Long Drive Home Read Online Free PDF

never left.
    I had a glass of wine before bed, but I still couldn’t sleep. I kept going over my conversations with the police, kept worrying what else Sara might say to Liz when the two of them were alone, kept imagining how it must have been for Juwan—the surprise of seeing me come into his lane, the joltof fear he must have felt as his car struck the curb. I hoped the mail carrier had been wrong about a pulse, that Juwan was dead before he ever could have known what happened.
    Around 1 a.m., Sara cried out. Liz and I hurried across the hall and found her sitting up in bed, holding her pillow and crying. She’d had a dream about the tree.
    “It got so weak it just fell over,” she said. “It landed right on top of the house.”
    After we got her calmed down, she asked if I’d stay until she fell asleep. Liz went back to bed. Sara rolled over and pulled my arm around her like a blanket. I must have lain there an hour, listening to her breathe and trying not to think of Juwan’s empty bed, the night his parents must be having, what it would be like to know your child was never coming home again.
    I tucked her in and went downstairs to see if there was anything about the accident online. I tried getting some work done—payroll taxes for a new client, a pharmacy in Short Hills—but I couldn’t concentrate. I started a load of laundry. I brushed the Chairman and clipped his claws. I checked online again and looked to see if the paper had come. I went back to the basement to put the laundry in the dryer and empty the dehumidifier. I cleaned the litter box. I made a grocery list, threw out some leftovers, and took out the trash. I sent an email to the mortgage company about an insurance bill that should have been paid out of escrow. I did push-ups and sit-ups on the rug in front of the fireplace.
    The paper finally came around five, landing with a faint pop on the sidewalk. It was still dark outside. The sycamore looked like it had been TP’d by someone who didn’t know the tissue was supposed to be up in the branches, not around the trunk. I brought the paper in and scanned the local section. Below a story about Seton Hall students getting mugged for their laptops was a brief item about the accident—nothing I didn’t already know, but I was glad to see it referred to as a one-car crash. I reread the story and then checked the obituaries, though it was too soon for that. As the words started getting fuzzy, I lay down on the sofa and was just drifting off when I heard Liz’s alarm.
    By the time I made coffee and got upstairs, Liz was already in the shower. She reached around the curtain for the mug and took a swallow. “You never came back.”
    I told her I couldn’t sleep.
    “How about Sara?”
    “No more dreams.”
    “Do you think we should take her to see Kim Lee?”
    I sat on the edge of the tub. Kim Lee was a counselor whose kids went to Sara’s school. We’d heard she was great, but I didn’t want her questioning Sara about the accident.
    “I think it’s possible to make too big a deal of it.”
    “But you know how she is,” Liz said. “How things can get to her.”
    I talked Liz into giving it a few days, and when she was done showering and putting her long, dark hair up in a towel, we went in to wake Sara. Every weekday, Liz got up half an hour earlier than she needed to so the two of them would have time to hang out in bed, reading and talking. Normally I’d leave them to themselves—“girl time,” Sara called it—but that day I stayed, holding Sara as she told us about her dream again, then opening the curtains so she could see the tree, how strong and sturdy it looked in the morning light.
    After Liz left to walk to the train station, I considered calling Sara in sick. I didn’t want her out of my sight. I even asked her if she’d like to take the day off, go to a movie or something, but she said her class was rehearsing the play.
    I took it easy on the way to school and ended up