Page 19

Five Years Before

“Why?”

Gloria asked.

It was a question his wife had not stopped asking in the two years since the hospital called and told them there’d been an accident. Amber was already gone, DOA by the time the ambulance reached her, but the hospital wouldn’t tell you that over the phone. They called you, made you come in, and sat you in a room while a resident who didn’t look old enough to shave told you that your child was gone. “Why?”

Gloria had asked the doctor, who had responded with something about a broken neck, killed instantly. But that wasn’t what she was asking.

The whys continued. Why Amber? Why their family? Why had God done this to her? To her, as if had not been party to it.

didn’t have anyone to ask why to. He knew there was no rhyme or reason to it. Why them? Why not them? Why anyone?

“Why?”

Gloria asked again after he hit the man in their bereavement group. There was blood splatter on the front of her pink blouse, the color so complementary it would’ve been pretty, had it not been born of such violence.

“Why, ? Why?”

she demanded after Father Mercer accompanied the man and his wife to the hospital.

“Why?”

gritted his teeth. Did he really have to explain himself? After all this time? “Amber’s death was God’s will? God wanted her to die? What kind of asshole says that to a parent?”

“I’ve said it to a parent,”

she said. “So my kind of asshole, I guess.” Gloria’s mouth puckered, the curse word a strange fruit she had tasted and did not care for. “It’s to bring solace.”

“It’s a bullshit platitude.”

“Maybe from some people, but that man you punched—he’s also a grieving parent.”

Yes, was aware. After years of his wife’s harping, he’d finally relented and gone to the grief support group at the church, not that it seemed to be doing Gloria much good. But things were so bad between them, so brittle, he had agreed. And then he’d gone and it had been that same old crap. God’s will. was glad he didn’t believe in God because the way these people spoke about him, he was a sadistic SOB.

“You’re the one who wanted me to go to the bereavement group,”

accused her, jabbing an angry finger in her face. “Stop trying to force that religious crap down my throat.”

“Forcing? I just wanted us to be around other grieving parents.”

“That guy’s kid died of cancer. It’s not the same.”

“How is it not the same?”

“His own body killed him. Someone killed Amber.”

“Oh, not that again.”

“Someone has to pay,”

said. “You want me to have peace? Find the driver.”

“That won’t change a thing except give you someone to blame.”

“Isn’t that what you do? Blame it on God. Only you all don’t say blame. You say will. But either way, you’re pinning it on someone.”

’s face was red, the vein in his neck throbbing. “And anyway, I know who it was.”

“Calvin?”

Gloria shook her head. “You’re being so irrational. The police cleared him.”

“And the police have never made a mistake before?”

he asked. “You trust that detective to do right by Amber?”

“Yes, , I do.”

“They had sex, you know?”

said. He’d never told Gloria that he’d found the condoms in Amber’s room. He wanted to spare his wife that pain, that anger, so he bore it all on his own. But now he wanted to wound her. He wanted to draw blood.

“Good,”

Gloria said after a long silence. “I’m glad she got to experience physical love.”

“And to think I thought your beliefs mattered to you!”

He had never been this angry before, not at anyone, not even after Amber’s death. But all this fury, trained on the woman he loved. He wasn’t sure how they’d gotten here and he didn’t know how they would get back. Or if they could.

“I used to think my beliefs mattered to me, too,”

she replied, and then she walked out of the church, leaving him there, alone.