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Marlene Was Right

It was Hank who found Dave’s body.

Monday morning, Pam was standing at the Dutton Realty photocopier, hypnotized by the pinprick beam of light traveling left to right. She was ten copies into the ninety her boss needed when her phone buzzed.

Hank: Don’t let marlene or kids go home

What did Pam have to do with where Marlene went? She was probably scraping plaque off someone’s teeth over on Stone Bridge Road. Pam checked the copier and decided she had time to investigate. It took Hank five rings to answer. “Hey. Why are you texting me about Marlene’s adult children? You realize they all moved—”

“—can’t talk. Dave’s dead. Don’t let Marlene come home.”

“Our Dave?”

Pam set her hand on the photocopier to steady herself. “Are you sure?”

“Oh, I’m sure, all right. Go see Marlene. Tell her Dave had an accident. I don’t know if you want to say he’s gone or not. See what you think. But do not let her come home.”

The photocopier light traveled left to right.

“What happened?”

Silence. “Hank! What happened?”

Hank cleared his throat. “Dave had an accident in his garage. Well, on his driveway. I’ve gotta go. The police just got here. But don’t let Marlene come home. Pam!”

Pam answered in a quiet voice, “Okay.”

The light bounced back and started again.

“Wait! Hank?”

Pam dragged her eyes away. “Hank! Why are you at Dave’s?”

But Hank was gone.

* * *

Stunned by Hank’s call, Pam had forgotten who they were dealing with when she’d agreed to follow her husband’s instruction and keep Marlene away. She, Nancy, and Shalisa convened at Marlene’s dental office to break the news. The words were barely across their lips when Marlene grabbed her purse and headed for home.

The friends chased after her into the dentist’s parking lot, trying to usher her into Pam’s van with promises of coffee and consoling at Shalisa’s kitchen table. But Marlene pushed past them and unlocked the door of her beat-up Honda. She’d given birth to three daughters in less than three years—her youngest in that same driveway because she’d put off going to the hospital until Dave got home from fishing—and she’d corralled her daughters through puberty and into adulthood without a hiccup. No one put this baby in a corner—or at a kitchen table—when her husband was dead in her driveway.

Marlene spun on them, her blond ponytail whipping around. “I appreciate what you’re doing, I really do. But if I want to see my husband, I’m fucking well going to. You are not going to stop me. Got it?”

They got it.

Pam’s van was disturbingly quiet. She caught glimpses of boats bobbing in the bay to her left as they wound past the sprawling, historic captains’ homes and made their way inland, toward their humbler part of town. Normally, with all four women on board, Pam could barely concentrate on the road. But on this trip, no one passed her a bag of Fritos, waved their pedicure in her face, or turned up their playlist until she could feel the bass in her bum. Pam snuck a peek at Marlene. Hands in her lap, the new widow stared out the passenger window.

“I’m fucked,”

Marlene said to the glass.

From the backseat, Shalisa patted Marlene’s arm. “No. You’re not fucked. We’ll get through this.”

“My husband is dead and all I can think is, I can’t afford to keep my house without him.”

She turned to look out the front window. “Fucking Dave.”

From the backseat, Nancy said, “Fucking Dave? Fucking all of them, Marlene.”

Marlene stared ahead. “Well. At least your shitheads can still pay your mortgages.”

She blew out a breath. “Yep. I’m fucked.”

Pam wrinkled her brow. Okay. Granted, considering everything, Marlene wouldn’t be your typical widow. But still, Pam expected there to be some sorrow for Dave.

Marlene shifted to face them and leaned on the armrest. “I’m trying to remember the last time I talked to him. We watched Jeopardy! last night when he got home from fishing, but I don’t know if we said one word to each other. Saturday night, after we walked home from your place”—she glanced at Pam—“he came up behind me in the kitchen, put his arms around my waist, and tried to nuzzle my neck. As if things were normal. I shut that down.”

That answered the question Pam hadn’t yet been able to ask. Dave and Marlene weren’t back to having sex. So why had he seemed so happy the other night? She reached over to pat Marlene’s knee, and when she turned the corner, the quiet neighborhood street was abuzz with activity. fire trucks straddled the curb, and a cluster of gawkers sought shade beneath a string of maple trees. As Pam inched past the split-levels and ranch-style bungalows with their tidy front gardens, she spotted Hank’s car amid the emergency vehicles. The only thing that kept Marlene from jumping out was Nancy saying in a quiet voice, “You can never unsee things, Marlene.”

Marlene slumped in her seat, released the door handle, and nodded for Pam to go ahead and check things out.

As Pam picked a path up to Marlene and Dave’s house, Hank pivoted away from a police officer and charged down the driveway to meet her. He always said offense is the best defense, so Pam picked up her pace to match her husband’s, almost colliding with him at the bumper of the coroner’s van.

Hank’s face was flushed and glistening with sweat. His eyes were red. Five years ago he would have opened his arms and pulled her close, her cheek resting against his chest, like a puzzle piece finding its place. But now he thrust his finger at her. “What did you not understand about not coming—”

“—When was the last time you told Marlene Brand to do anything?”

Pam barked back.

Hank’s head jerked. He blinked, then said, “Dave always said she’s a handful.”

“I’ll say.”

Pam noticed Hank rotated so she’d face into the street. She’d kept her eyes averted as she’d approached the house, Nancy’s warning ringing in her ears. She wanted to remember Dave smiling at her over a slice of cheesecake.

“It’s graphic. Are you sure you want to know the details?”

Pam nodded.

“Okay. Dave got crushed by his garage door.”

“No!”

Pam couldn’t help herself; she glanced back and saw the bottom of the garage door was raised two feet from the ground. Emergency responders in dark-blue uniforms huddled in the middle, blocking her view. Pam thought she could see, peeking out from under a sheet, a lock of Dave’s graying, sandy hair lying pale against a pool of dark liquid.

“You don’t want to see.”

Hank tugged her arm, pulling her eyes back to him. “They think Dave started to pull the garage door down, it hit his head and knocked him out. He fell, and the door landed on his skull and crushed it.”

Pam covered her face with her hands. She couldn’t believe it.

For years Marlene had been at Dave to get an automatic garage door. Theirs was heavy, manual, and would crash down on its track like a runaway train. Marlene would pitch to Dave, “It’d be easier to take the garbage out. And maybe we could go crazy and park our car in there like normal people. How’s that for a thought, Dave?”

But Dave didn’t budge, and Marlene would end her tirade by saying, “One day that door will kill one of us.”

And now it had.

Pam looked back at her husband. Pam was the kind of person who pondered details until they lined up in a neat row, like Scrabble letters. And some of these tiles were still askew. “Did you see him at the casino today?”

“I told you before, we work in different areas. I never see him there.”

“Why was he at home on a Monday morning?”

Hank wiped his arm across his forehead. “I honestly don’t know.”

“Why were you here?”

Hank sighed. Then shook his head. “I can’t right now, Pam. I just can’t.”

His shoulders slumped, he put his hands in his pockets and walked past her, back toward the police.

“Hank. I asked you a question.”

Pam threw open her arms. As she watched him go up the driveway, two of the officers strained to push the door all the way up.

The interior of Dave’s garage was the same as the last time Pam had seen it: so full of crap that Marlene didn’t have a hope in hell of ever parking a car in there.

Pam took one last look and trudged back to the van to update her friends. She jumped in, doubly relieved to feel the cool air on her scorched skin and to see tears on Marlene’s cheeks. After all, thirty years of marriage was still thirty years, and Dave was the father of her children. Surely that warranted some grief.

Marlene blew her nose. “Can I see him?”

Pam scooted across her seat to hug her friend. “Oh, Marlene. I don’t think you want to. Let’s go to Shalisa’s, and we’ll figure out what to do.”

With her chin on Marlene’s shoulder, Pam watched the medical personnel lift Dave’s body onto the stretcher. Nancy and Shalisa squeezed forward, embracing their friend as best they could. Marlene whispered into Pam’s ear, “Tell me what happened.”

Pam tightened her grip and recounted how Hank had found Dave under their garage door. Marlene stiffened, then stopped crying mid-sob. She pushed herself away from Pam and sat straight. Her head tilted, she dropped the tissue from her face, narrowed her eyes, and said, “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Pam shook her head.

Marlene peered at Pam, glanced toward her house, then back at Pam, and gave a short, jarring guffaw.

The girlfriends’ eyes darted to one another. Marlene covered her face and though Pam feared she’d begun to sob uncontrollably, when Marlene finally dropped her hands to her lap and leaned back against the headrest, the women were all shocked to see Marlene was laughing. Hard—as if she was watching Robin Williams do standup. They exchanged uneasy glances, unsure how to help, and waited while Marlene slowly settled into a soft chortle. Finally, she took a big breath, blotted her cheeks, leaned forward to redirect the air-conditioning vent to blow directly on her face, and tucked her tissue in the edge of her bra. After a moment she shook her head and said, “Let’s go. But fuck the coffee. I need a scotch.”

Pam didn’t know whether to be worried or relieved by Marlene’s sudden change of gears, but she was anxious to get out of there, and she eased her van into the street. The coroner’s vehicle pulled out ahead and Pam braked to give it distance, cringing at her timing. She reached over to squeeze Marlene’s hand.

Marlene’s gaze fell on the vehicle carrying her husband, taking him, for the last time, away from the home where they’d raised their three little girls. From the front lawn where he’d posed with each of his daughters on their wedding days.

Marlene squeezed Pam’s hand back, then looked down her driveway at the garage door that killed her husband of thirty years and said, “I hope his last thought was, Marlene was right.”