford and in the atmosphere of all those other places where Toby
had been known: his aunts’ and uncle’s, his grandmothers’ and grandfather’s, and within his own house where it suffused all
the rooms.

Several weeks after Toby’s death, Martin had put Duchess on her lead, intending to follow this very same route up Bell’s Hill.
He had started out in a mild October drizzle, but as the rain increased he had changed his course and made his way along the
village streets, tramping stolidly through the puddles.

He rounded the baseball field of the high school as the rain grew stronger, the drops full and hard and gusting over him in
sheets when the wind picked up. He crossed the sidewalk to the gym and pushed open the wide door that led into the rear of
the building. As soon as she realized that she was out of the rain, Duchess shook herself vigorously, spattering him with
water, and he looped her leash around the metal stanchion supporting the bleachers.

Martin would have liked to join the small group of parents in the center of the bleachers who had arrived early to watch the
basketball practice before driving their children home in the heavy rain. They had discarded their dripping jackets in a pile
and were talking among themselves in a comradely murmur. With Duchess in tow, however, he had no choice but to sit unobtrusively
at the foot of the far end of the bleachers near two women who had climbed higher up in the stands and were chatting
softly while glancing at the cheerleaders practicing farther down on the sidelines.