Three Rivers (2 page)

She started scampering around the room, when she asked over her shoulder, "Oh no, is he okay? Which hospital?" She saw her boots and sighed with relief and went to grab them, but as she felt the leather under her fingers, a horrific realization clicked in her brain.

Althea turned and slowly looked up at the two officers, trying to make out their shapes through tears that seemed to come from nowhere. "Wait, why isn't the hospital calling me? Why are you..."

She looked at the young one and his heartbroken face said it all. It was the first time he'd looked her in the eyes and she was struck by how lovely they were. Almost golden, just like Jack's, but they were red rimmed and his face was so blurry. "Oh my God," she sputtered.

As understanding started to take root in her mind, her knees turned to liquid and the floor began shifting underneath her. The boots slipped from her hand and she heard the impact of them as they clip-clopped onto the floor beside her.

"Ma'am, we are so sorry. Please, let us help you sit down."

Arms reached to her, she saw legs move but they were all so far away, spinning out in front of her. It was so hard to hear their words over the ringing in her ears. It was as though she were underwater and they were trying to shout down to her.

How can everything feel so slow and yet so out of control all at once?

"Oh God, oh God, oh God." Althea lost track of the words coming out of her mouth, her joints felt like rubber, her vision turned to pinpricks. She could no longer see the officers. The only thing she registered was the Christmas tree behind them.

It was lit up like it was on fire, illuminating these two angels of death.

They had descended to her living room to tell her that her life was over, that her chance at happiness was gone, that all her dreams, her hopes, her plans, they had all been for
nothing
.

Yet, through it all, that damned tree kept blinking at her.

Sounds came in and out of her head. She assumed it was the officers talking, but she couldn't focus on anything but the flickering taunts of that tree.

She reached a hand out for support, but there was nothing there and she stumbled a little. Hands were on her elbows leading her somewhere.

Her mouth formed one word. "Where?"

"We think he was coming home, but it looks like he went off course with all this ice on the roads and went too close to the river. He may have fallen asleep at the wheel." That must be the older one talking. His hands were on her right, rough, calloused, and cool to the touch.

"The river?" she whispered.

"Yes, Mrs. Taylor. The Allegheny. We had divers retrieve his body from the water and found his wallet on him, but we're working to pull the car out now." This was the younger one, his smooth hands clammy with sweat. She turned to him, focusing for one moment as the tall blur said, "We're really sorry Mrs. Taylor, but he was pronounced dead on the scene. We need you to come with us to formally identify the body."

And with that, the Christmas tree and the two blurs disappeared and Althea's whole world went black.

Two Weeks Later

Althea threw the pillow over her head and attempted to fall back asleep. Soon her best friends Aubrey and Jenna would be back. They'd tried to order her out of bed, tell her to go shopping, to go out to eat, to start to breathe again. She knew they meant well with all of their pushing, but she wasn't ready to rejoin the world yet.

Maybe later.

Maybe after everything stopped reminding her of Jack and all he did for her every day.

How much he'd loved her.

How much she'd lost.

How she had nothing left.

The first thing to go had been the Christmas tree. Althea had dispatched Jenna and Aubrey to take down all the decorations the first day they'd arrived. She'd tried but couldn't do it herself. Instead she'd blankly stared at the lights through watery, unfocused eyes, seeing red and white turning to screeching tires and metal until she'd screamed aloud.

After that, they took her practically catatonic body upstairs. She'd been in bed pretty much ever since, except for when she dragged her weary bones to the bathroom to throw up from a nagging stomach flu and when they made her get up to change the sheets.

She vaguely understood she couldn't lay in this bed forever, but for now she needed to hide until the pain in her heart eased, or at least until she didn't feel so exhausted and queasy all the time. She stood up to go to the bathroom as a wave of nausea smacked her yet again. She managed to make it to the bathroom before vomiting, but it was still demoralizing.

Some women could make grief look lovely and romantic. Althea was apparently
not
one of those women. She wasn't ashamed to admit that she looked bad and smelled worse.

Coming back from the bathroom Althea stared at their empty bed. She pulled her cell phone out of her slightly torn sweatshirt pocket and pulled up Jack's contact for the thousandth time. She'd set it to a picture of him from their honeymoon in Paris, looking sexy as sin with his broad shoulders wrapped in a striped sweater and his golden tiger-eyes hidden behind sunglasses. He was sipping champagne at the bar on top of the Pompidou Museum with the sun glinting off his sandy blonde hair.

Althea would have given up
all the rest of her years for one more minute of the life in that photo
.

She stroked the edge of the phone thinking how gorgeous he was —
had been
. She pressed so hard that it fell out of her hands, clanging and bouncing on the hardwood floor beneath her, until it finally stilled and Jack's smiling image on the screen faded to black.

A series of sobs broke through from her throat so intensely that her knees buckled. She let her body fall on the bed and curled up into a tight, tiny ball, clutching her empty hand to her chest as it squeezed into itself, holding nothing.

Jack had been the center of her universe for years. Now he was gone and she was thrown completely out of orbit, spinning into nothingness.

She thought of all the memories they wouldn't have a chance to create: growing old together, children, and grandchildren.
Everything, it was all lost
.

In the times when she would doze off she still imagined, still
believed
, he would come back. In her restless dreams he would open the door and walk in. Kiss her, make love to her and hold her through the night.

But she always woke up far too quickly and the truth would slam into her again that Jack was gone and she was completely alone — left with nothing but the lingering shadows of a life almost lived.

And it had all been her fault.

What kind of woman can't talk to her own husband? What kind of a woman simply believes him when he says everything will be fine? A failure. That's who. A child that can't take care of herself or her man. That's who. And now it is all too late
.

She'd created an elaborate daydream about how she could have done things differently during the last few weeks of Jack's life and it played on an infinite loop in her tormented mind.

In this alternate world, she'd had the nerve to refuse to let him keep blowing off her concerns and she'd realized how tired he was. She'd convinced him to take a cab home, or he called her to pick him up. Anything to keep him from taking that deadly drive home by himself.

But in this world? The real one? She'd failed him as his wife and best friend, and simply let her weakness control her until he finally died.

Althea's cries faded to whimpers out of sheer weariness, rather than relief, until she could only open her mouth in silent wails, her stomach cramping and shoulders hunching with each wave of brokenhearted agony.

Her body finally stilled from exhaustion as she stared blankly out of the large window beside their bed. Fat, wet flakes of snow were falling from the sky into the Allegheny River that stretched across below. The river was warmer than the air and the snow, causing the flakes to vaporize and turn to fog over the inky black water on impact in a way that almost hypnotized her.

One flake, two flakes, three flakes.

No matter how much the snow fought, it always gave way to the power and heat of the river as it flowed on.

The leafless trees arched under the weight of the heavy snow, bowing down and offering themselves to its dark power, yet the river cared nothing for their attention either. It was simply hurtling itself to the point where it would join the Monongahela River to form the beginning of the massive Ohio River, where they would barrel forward together, with no concern for the rest of the world — or for one desperate woman's broken heart.

Had the river even noticed when Jack's body drowned in its icy depths? Had it even cared that it stole him from her...or had it just rolled along?

She lay there, desperately trying to get her breathing back under control, when she heard their footsteps coming to her door. Jenna and Aubrey were back. They would be ready with another pep talk and crappy idea of something to do that invariably involved getting out of bed. All she really wanted was to be held until the pain passed. Perhaps she could persuade them to crawl into bed with her to watch a movie or maybe
Sex and the City
reruns. Anything so that they would leave her alone and she could go back to sleep — back to dreaming of Jack.

As Althea gained confidence in her plan, the bedroom door cracked open and she could see them standing, backlit, with a drugstore bag full of what appeared to be oblong boxes.

"Er, it doesn't look like you have popsicles and ginger ale in there," Althea choked out warily.

"No, sorry Tea," Aubrey said.

They walked to the bed. Jenna picked up Althea's cellphone from the floor and carefully placed it on a table before the two lay down on either side of Althea. Jenna faced her and began stroking her hair while Aubrey spooned her from behind and rubbed gentle circles across her back. Their tenderness reawakened her tears, such that the room was filled with nothing but the sounds of their breathing and Althea's almost pulsating misery, expressed every few minutes with her quiet hiccupping sobs.

Jenna finally broke the silence, asking, "Did you throw up again, Tea?"

Althea nodded and looked into Jenna's soft blue eyes. "Jenna, what's in the bag?"

Jenna and Aubrey looked over Althea's shoulder at each other nervously, until Jenna finally broke the silence. "Tea, we need you to take a little test."

"A
test
?"

"You're great at tests, right?" Aubrey whispered uncomfortably. After a pause, she added with a slight tremor in her voice, "It's just...there's no studying for this one, Tea."

CHAPTER ONE

Approximately Five Years and

Thirty-One Weeks Later

Althea looked down at the huge number five candle in her hand and breathed out a sigh. As she stroked its waxy surface, she tried to process that tomorrow would be Johnny's fifth birthday. Each of his past four had been painful experiences for her — bittersweet reminders that another year had passed since his father died, leaving her lost, pregnant and alone. Yet, this birthday was particularly poignant, as Johnny would begin kindergarten in a few days. Another milestone that Jack would never share with her, or his son.

She still loved Johnny's father so deeply that his absence felt like a living, breathing entity inside their home, and these annual reminders only fanned the flames of that pain, making it burn even more brightly.

She and Jack had met at
Duke University
when she was 19 and from the beginning they'd shared an instant passion for each other and for the pursuit of their dreams. Although they had vaguely considered starting a family someday, that step was to be much farther down the road. They had all the time in the world to wait to have kids — or so they'd thought.

It was as though they'd boarded a high speed train to their futures, ticking off one stop after the other — college with honors, grad school, prestigious jobs, a mortgage, next up was going to be savings, then promotions, maybe a great vacation or two. Not kids. Kids were for much farther down the railroad tracks, after the train could slow down and they could enjoy the view and savor their hard work. Kids were for their thirties, of this, they had been sure.