River Road (32 page)

On my way out I ran into Dottie. She was carrying Ross's briefcase and a bag of grapes. “Oh, good, Nan, I'm glad I ran into you. There's a memorial service being held in the chapel this afternoon. Nothing formal—Abbie says there will be a proper service when the students come back in January, but she wanted to gather a few of Leia's teachers and friends together to share memories of Leia and read something she wrote. Do you think you can come?”

“What time?” I asked.

“Four thirty. Abbie wants to do it at sunset.”

“I can make it. I'll have to think about what I'll read.”

“I'm going to read a poem Leia wrote for me that she said was inspired by my quilts,” Dottie said.

“Oh, that reminds me of something Leia gave me about the quilting circle she led at the prison. I'll read that.”

“Perfect,” Dottie said. “She was such a lovely girl. I still can't believe Troy . . .” She shuddered and I wrapped my arms around her before the sob could overtake her.

“You're a good friend,” I told Dottie. “I don't think I tell you that enough.”

“You don't have to,” Dottie said, hugging me back. “That's what makes a good friend—not having to be told.”

*  *  *

I was exhausted on the ride back and my ribs had started to ache but I had one more stop to make. The Happy Acres Park was only haphazardly dug out from the storm, making it difficult to navigate the narrow, winding road to the last trailer. No path had been shoveled to Hannah's trailer, but there were deep footprints in the snow leading up to her door. I followed them, noting that my feet fit them perfectly. I left the box on her doorstep without knocking and retraced my steps to the car. I didn't think I could take another emotional scene. When I got in the car, though, I saw her open the door. She was wearing a pink sweatshirt with a cat printed on it. Her own cat was twining around her ankles, sniffing the box. Hannah bent down and looked in the box. Then she lifted the carton of Fancy Feast and looked up to see me. She stared at me and then nodded once, raising the carton as if raising a glass. I stretched my fingers up from the steering wheel—a truncated wave—and drove away. Toward home.

T
he first thing I did when I got home was take a Vicodin standing at my kitchen sink, scooping water with my hand. Then I spilled the pills out in my other hand and counted them. Eight. The intern had prescribed ten, the same number that my endodontist had prescribed a few months ago when I had root canal. I'd only used two then; the bottle was still in the cupboard next to my vitamins and, I noticed, as I opened the cabinet door, the half-full bottle of Glenlivet. No wonder people got hooked on this stuff. If I wanted to I could keep taking the pills even after the pain went away. And if I told my doctor my ribs still hurt? Would he cut me off because he suspected I was getting hooked—or would he assume that a respectable college professor wouldn't become an addict? I realized it was why no one had guessed I was an alcoholic these last few years. No one suspected a college professor as long as she showed up for class and got her papers graded and grades turned it. I'd fooled even myself.

I slid the pills back in the bottle, resisting the urge to take another, and put it in the cabinet next to the old bottle and the bottle of Glenlivet. I stared at that tableau for a moment. I should just pour it down the drain, I told myself. If you're serious about quitting, why haven't you? But I didn't. I closed the cabinet door and went upstairs to Emmy's room. Without the Disney Princess comforter and sheets and the
row of dolls on the shelves the room looked barer, but I found I didn't mind. The thought of Isabel playing with the dolls made me feel happy.

I went into my room and lay down on my bed. I reached for the mystery novel I'd abandoned halfway through the semester when work got the better of me, but then I noticed the bound galley of Cressida's new book.
I should really read that
, I thought. Cressida had been a good friend these last few days. She hadn't abandoned me when everyone thought I'd run over Leia, and she'd taken me in when I was half frozen. She'd told me the truth about my drinking even though she must have known I'd be angry. She'd come down to check on me after the storm. I'd always thought of her as a bit of a cold fish, but maybe I was the one who had been the cold fish. I'd taken her friendship for granted, just as I had Dottie's. The least I could do was read her book and tell her I liked it.

I turned it over and looked at the back cover.
A searing exploration of the world of women's prisons . . . the new
Orange Is the New Black . . .
luminescent prose . . .
She'd gotten some great blurbs. The marketing and promotional material also looked impressive.
Six-City Author Tour, National Review and Feature Attention, National Radio Campaign, Online Promotions, Online Reader's Guide.
This might really be a breakout book for Cressida. It certainly had cinched the tenure decision for her last year. I felt a sharp twinge in my side that might have been my ribs or the stab of jealousy every author is prone to. I put the bound galley back down on my night table. The Vicodin was making me sleepy. I'd read it later . . . I needed to be rested for the memorial. . . .

I slid into sleep and onto a sheet of ice. Cressida and I were skiing on the frozen river. “You see,” she was telling me, “if you'd taught in the prison initiative like I asked you to,
you'd
be the one with the new book.”

“I don't think it works like that,” I said, trying to keep up. While Cressida was gliding along smoothly, I was slipping and sliding clumsily.

“That's
exactly
how it works. A really newsworthy back story gives you an excellent media platform. Look at how well it turned out for Piper Kerman! But it's not too late—you can still go to prison.”

“You mean
teach
at prison?” I asked, stumbling.

“No, I don't, Nan. I don't think that will do it. But a four- to six-year incarceration . . . I can almost guarantee you a book deal. And it will be easy. All you have to do is tell everyone you got in Ross's car—it was right there waiting in the turnaround—and drove over Leia.”

“But why would I do that?”

“Jealousy. Just like you're jealous of me.” Cressida stopped to let me catch up with her. “But you'll never get anywhere dragging
that
with you.” She pointed at my feet. I looked down at my skis and saw why I was so clumsy and slow. Tangled in my skis were black hair, blood, and torn flesh—the mangled remains of Leia Dawson.

I woke up screaming, fighting off the covers as if they were Leia's bloody limbs. The sweat covering my body felt sticky like blood. Even when I got up and ran cold water over my hands I couldn't get rid of the sensation that Leia's blood and hair and torn flesh clung to me.

It's the Vicodin
, I told myself, staring at my reflection in the mirror. If that's the kind of dream it gave me I was staying away from it no matter how much pain I felt.

I wanted to shower but I didn't want to risk disturbing the bandages and causing more pain, so I took a sponge bath and dressed for the memorial, all the time reliving the awful dream. Of course it came from looking at Cressida's bound galley and feeling jealous of her success. And then the guilt of not listening to Leia—
that
was what I was dragging around with me. The rest of it—Cressida's suggestion that I could claim that I had driven the Peugeot—must come from looking at my own car in the turnaround yesterday.

I checked my phone and saw there was a voice mail from Joe and a text. They both said that he was following a lead in Poughkeepsie and couldn't come by until very late—did I still want him to come if it was after midnight?

I found an emoji of a candle and sent a dozen to Joe. Then I got Leia's “Pins” story from my desk. I brought Cressida's galley down with me and
put it on the desk while I reread Leia's story. I read it from its first disarming line—“It's quiet in here but not quiet enough to hear a pin drop, which is too bad because if a pin does drop we all have to stay until it is found and accounted for.”—through to its heartbreaking ending—“Some of the things they've done are bad, but here those bad things are only more torn patches stitched together to make something beautiful. When I look up from my sewing I don't see a criminal, an addict, a killer—I see myself. And I know that by forgiving them I have forgiven myself.” Even though I knew that Leia had written this before Shawna's death I couldn't help but feel that she was asking for that forgiveness here.

Yes, I would read this. It captured so much of Leia's voice and it would go well with the quilting poem Dottie planned to read. I'd ask Abbie if I could read right after Dottie.

I folded the pages over and stuffed them in my bag, put on my coat and boots, and hurried out to my car. I was running late, but when I got to the end of my drive I turned right instead of left. I drove up to the turnaround, pulled into it, and got out. Looking down the hill I could only see the top of my roof, but when I looked up I could see Cressida's house perched on top of the hill, her wide glass windows reflecting back the last of the winter sunlight. I remembered noticing that her desk faced in the same direction as mine. I must have noticed, too, that she could look down and see the turnaround.

I got in the car and drove down to River Road, watching for patches of ice on the steep incline. It had been snowing hard the night Leia died. Troy could have skidded coming down Orchard Drive and slid out onto River Road where Leia was walking—

When he admitted to running over Leia he hadn't tried to say it was an accident, but then there hadn't been a lot of time and maybe he didn't want to look weak in front of Scully.

I made the turn and drove north on River Road, past Leia's shrine. Someone had carved niches in the snow to place the candles. They glowed like arctic crevasses in the fading light. I thought of the
“offerings” that Hannah had left—daffodils, a barrette—and was almost sorry I'd taken them away. As for the Four Roses bottle . . . it might have been Troy—or whoever killed Oolong—but I'd never know for sure now. When I looked away the road seemed suddenly darker. I drove the rest of the way at a crawl, searching the shadows at the edge of the road for anything that might leap out.

By the time I got to the chapel the sun had dipped behind the mountains across the river. The lingering gold glow spilled across the frozen river and bathed the stone face of the chapel. I followed the path of light through the chapel door. Sue Bennet, sitting next to Kelsey Manning, turned and glared at me. Hadn't she gotten the memo that I wasn't the one who ran over Leia? I walked past them and met the accusing glare of Troy Van Donk, Senior. Or maybe it was that his eyes looked so much like Troy's that made me see accusation there. I looked away. Surely there was someone here to welcome me.

Cressida, in a beautifully tailored winter-white wool dress, was standing near the dais at the front talking to John Abbot, who was holding out a copy of Cressida's bound galley to her. I noticed that there was a stack of them on a low table next to a framed portrait of Leia. It seemed a little questionable for Cressida to use Leia's memorial as an opportunity to promote her own book, but then I remembered that she planned to dedicate the book to Leia and figured that's why she had brought the copies. At any rate, she looked busy, so I decided I shouldn't bother her. I saw Abbie, but she was sitting next to Joan and I didn't feel like hearing another rant about Troy's grammatical failings. Finally I spotted Dottie sitting in the front pew. I hurried over to her, wishing she hadn't sat up front. I could feel the eyes of the assembled mourners on the back of my neck as I sat down.

She patted my hand. “I'm glad you made it, Nan. I was worried you wouldn't feel comfortable.”

I almost laughed. When was the last time I'd felt comfortable?
In Joe's arms
, a voice suggested, making me blush.

Dottie read the color in my face as something else. “I just want to say that I think it's completely unfair and inappropriate.”

“What's unfair and inappropriate?” I asked, looking behind me and meeting the accusatory glare of Sue Bennet.

Before Dottie could answer, Cressida came over and sat down next to me. “Did you bring something to read, Nan?”

I took out the “Pins” story. “Leia left this for me the day she died. It's quite lovely and I thought it would go well after the quilting poem Dottie's going to read.”

“May I see it?” Cressida asked. “So I can estimate how long it will take to read?”

I handed her the pages. She put on the reading glasses that were dangling from her neck and bent her head to the page. While she looked at it I turned back to Dottie and repeated my question, “What's unfair and inappropriate?”

Dottie looked like she was about to cry. “I shouldn't have said anything!” She got out her phone and tapped on a page open to “Overheard at Acheron.” She handed me the phone and I read the comment on the top of the page.

“To be a true writer you must experience everything,” Professor Lewis exhorted her students. And so Troy Van Donk and Leia Dawson embarked on a drug spree that ended in both their deaths.—Posted by Kelsey Manning.

“What the hell!” I said too loudly for the quiet chapel. “Where did she get this? Troy's death hasn't even been confirmed . . . and how does she know about Troy and Leia's involvement with drugs?”

“Don't look at me,” Dottie said, tears filling her eyes. “It could have been Abbie. The police told her about the drug connection so they could search the campus. Or it might have been Van—he's pretty angry about you and Joe showing up at the garage and scaring Troy off like that. But of course it's ridiculous. You'd never say anything like that to impressionable young students.”