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  To Linda Morris

  (for reading the murder mysteries of a twelve-year-old girl)

  And to Alex Reid

  (a man the whole world should fall in love with)

  Every morning when I wake up I forget for a fraction of a second that you are gone and I reach for you. All I ever find is the cold side of the bed. My eyes settle on the picture of us in Paris, on the bedside table, and I am overjoyed that even though the time was brief I loved you and you loved me.

  —CRAIGSLIST POSTING, CHICAGO, 2009

  PART ONE

  JUNE

  Have you decided if you’re going to change your name?” Ben asks me. He is sitting on the opposite end of the couch, rubbing my feet. He looks so cute. How did I end up with someone so goddamn cute?

  “I have an idea,” I tease. But I have more than an idea. My face breaks into a smile. “I think I’m gonna do it.”

  “Really?” he asks, excitedly.

  “Would you want that?” I ask him.

  “Are you kidding?” he says. “I mean, you don’t have to. If you feel like it’s offensive or . . . I don’t know, if it negates your own name. I want you to have the name you want,” he says. “But if that name happens to be my name”—he blushes slightly—“that might be really cool.”

  He seems too sexy to be a husband. You think of husbands as fat, balding men who take out the trash. But my husband is sexy. He’s young and he’s tall and he’s strong. He’s so perfect. I sound like an idiot. But this is how it’s supposed to be, right? As a newlywed, I’m supposed to see him through these rose-colored glasses. “I was thinking of going by Elsie Porter Ross,” I say to him.

  He stops rubbing my feet for a minute. “That’s really hot,” he says.

  I laugh at him. “Why?”

  “I don’t know,” he says, starting to rub my feet again. “It’s probably some weird caveman thing. I just like the idea that we are the Rosses. We are Mr. and Mrs. Ross.”

  “I like that!” I say. “Mr. and Mrs. Ross. That is hot.”

  “I told you!”

  “That settles it. As soon as the marriage certificate gets here, I’m sending it to the DMV or wherever you have to send it.”

  “Awesome,” he says, taking his hands off of me. “Okay, Elsie Porter Ross. My turn.”

  I grab his feet. It’s quiet for a while as I absentmindedly rub his toes through his socks. My mind wanders, and after some time, it lands on a startling realization: I am hungry.

  “Are you hungry?” I ask.

  “Now?”

  “I really want to get Fruity Pebbles for some reason.”

  “We don’t have cereal here?” Ben asks.

  “No, we do. I just . . . I want Fruity Pebbles.” We have adult cereals, boxes of brown shapes fortified with fiber.

  “Well, should we go get some? I’m sure CVS is still open and I’m sure they sell Fruity Pebbles. Or, I could go get them for you.”

  “No! I can’t let you do that. That would be so lazy of me.”

  “That is lazy of you, but you’re my wife and I love you and I want you to have what you want.” He starts to get up.

  “No, really, you don’t have to.”

  “I’m going.” Ben leaves the room briefly and returns with his bike and shoes.

  “Thank you!” I say, now lying across the sofa, taking up the space he just abandoned. Ben smiles at me as he opens the front door and walks his bike through it. I can hear him put the kickstand down and I know he will come back in to say good-bye.

  “I love you, Elsie Porter Ross,” he says, and he bends down to the couch to kiss me. He is wearing a bike helmet and bike gloves. He grins at me. “I really love the sound of that.”

  I smile wide. “I love you!” I say to him. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. I love you! I’ll be right back.” He shuts the door behind him.

  I lay my head back down and pick up a book, but I can’t concentrate. I miss him. Twenty minutes pass and I start to expect him home, but the door doesn’t open. I don’t hear anyone on the steps.

  Once thirty minutes have passed, I call his cell phone. No answer. My mind starts to race with possibilities. They are all far-fetched and absurd. He met someone else. He stopped off at a strip club. I call him again as my brain starts to think of more realistic reasons for him to be late, reasons that are reasonable and thus far more terrifying. When he does not answer again, I get off the couch and walk outside.

  I’m not sure what I expect to find, but I look up and down the street for any sign of him. Is it crazy to think he’s hurt? I can’t decide. I try to stay calm and tell myself that he must just be stuck in some sort of traffic jam that he can’t get out of, or maybe he’s run into an old friend. The minutes start to slow. They feel like hours. Each second passing is an insufferable period of time.

  Sirens.

  I can hear sirens heading in my direction. I can see their flashing lights just above the rooftops on my street. Their whooping alarms sound like they are calling to me. I can hear my name in their repetitive wailing: El-sie. El-sie.

  I start running. By the time I get to the end of my street, I can feel just how cold the concrete is on the balls of my feet. My light sweatpants are no match for the wind, but I keep going until I find the source.

  I see two ambulances and a fire truck. There are a few police cars barricading the area. I run as far into the fray as I can get before I stop myself. Someone is being lifted onto a stretcher. There’s a large moving truck flipped over on the side of the road. Its windows are smashed, glass surrounding it. I look closely at the truck, trying to figure out what happened. That’s when I see that it isn’t all glass. The road is covered in little specks of something else. I walk closer and I see one at my feet. It’s a Fruity Pebble. I scan the area for the one thing I pray not to see and I see it. Right in front of me—how could I have missed it?—halfway underneath the moving truck, is Ben’s bike. It’s bent and torn.

  The world goes silent. The sirens stop. The city comes to a halt. My heart starts beating so quickly it hurts in my chest. I can feel the blood pulsing through my brain. It’s so hot out here. When did it get so hot outside? I can’t breathe. I don’t think I can breathe. I’m not breathing.

  I don’t even realize I am running until I reach the ambulance doors. I start to pound on them. I jump up and down as I try to pound on the window that is too high above me to reach. As I do, all I hear is the sound of the Fruity Pebbles crunching beneath my feet. I grind them into the pavement each time I jump. I break them into a million pieces.

  The ambulance pulls away. Is he in it? Is Ben in there? Are they keeping him alive? Is he okay? Is he bruised? Maybe he’s in the ambulance because protocol says they have to but he’s actually fine. Maybe he’s around here somewhere. Maybe the ambulance was holding the driver of the car. That guy has to be dead, right? No way that person survived. So Ben must be all right. That’s the karma of an accident: The bad guy dies, the good guy lives.

  I turn and look around, but I don’t see Ben anywhere. I start to scream his name. I know he’s okay. I’m sure of it. I just need this to be over. I just want to see him with a small scrape and be told he’s fine to go home. Let’s go home, Ben. I’ve learned my lesson to never let you do such a stupid favor for me again. I’ve learned my lesson; let’s go home.

  “Ben!
” I shout into the nighttime air. It’s so cold. How did it get so cold? “Ben!” I shout again. I feel like I am running in circles until I am stopped in my place by a police officer.

  “Ma’am,” he says as he grabs my arms. I keep shouting. Ben needs to hear me. He needs to know that I am here. He needs to know that it’s time to come home. “Ma’am,” the officer calls again.

  “What?” I yell into his face. I rip my arms out of his grasp and I spin myself around. I try to run through what is clearly a marked-off area. I know that whoever marked this off would want to let me through. They would understand that I just need to find my husband.

  The officer catches up to me and grabs me again. “Ma’am!” he says, this time more severe. “You cannot be here right now.” Doesn’t he understand that this is exactly where I must be right now?

  “I need to find my husband!” I say to him. “He could be hurt. That’s his bike. I have to find him.”

  “Ma’am, they have taken your husband to Cedars-Sinai. Do you have a ride to get there?”

  My eyes are staring at his face, but I do not understand what he is saying to me.

  “Where is he?” I ask. I need him to tell me again. I don’t understand.

  “Ma’am, your husband is on his way to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. He is being rushed to the emergency room. Would you like me to take you?”

  He’s not here? I think. He was in that ambulance?

  “Is he okay?”

  “Ma’am, I can’t—”

  “Is he okay?”

  The officer looks at me. He pulls his hat off his head and places it on his chest. I know what this means. I’ve seen it done on the doorsteps of war widows in period pieces. As if on cue, I start violently heaving.

  “I need to see him!” I scream through my tears. “I need to see him! I need to be with him!” I drop to my knees in the middle of the road, cereal crunching underneath me. “Is he all right? I should be with him. Just tell me if he is still alive.”

  The police officer looks at me with pity and guilt. I’ve never seen the two looks together before but it’s easy to recognize. “Ma’am. I’m sorry. Your husband has . . . ”

  The police officer isn’t rushed; he isn’t running on adrenaline like me. He knows there is nothing to hurry for. He knows my husband’s dead body can wait.

  I don’t let him finish his sentence. I know what he’s going to say and I can’t believe it. I won’t believe it. I scream at him, pounding my fists into his chest. He is a huge man, probably six foot four at least, and he looms over me. I feel like a child. But that doesn’t stop me. I just keep flailing and hitting him. I want to slap him. I want to kick him. I want to make him hurt like I do.

  “He passed away on impact. I’m sorry.”

  That’s when I fall to the ground. Everything starts spinning. I can hear my pulse, but I can’t focus on what the policeman is saying. I really didn’t think this was going to happen. I thought bad things only happened to people with hubris. They don’t happen to people like me, people that know how fragile life is, people that respect the authority of a higher power. But it has. It has happened to me.

  My body calms. My eyes dry. My face freezes, and my gaze falls onto a scaffolding and stays there. My arms feel numb. I’m not sure if I’m standing or sitting.

  “What happened to the driver?” I ask the officer, calm and composed.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “What happened to the person driving the moving truck?”

  “He passed away, ma’am.”

  “Good,” I say to him. I say it like a sociopath. The police officer just nods his head at me, perhaps indicating some unspoken contract that he will pretend he didn’t hear me say it, and I can pretend I don’t wish another person to have died. But I don’t want to take it back.

  He grabs my hand and leads me into the front of his police car. He uses his siren to break through traffic and I see the streets of Los Angeles in fast-forward. They have never looked so ugly.

  When we get to the hospital, the officer sits me down in the waiting room. I’m shaking so hard that the chair shakes with me.

  “I need to go back there,” I say to him. “I need to go back there!” I yell louder. I take notice of his name tag. Officer Hernandez.

  “I understand. I’m going to find out all of the information that I can. I believe you will have a social worker assigned to you. I’ll be right back.”

  I can hear him talking but I can’t make myself react or acknowledge him. I just sit in the chair and stare at the far wall. I can feel my head sway from side to side. I feel myself stand and walk toward the nurses’ station, but I am cut off by Officer Hernandez coming back. He is now with a short, middle-aged man. The man has on a blue shirt with a red tie. I bet this idiot calls it his power tie. I bet he thinks he has a good day when he wears this tie.

  “Elsie,” he says. I must have told Officer Hernandez my name. I don’t even remember doing that. He puts out his hand as if I were going to shake it. I see no need for formality in the midst of tragedy. I let it hang there. Before all this, I would never have rejected someone’s handshake. I am a nice person. Sometimes, I’m even a pushover. I’m not someone who is considered “difficult” or “unruly.”

  “You are the wife of Ben Ross? Do you have a driver’s license on you?” the man asks me.

  “No. I . . . ran right out of the house. I don’t . . . ” I look down at my feet. I don’t even have on shoes and this man thinks I have my driver’s license?

  Officer Hernandez leaves. I can see him step away slowly, awkwardly. He feels like his job is done here, I’m sure. I wish I was him. I wish I could walk away from this and go home. I’d go home to my husband and a warm bed. My husband, a warm bed, and a fucking bowl of Fruity Pebbles.

  “I’m afraid we cannot let you back there yet, Elsie,” the man in the red tie says.

  “Why not?”

  “The doctors are working.”

  “He’s alive?” I scream. How quickly hope can come flying back.

  “No, I’m sorry.” He shakes his head. “Your husband died earlier this evening. He was listed as an organ donor.”

  I feel like I’m in an elevator that is plummeting to the ground floor. They are taking pieces of him and giving them to other people. They are taking his parts.

  I sit back down in the chair, dead inside. Part of me wants to scream at this man to let me back there. To let me see him. I want to run through the twin doors and find him, hold him. What are they doing to him? But I’m frozen. I am dead too.

  The man in the red tie leaves briefly and comes back with hot chocolate and slippers. My eyes are dry and tired. I can barely see through them. All of my senses feel muted. I feel trapped in my own body, separated from everyone around me.

  “Do you have someone we can call? Your parents?”

  I shake my head. “Ana,” I say. “I should call Ana.”

  He puts his hand on my shoulder. “Can you write down Ana’s number? I’ll call her.”

  I nod and he hands me a piece of paper and a pen. It takes me a minute to remember her number. I write it down wrong a few times before I write it down correctly, but I’m pretty sure, when I hand over the piece of paper, it’s the correct number.

  “What about Ben?” I ask. I don’t know what exactly I mean. I just . . . I can’t give up yet. I can’t be at the call-someone-to-take-her-home-and-watch-her phase yet. We have to fight this, right? I have to find him and save him. How can I find him and save him?

  “The nurses have called the next of kin.”

  “What? I’m his next of kin.”

  “Apparently his driver’s license listed an address in Orange County. We had to legally notify his family.”

  “So who did you call? Who is coming?” But I already know who’s coming.

  “I will see if I can find out. I’m going to go phone Ana. I’ll be back shortly, okay?”

  I nod.

  In this lobby, I can see and hear other fa
milies waiting. Some look somber but most look okay. There is a mother with her young daughter. They are reading a book. There is a young boy holding an ice pack to his face next to a father who seems annoyed. There is a teenage couple holding hands. I don’t know why they are here, but judging from the smiles on their faces and the way they are flirting, I can only assume it’s not dire and I . . . I want to scream at them. I want to say that emergency rooms are for emergencies and they shouldn’t be here if they are going to look happy and carefree. I want to tell them to go home and be happy somewhere else because I don’t need to see it. I don’t remember what it feels like to be them. I don’t even remember how it feels to be myself before this happened. All I have is this overwhelming sense of dread. That and my anger toward these two little shitheads who won’t get their smiles out of my fucking face.

  I hate them and I hate the goddamn nurses, who just go on with their day like it isn’t the worst one of their lives. They make phone calls and they make photocopies and they drink coffee. I hate them for being able to drink coffee at a time like this. I hate everyone in this entire hospital for not being miserable.

  The man in the red tie comes back and says that Ana is on her way. He offers to sit down and wait with me. I shrug. He can do whatever he wants. His presence brings me no solace, but it does prevent me from running up to someone and screaming at them for eating a candy bar at a time like this. My mind flashes back to the Fruity Pebbles all over the road, and I know they will be there when I get home. I know that no one will have cleaned them up because no one could possibly know how horrifying they would be to look at again. Then I think of what a stupid reason that is for Ben to die. He died over Fruity Pebbles. It would be funny if it wasn’t so . . . It will never be funny. Nothing about this is funny. Even the fact that I lost my husband because I had a craving for a children’s cereal based on the Flintstones cartoon. I hate myself for this. That’s who I hate the most.

  Ana shows up in a flurry of panic. I don’t know what the man in the red tie has told her. He stands to greet her as she runs toward me. I can see them talking but I can’t hear them. They speak only for a second before she runs to my side, puts her arms around me. I let her arms fall where she puts them, but I have no energy to hug back. This is the dead fish of hugs. She whispers, “I’m sorry,” into my ear, and I crumble into her arms.