Night Road

* * *

Graduation was more than Jude could handle. The day had been full of ghosts, missing faces, the wrong girls …

By the time the ceremony finally ended, she felt like crumbling into a heap. She’d tried to convince Zach to go to the grad-night party with his friends. You’ll always remember it, she’d said tiredly, although they both knew it was a lie. Intellectually, she knew she should make him go, pretend that his life was still going forward on the same old track, but she couldn’t really feel that.

So they’d driven home in silence. She sat slumped against the car window, cold to the bone even though the seat’s heater was set on high. In the seat behind her, Zach drummed his fingers on the seat rest, and when they got home, he bolted out of the car and ran up the stairs. No doubt he wanted to lose himself in video games.

“Lexi was there,” Miles said later, when he and Jude were alone in the kitchen.

Jude felt a rush of anger. Whole, healthy Lexi, with just a white arm cast to mark her place in the car that night.

“That takes nerve. I hope Zach didn’t see her. ”

“He did,” Miles said, looking at her. “Don’t do that, Jude. You’ll make it worse. ”

“Worse? Are you kidding me? How could this possibly get worse?”

“Don’t make Zach choose between you and Lexi. He loves you; you know that. He’s always done everything he could to make you proud of him. Don’t use that against him now. He and Lexi have things to work out. ”

Jude sighed heavily and headed to her bedroom, closing the door behind her.

For the next forty-eight hours all she did was lie in bed, sometimes sleeping, sometimes crying. She lay there with her eyes closed for hours, thinking come to me, Mia, talking to her daughter, but nothing happened. Not a breeze across her face that felt like a breath, not a flickering of the bedside lamp. Nothing. And she didn’t really believe that Mia could hear her.

By the time she finally crawled out of bed, she looked like a ninety-year-old homeless woman who had found a designer dress on the street and worn it for weeks. She knew Miles didn’t understand. Last night he’d made that sound—that sigh of desperation or despair—when she couldn’t change into a nightgown. He didn’t understand how fragile she felt. If she lifted her arms, they might break off.

She changed into an old pair of sweats. Not bothering to shower or brush her teeth, she made her way out of the bedroom, drawn forward by the scent of Starbucks coffee.

Miles was in the kitchen, sitting at the granite counter, sipping coffee. At her entrance, he sat up straighter, gave her a smile of relief that should have warmed her broken heart.

The television was on. Before Jude could say anything, she heard the newscaster say, “… killed her best friend in a drunk-driving incident only a week before graduation. ”

Jude shouldn’t have looked at the screen, but she did. The twisted, ruined Mustang with the windshield shattered made her almost violently ill. She hadn’t seen that image before … and then Lexi’s face was on-screen, smiling brightly. “Local MADD president Norma—”

Miles hit the remote, and the screen went black.

Jude felt that new anger rising in her again; it drowned out everything else. She heard Miles talking to her, but she couldn’t hear anything except this roaring white noise in her head. She poured herself a cup of coffee and walked out of the kitchen.

How would she survive this? How could she see Lexi again on the street someday and not just fall to her knees?

Lexi, who could go on with her life …

Jude stood in the great room, trembling, wondering what to do. Should she go back to bed?

She closed her eyes, trying to clear her mind of the image she’d just seen of Zach’s car …

At first, she thought she heard her heart beating, and she thought: that’s odd, and then she realized someone was knocking on the front door. Wiping her eyes, she went to the door, expecting to see a friend with a casserole, saying, I’m so sorry, but it was a stranger who stood there, a tall, elegant-looking, gray-haired man in a pinstriped blue suit.

“Hello, Mrs. Farraday. I don’t know if you remember me. I’m Dennis Uslan. I’m the prosecuting attorney assigned to your case. My niece, Helen, graduated with Zachary. ”

Jude’s breath released in a rush. She hadn’t even realized she’d been holding it. “Yes, Dennis. Of course I remember you. You helped with construction of the new ball field at Rotary Park. ”

“Yes, that’s right. I’m sorry to simply stop by, but your phone seems to be off the hook. ”

“Reporters,” she said, stepping back. “They call constantly asking for a ‘comment on our tragedy. ’ Come in. ” She led him into the g

reat room, where sunlight shone through the giant windows. The view over the Sound was spectacular on this crystalline day.

Dennis had just taken a seat when Miles walked into the room, dressed in shorts for running.