Chapter Text
3
That had been almost two months ago, and since then, he has spent most of his time at Lantern House. As an early fifty-second birthday present, he’d asked Jude to take off every Saturday for the rest of the summer, and Jude has: every Friday he drives up to the house; every Monday morning, he drives back to the city. Because Jude would have the car during the week, he’d rented - partly as a joke, though he was secretly enjoying driving around in it - a convertible, in an alarming color that Jude referred to as “harlot red.” During the weekdays, he reads and swims and cooks and sleeps; he has a very busy autumn coming up, and he knows from how replenished and calm he feels that he’ll be ready.
At the grocery store he fills a paper bag with limes, and then a second one with lemons, buys some extra seltzer water, and drives to the train station, where he waits, leaning his head on the seat and closing his eyes until he hears Malcolm calling his name and sits up.
“JB didn’t come,” Malcolm says, sounding annoyed, as Willem kisses him and Sophie hello. “He and Fredrik broke up - maybe this morning. But maybe they didn’t, because he said he was going to come up tomorrow. I couldn’t really figure out what was going on.”
He groans. “I'll call him from the house,” he says. “Hi, Soph, have you guys eaten lunch yet? We can start cooking as soon as we get back.”
They haven’t, so he calls Jude to tell him he can start boiling the water for the pasta, but Jude’s already begun. “I got the limes,” he tells him. “And JB’s not coming until tomorrow; some difficulty with Fredrik that Mal couldn’t quite follow. Do you want to call him and find out what’s happening?”
He loads his friends’ bags into the backseat, and Malcolm gets in, glancing at the car’s trunk as he does. “Interesting color,” he Says.
“Thanks,” he says. “It’s called ‘harlot red.’”
“Really?”
Malcolm's persistent credulity makes him grin. “Yes,” he says “Ready, guys?”
As he drives, they talk about how long it’s been since they've seen one another, about how glad Sophie and Malcolm are to be home, about Malcolm’s disastrous driving lessons, about how perfect the weather is, how sweet and hay-like the air smells. The best summer, he thinks again.
It is a thirty-minute drive back to the house from the station, a little faster if he hurries, but he doesn’t hurry, because the drive itself is pretty. And when he crosses the final large intersection, he doesn’t even see the truck coming toward him, barreling into traffic against the light, and by the time he feels it, a tremendous crush crumpling the passenger-seat side of the car, where Sophie is sitting next to him, it’s already too late. Metal bends and screams under the pressure. And then, there is darkness. He feels no pain, he feels no fear. One moment, he is in the car and the next, he isn't.
- - -
Back in Lantern House Jude kept waiting. He finished the pasta salad long ago. He checked his watch and kept busy by tearing the basil leaves above the bowl. After that, he checked the time again. He wondered where they were. He wondered when they would finally be back home. But he hadn’t been worried: Willem liked to drive home on the back roads, and Malcolm liked to take pictures, and so they might have stopped, they might have lost track of the time.
He called JB, listened to him complain about Fredrik; he cut some melon for dessert. By this time, they really were late, and he called Willem’s phone, but it only rang, emptily. Then he was irritated: Where could they have been?
And then it was later still. He was pacing. He called Malcolm’s phone, Sophie’s phone: nothing. He called Willem again, He called JB: Had they called him? Had he heard from them? But JB hadn’t. “Don’t worry, Judy,” he said. “I’m sure they just went for ice cream or something. Or maybe they all ran off together.”
“Ha,” he said, but he knew something was wrong. “Okay. I’ll call you later, JB.”
And just as he had hung up with JB, the doorbell chimed, and he stopped, terrified, because no one ever rang their doorbell. The house was difficult to find; you had to really look for it, and then you had to walk up from the main road - a long, long walk - if no one buzzed you in, and he hadn’t heard the front gate buzzer sound. Oh god, he thought. Oh, no. No. But then it rang again, and he found himself moving toward the door, and as he opened it, it was like water surrounded him. He could not hear a word they spoke, he could not move.
Things came back to him days and weeks later in increments. The driver of the truck was drunk out of his mind. He ran a red light, only to crash into the harlot red. The damn car's airbags were defective. They were doomed from the moment they started their drive.