The Good Wife (8 page)

The first officer looked regretful. “We need you to identify the body. We can drive you there, if you’d like.”

Meg simply stared at him.

“I know this isn’t easy, Mrs. Roberts, but due to the nature of the accident, and the resulting trauma . . . we need a positive ID for the body. We could wait for dental records—”

“Do you hear yourself? Do you know what you’re saying? He’s not a body. That’s my husband. My
husband
.” Meg’s voice cracked. “And we have three children together. Two are just young girls still. They need their father. They need a father. They—”

“I’ll go,” Sarah volunteered. She turned to Meg, put her hands on Meg’s shoulders. “Is that what you want? For me to go with them? If that would be easier for you, Meg, I’ll do it, and you can stay here with the kids.”

Meg stared up at her, her expression agonized. “What if it
is
him? What if Jack didn’t make the plane—” She broke off and pressed a trembling hand to her mouth as her eyes filled with tears.

Sarah wrapped an arm around Meg. “I’ll get my coat and shoes and go find out. I’ll see him and I’ll know, and as soon as I know, I’ll call you. Okay?”

“Mom? Aunt Sarah? What’s going on?” JJ asked gruffly, his voice thick with sleep as he came down the stairs.

Sarah looked over Meg’s head at JJ, who was crossing the hall, still buttoning the fly of his jeans. He wasn’t wearing a T-shirt, and his pale skin stretched tight over his broadening shoulders.

Sarah stepped away so JJ could reach Meg.

“Mom?” he said, looking at her, his brow creased. “What’s happening?”

Meg sank her teeth into her lip and shook her head.

“There’s been an accident, JJ,” Sarah said huskily.

“Who?” he asked, scanning faces,

“Dad,” Meg said quietly. “At least they say it’s Dad.”

JJ exhaled hard. “How do you know?” he asked, looking from his mom to the officers.

“The ’71 Saab was registered to a Jack Roberts at this address, and the vict—man—had his wallet on him, and the car’s registration in the glove compartment.”

JJ shook his head disbelievingly. “But how? What happened?”

“Looks like he lost control, went over the guardrail on Fountain Grove Parkway, and ended up down in one of the ravines.”

Fountain Grove Parkway was a route they used to get to the 101, which meant Jack had crashed not long after leaving the house.

Eyes stinging, air bottled in her lungs, Sarah heard again the squeal of tires as Jack screeched down the driveway, leaving angry. The parkway was new, but the terrain was hilly and there were steep drop-offs on either side of the road. You couldn’t make a mistake on Fountain Grove, but apparently Jack had.

“It took him a long time to be found,” Meg said, shivering and rubbing her arms.

“A motorist noticed the damaged guardrail and called 911. It took a couple of hours to reach the car and recover the body.”

JJ looked from his mom to the officers. “Do you think he suffered?”

“No, son. He probably died on impact.”

Meg pressed her fist to her mouth. “My fault,” she murmured, still shivering. “We shouldn’t have argued. Shouldn’t have fought. He left upset, because of me.”

“That’s not true, Mom,” JJ said sharply, shoving his hands in the front pockets of his jeans. “Dad and I were fighting—”

“No,” Sarah said, her voice low, rough, unable to listen to them do this. “It’s no one’s fault. Not yours, Meg, or JJ’s. It was an accident. A tragic accident—”

“But if we hadn’t been fighting,” Meg protested.

“Everyone fights, Meg. Everyone argues. But it was Jack’s choice to walk out of the house and get into the car and climb behind the wheel. Nobody made him go. Nobody wanted him to go.”

“But normally he’s such a good driver,” Meg whispered. “Normally—” And then she was crying and JJ reached for her, holding her, and Sarah turned away as she saw Meg’s tears splash onto JJ’s bare shoulder.

One of the officers cleared his throat. “We still need someone to come identify the body.”

“Let me get my coat and shoes,” Sarah said.

“No.” JJ patted his mom’s back. “We’ll do it. Mom and I will go together.”

“I don’t know if it’s a good idea for you to go, son,” the officer answered. “The Saab was destroyed, flattened in the fall.”

“But he’s my dad,” JJ said roughly. “I need to see him. And I need to be there for my mother.”

* * *

M
eg wanted to drive, and so she and JJ rode together, and they followed the officers into town to the morgue.

As the cars disappeared down the long, winding drive, Sarah went upstairs to retrieve her phone to call Boone.

Her teeth were chattering as she waited for him to answer. It was almost six thirty in the morning in Florida. Boone would be sleeping. He hadn’t gone to bed until late, but he wasn’t picking up. She left him a message, asking him to call, and headed to the kitchen to make something warm to drink.

She’d just turned on the burner beneath the teakettle when he called her back.

“What are you doing up? Are the kids okay?” Boone asked when she answered.

Sarah sat down on the nearest kitchen stool. “Jack’s dead,” she blurted, her hand shaking as she pressed the phone to her ear. “Meg and JJ have gone to identify the body.”

“Say that again,” Boone demanded, his voice louder, harder.

“Jack’s dead.”

“When?
How?
”

“Car accident. Lost control on the parkway and went over the edge of the hill.” Her teeth chattered together. She crossed her arms over her chest, feeling chilled to the bone. “How can he be gone just like that? How can he be dead?”

“I don’t know. I don’t understand what’s going on. Who told you? How did you find out?”

“Two officers came to the house to break the news. I guess a motorist saw the guardrail—it was bent or broken or something—and called 911, but because Jack’s car was way down in the ravine, it took them a while to get to him. And now Meg and JJ have gone to identify the—” Sarah broke off, unable to say “body.” Her eyes filled with tears. “. . . Identify Jack.” She blinked and a tear fell. “I was going to go do it, but JJ said they should, and he went with her. But Boone, the girls don’t know yet. They’re upstairs sleeping. They have no idea what’s happened.” She abruptly stopped talking, unable to say another word because she’d just realized that everything had changed for Meg’s children, forever.

“Does the family know?” Boone asked.

“No.” Sarah rose to turn on the gas beneath the kettle. “Meg only just left now with JJ, and it’s still the middle of the night here.” She leaned against the stove, squeezing her eyes shut. “How do I go home tomorrow, Boone? How do I just leave Meg here, like this?”

“You don’t, babe. You stay. Meg’s going to need you now.”

* * *

M
eg and JJ returned to the house just as dawn was breaking. Sarah had made coffee and she poured Meg a cup when she entered the house. Meg didn’t drink it, though. She wandered around the kitchen, touching things, adjusting things, moving continuously while JJ went up to his room.

Sarah stood next to the coffee machine, watching Meg pace, understanding her need to move. Sarah didn’t want to walk. She wanted to run. She wanted to run as far away from Meg’s house as she could, dreading the moment the girls woke up and needed to be told what had happened.

She dreaded telling her own children what happened, but they were younger, and Ella wouldn’t really grasp the significance. Sarah was glad. Glad that Ella and Brennan would be shocked and sad, but grateful that Jack’s death wouldn’t impact their lives. They only saw their Uncle Jack now and then.

But Meg’s kids . . .

Sarah shuddered inwardly, anticipating their grief.

“It was him,” Meg said abruptly, sagging against the kitchen island, her hands on the marble counter. “I didn’t look at his face, though. They warned me. I’m glad they did. I didn’t want—” She broke off, swallowed. “But I saw his hand. It was his hand. He was wearing his wedding ring.” She drew a deep breath, struggled to smile. “He always had beautiful hands. An architect’s hands. He was such a brilliant architect, too.”

“Have you told his parents yet?”

“Haven’t called anyone. I was waiting to tell the girls, but maybe I should phone his parents now. It’s eight thirty on the East Coast. They’ll both be up.” Meg closed her eyes, shook her head. “He’s their only child. They’re going to be devastated.” She opened her eyes, looked at Sarah, the brown irises shimmering with tears. “If God wanted to punish me, He should punish me, but oh God, this hurts the children.”

Meg wouldn’t let Sarah comfort her, going instead into the family room to phone Jack’s parents, who’d divorced when he was a boy. The calls were short as there wasn’t much Meg could say after breaking the news. Both Jack’s mother and father wanted to know about services, and Sarah heard Meg say that Jack had wanted to be cremated, and she thought that probably on Friday or Saturday they’d have some kind of memorial service for him, but that was all up in the air.

Meg returned to the kitchen, wiping away tears. “That was awful,” she said, reaching for the coffee Sarah had poured twenty minutes ago. “Beyond awful.”

Sarah clutched her cup, needing its warmth. “Because it
is
awful. Meg, I can’t believe any of this is happening.”

“I can’t either. I keep thinking it’s all a dream, and any second now I’m going to wake up, and Jack will be here, and everything will be good—” She bit down into her quivering lower lip. “But it’s not, is it?”

“No.”

Tears filled Meg’s eyes. “I just don’t understand how it all fell apart. I did love Jack. Very, very much. I loved his mind and his wit and the way he saw the world . . . as something beautiful and creative. I loved his creativity, and his passion, and his ability to get lost in his work. And then somewhere along the way, I got frustrated that he lived in his head, and that his family . . . his children . . . were less interesting to him than his ideas and designs. I couldn’t understand how he could let his kids grow up without wanting to be more involved.”

Meg paused for breath, and Sarah said nothing. There was nothing she could say.

“And now he’s really gone and he will never know them, and they will never know him, and I just hope to God they remember him the way he was—brilliant, creative, loving.” She drank her coffee quickly, sloshing a little onto her shirt. She glanced down at the stain, blinking back tears. “It’s going to be horrible, telling the girls.”

“I know,” Sarah murmured.

“Need to call Dad. He’s going to be upset. He’ll be so worried about all of us, but this is the last thing he needs right now.”

“Dad will be fine. And in a weird way, it’ll be good for him. It’ll give him a sense of purpose. Helping you. Being here for the kids. I guarantee he’ll make every one of JJ’s games. In fact, he’ll be the one behind the dugout, shouting the loudest.”

Meg nodded, exhaled slowly. “I can’t handle telling him, though. Just want to focus on the girls. Be ready when they come downstairs.” She hesitated. “Would you call him? Let him know I just can’t . . . can’t . . .”

“He’ll understand.”

Meg nodded again. “And Kit. Call Kit. And I’m sure Dad and Kit will call the others.”

“I’m sure they will.”

Sarah stepped into the mud room, and then outside, to make the call to Dad. It was still early, an hour before he normally rose, but when he answered, his deep voice crisp and clear, she flashed back to the days when she was younger and would call him at the firehouse.

“Firefighter Brennan,” he’d answer, booming into the phone.

She’d loved it. Loved that her daddy was a fireman. A handsome one, too.

“Dad, it’s Sarah,” she said now, knowing that he liked his facts up right up front. “Jack was in a car accident last night. He died at the scene. Meg and JJ have already gone to identify his body.”

For a moment there was silence. Then he spoke and his voice was deeper, rougher. “Is Meg at the morgue now?” he asked.

“No, she’s home.”

“How is she?”

“Shocked.”

More silence. “Died at the scene?” he said a moment later.

“Yes.”

“Must have been some accident.”

“I can’t even imagine,” Sarah answered. “This is crazy. It’s a nightmare. And now Meg’s just waiting for the girls to wake up to tell them the news.”

“Gabi and Tessa don’t know yet?”

“No.”

“How’s JJ?”

“Haven’t talked to him since he returned from the morgue. But he insisted on going with Meg. And he was the one who drove them home.”

“He’s strong. He’d make a great fireman.”

“He’ll make a great ballplayer, too.”

He sighed. “What a terrible thing . . . losing Jack like this.”

“I know.”

“I’ll go tell Brianna, and then I’ll be on my way.” He paused. “Do you think Meg wants everyone there today, or do you think she’d prefer for the family to stay home?”

Sarah pictured Meg in the kitchen, and the way she’d tried to drink her coffee, only to slosh it onto her top. Sarah’s chest ached. “I think it’d be good for her to have everyone here. I think she needs to know she’s not alone and that she’s got everyone’s love and support.”

Hanging up, Sarah called Kit next. Kit must have still been sleeping and answered only after the fifth ring. “Hello?” Kit said, groggily.

“It’s me, Sarah.”

“What’s up? Everything okay?” Kit asked, still sounding sleepy.

“There’s been an accident.” Sarah took a deep breath. “Kit, Jack . . . he died.”

“What?”

“It was a car accident. On the parkway. They say he lost control and went over the guardrail. The sheriff came to the house in the middle of the night and asked Meg to go identify the body.”

“Jesus,” Kit whispered, and coming from her, it wasn’t an oath, but a prayer. “How is Meg? Where is she? Do the kids know?”

“She and JJ just returned from the morgue. Meg’s waiting for the girls to wake up to tell them. JJ’s in his room. And Meg phoned Jack’s parents a few minutes ago to break the news, but Meg asked me to let our family know. I just called Dad. Now I’m calling you.”

“Thank God you’re there. I can’t imagine Meg having to go through this alone. And not so soon after Mom—” Kit swallowed. “Now another funeral. Wow.”