The After Wife (18 page)

I couldn’t take it anymore. “I didn’t want to be this Oya person. I just wanted to be Hannah!” I said. I got up and went toward the screen door.

“Who? Hello?” John the Dead said. “Where’re you going?”

“I can’t do this. I feel like I’m having a nervous breakdown. We had a nice Thanksgiving and I don’t want to ruin it by being crazy.”

“Well, that’s pretty cold. After what I’ve been through.”

“After what
you’ve
been through?” I found myself staring at the avocado tree. “How about after what we’ve been through? How about Ellie? What about Jay and Chloe and Aimee? The UPS guy? I’ve had to comfort the entire city of Santa Monica—I don’t dare set foot in Venice. Were you at your memorial service? Your ex-girlfriends were all there, thank you very much!”

“Of course, I was there,” John said. “It was kind of thrilling, actually.”

“You left us,” I said.

“I’m sorry I died,” John said. “What do you want from me?”

“I want you to be
not dead
. I want you to be breathing. I want to hold your hand and kiss your cheek. I want to hear you sing R. Kelly
off-key. I want to trip over your tennis shoes that procreate every ten days. Damn it, I want you to be alive so I can kill you with my bare hands for dying on us!”

“I made a mistake,” John said. “Anyone can make a mistake.”

“A mistake?” I said. If we were going to argue like this, I needed a marriage counselor.

“I’m only human—I was only human. Now, I’m more like a floating particle … You won’t be able to see me until everything’s been formalized. Talk about bureaucracy. These people make the DMV look like they’re NASA.”

“You weren’t wearing a bike helmet. You weren’t thinking.”

“I’m so sorry, baby,” John said. “It was a beautiful morning—the light filtering through the sweet gum trees and tall pines on Carlyle—it’s, well, it’s like up here, actually. You see that light here all the time.”

“That gardening truck …” In my mind, I suddenly had a vision of his black Nikes on someone’s manicured hedges.
Who had picked them up? The paramedics? The cops?
I saw his watch. I had given him that watch. He’d loved that watch.

“Gardening truck?”

“Yes, the gardening truck,” I said. “The one that hit you? Come on, you were there.”

“I wasn’t hit by a truck.”

“Yes, you were,” I said. “Look, I don’t want to argue with you. The police report said it was a gardening truck. The guy driving was an illegal—he took off.”

“Hannah, listen to me. I am telling you, it wasn’t a truck. I was there. I’m kind of a key witness. The person who hit me was driving a Range Rover.”

“What the hell?” I said. “You know how I feel about those monsters. I knew that one of those things would kill someone on these streets. I just didn’t think it’d be you—”

“The driver was one of those ‘crazy, busy’ mom-types, looking down at her phone. I remember thinking—wow, texting while driving, not smart—”

“Texting,” I said. “I didn’t think this could get worse.”

“I was on the side, but she swerved, hit me, and took off. It was so quick. The guy in the gardener’s truck actually stopped to help. He held my head, Hannah. He said the most beautiful prayer in Spanish … 
‘Dios te salve Maria …’
 ” John paused. “I forget the rest, I was kind of busy dying at the time.”

My breath caught in my throat.

“Hannah?” John asked. “Baby, what is it?”

Some things shouldn’t be known
, I thought.
Some things we cannot live with
.

“Please, John, tell me there wasn’t any pain.” Tears ran down my face.

“No, honey,” John said, “there wasn’t any pain. I was in shock.”

“Thank God, thank God,” I sobbed, holding my sides, rocking.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, his voice getting weaker. “Hannah, find the gardener. You need to help him out. He was an angel.”

“I love you so much. I wish you were alive.”

“I love you, too. I wish I were alive,” John said. “Help out that gardener. That’ll give me some peace. And then you can find the Range Rover.”

“Range Rovers are like holistic life coaches in Santa Monica,” I said. “You know six out of ten people claim that on their W-9s.”

“I have to go …”

“Don’t leave.”

“I love you.”

“Don’t leave,” I screamed. “Don’t leave!” Spice started barking again.

“Mommy?” Ellie called from inside. My eyes held on to the dark. The wind had ceased. It was time for the living to get on with it.

Jay was right, though, about love.

Love isn’t buried with the dead.

14

Grief Spreads Like Butter

After dropping off Ellie at school, I made a trip back to the Santa Monica Police Station. Once again, I admired its modern, pristine architecture. It looked like it should house Warhols, Pollocks, and Johnses (
Jasper Johns, people!
).

I asked the policewoman at the front desk for the detective who was working the Bernal hit-and-run case. If you’re old enough to remember
Barney Miller
(
if you’re not, be happy, work hard, and don’t let bad boyfriends get you down
), you think of a jail as a run-down, dusty old place filled with characters. This place was like a futuristic movie set with gorgeous extras.

“May I say who’s asking?” the policewoman asked.

“Hannah Bernal,” I said. “My husband was the … victim.” I felt like human buzz-kill.

“Oh … yes,” she said. “Hold on.” She scurried past a group of police officers huddled around Starbucks lattes and cranberry scones.

“Mrs. Bernal?” someone said, a moment later. I turned and was eye-to-eye with a stocky bald man sporting a thick black mustache. His gaze was so intense, it felt like he was getting into the ring, despite the suit and tie.
This is exactly the kind of person
, I thought,
who brings out my Tourette’s
.

“I’m Detective Ramirez.” He held out his hand. It felt like I was shaking a tree stump.

“Hi, Hannah Bernal,” I said. “I have some information on my husband’s death.”

“Odd,” Detective Ramirez said. “I was just about to call you.”

Five minutes later, Detective Ramirez clasped his hands as he peered at me over his cluttered desk. “Mrs. Bernal, we’ve just found the hit-and-run driver responsible for the death of your husband.”

“You found the woman driving the Range Rover?” I asked.

“Range Rover?” Detective Ramirez said. “The suspect was driving a gardening truck.”

“Oh, see,” I said, “I’m sorry. You have the wrong guy. My husband was run down by a woman driving a Range Rover.”

“Mrs. Bernal, the driver is a Hispanic illegal who was driving a gardening truck.”

“It’s not him,” I said. “He didn’t kill my husband.”

“Mrs. Bernal, this is the man who was running away from the scene.”

“Of course he ran. He was probably scared out of his mind.”

“Mrs. Bernal, are you interested in attending the court hearing?”

No wedding ring on Detective Ramirez’s thick fingers.
What a surprise
, I thought.

“I’m interested in attending the hearing for the woman who hit my husband, then left him in the street for dead. I am not interested in convicting the man who comforted my husband as he lay dying.”

Detective Ramirez leaned back. “You know, Mrs. Bernal, usually people are grateful when we have news concerning their loved ones, no matter how painful it may be.”

“Detective,” I said calmly, recalling the Om at the end of yoga class, “I am grateful for all your hard work, but as difficult as this must be for you to hear, you have the wrong guy.”

“If he’s the wrong guy, why did he run off the minute he heard sirens? My mother had a saying.
Cuando el rio suena, agua lleva
.”

“My mother had a saying, too,” I said. “Although … it’s really not pertinent to this situation. May I see him?”

“See the perp?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he said. “Look, I know this is hard for you. Trust me. But the sooner you accept this, the better off you and your little girl will be.”

“Please.” I put my hand on his forearm. It felt like he ate pit bulls for breakfast.

Detective Ramirez walked me down a stark white hallway with polished cement floors.

“You could eat sushi off this floor,” I said. We walked past cell after cell, one cleaner than the next. “I love what you’ve done with the place,” I joked.

We stopped at the cell on the end. There was a lean, dark-haired man in ill-fitting jeans staring out into the silver-white sky.

“Del Toro!” Detective Ramirez barked.

Ramirez took a step back, motioning me to move forward. “Are you going to stay here?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah,” he said, smiling. His teeth were white and even.

“You have nothing else to do?” I asked.

“I have thirty cases on my desk. Murders, arson, rapists, kidnapping. Cases dating back decades … but yes, I’m staying here.”

“Well, perhaps you can interpret then?” I asked.

“I don’t speak Spanish.”

“Oh.”

“Disappointed?” Detective Ramirez said.
Was he teasing me?

The prisoner called Del Toro stared at me through the bars. He wore tennis shoes, loose jeans, and a crumpled T-shirt. He was young, maybe twenty-two, twenty-three, but he looked like he had the weight of the world on his skinny shoulders. I wanted to hug him.

“Can I go inside?” I asked Detective Ramirez. He snorted.

“
Señor Del Toro
,” I said, “
Me llamo Hannah Bernal, yo estoy
—oh, God, what’s the name for widow? Um. I’m the widow of the man … 
hombre
 … you’re accused of hitting with your gardening truck.”

“That morning haunts me still,” Del Toro answered in perfect,
poetic English. “I’ve been wanting to meet you ever since I held your husband in my arms.”

“You speak English?” I asked.
Estupida
.

“I was raised just on the other side of the Texas border. Near Nogales,” he said. “I picked it up on television game shows. In particular,
Wheel of Fortune
was very helpful. Do you know Miss Vanna White?”

Ramirez was suppressing a laugh.

“You could have told me,” I said, turning to him.

“Not really,” Ramirez said. “I needed this—it’s been a rough morning.”

I focused on Del Toro. “You comforted John,
mi esposo
, my husband … you gave him solace. I’m grateful you were there for him.”

A tear ran down Del Toro’s cheek. He wiped it away.

“I didn’t want to leave him, but I don’t have papers.”

“You said a prayer.”

“A prayer for the dying …”

I felt Ramirez watching every facial tic, listening to every syllable.

“Did you kill John?”

“No, oh,
dios mio
, no. I saw … he was on his bike. And there was this big black car—”

“A Range Rover?”

“
Sí
, yes, a Range Rover—”

“Okay, that’s enough,” Detective Ramirez said. “Mrs. Bernal, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

Detective Ramirez escorted me out the front doors. Sun hit my eyes. The fog had lifted. “Range Rover,” Ramirez said, in a flat tone.

“A black Range Rover,” I confirmed, as though that were more specific.

“I suppose you have the license number?”

“No.”

“You’ve just described sixty percent of the cars driven in Santa Monica.”

“Isn’t that annoying? What are all these people doing with Range Rovers? There are no bogs to drive over here. I’ve never even seen a bog. What is a bog?”

“Mrs. Bernal, how did you come to this conclusion, as unlikely as it is?”

The sun was shining into Ramirez’s eyes. He squinted and looked like an angry grapefruit. He flipped on a pair of Ray-Bans.

“John told me,” I said with conviction.

“Your dead husband John?” His eyebrows shot up over his sunglasses.

“I only have one. That I know of.”
Hi, inappropriate joking
.

“Mrs. Bernal, have you had a psych eval?” Ramirez asked. “You were arrested a couple weeks ago. The death of a loved one can affect one’s mental state.”

“I am not crazy, Detective. John told me about the Range Rover just the other night. We were reminiscing about Thanksgiving and then …” I shut my mouth.
Hi, Crazy!

“You know what I think?” Ramirez said, taking off his Ray-Bans and looking into my eyes. “It’s one of two things. You’re having a nervous breakdown—that’s best case. Or you had something to do with his death. That’s why you’re trying to get this guy off the hook. You feel guilty. Did you want your husband dead? Was it his life insurance?”

“How dare—” I didn’t finish my thought as a cloud passed overhead and a church bell rang. A robust African-American man in an L.A.P.D. uniform appeared over Ramirez’s shoulder. He was young (although most people seem young at my age), maybe late twenties, early thirties. His badge read
JACKSON
. He must have been dead at least ten years—he was dimensional, opaque; he’d done his time.