A Signature Gesture |
Issue 12
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All Chloe wanted was to get home and shut the door on the world. She was tired and irritable; the dinner that was supposed to have been her time to talk through a potential separation from her husband had turned, instead, into her friend being distracted by numerous interruptions from her children via cell phone. Chloe was exasperated that her friend hadn’t been able to pay attention, and now this accident was slowing everything to a crawl right when she was so close to her exit. It wasn’t helping her mood, either, that here on her right was this entitled jerk with his demanding gestures trying to merge into her lane when he hadn’t waited his turn like everyone else, and, screw it, she wasn’t going to let him in. Drumming her fingers impatiently on the steering wheel, Chloe stared straight ahead and kept her bumper exactly in line with his.
Up ahead, the dusk flashed blue-and-red from emergency vehicle lights, and the traffic had slowed to a crawl. Phosphorus flares sputtered and spit from their place on the asphalt as state patrolmen directed traffic from three lanes down into one. As the lanes merged, details began to take shape in the failing light. A state trooper in a yellow reflective vest. The fire truck parked diagonally across lanes to protect the emergency personnel working beyond it. A fireman placing orange traffic cones to form a perimeter. As Chloe passed the fire engine, the accident itself emerged from the dusk. It had been a bad year for deer strikes and she wasn’t surprised to see that this was the cause of the problem. As she inched past, two firemen approached a dead deer sprawled across the lane. A sedan nearby had a crushed front grill and a windshield smashed inward. Emergency workers buzzed around it assessing the driver still inside. Two other cars looked as if they had collided trying to avoid the first, and a fourth car appeared to have skidded into the gravel trying to avoid those. The airbags had deployed in the crashed cars and now hung like saggy, used prophylactics. On the side of the highway, a police officer was interviewing several people that Chloe assumed were the drivers of the crashed vehicles. In the purpling twilight, a familiar silhouette with his hand hooked around the back of his neck caught her attention. In the moment that Chloe recognized Ken and realized the car in the gravel had been a Miata like his, her attention was forced away again by the firemen grabbing the lifeless deer by its rear legs and dragging it off the highway. And then Chloe’s car was clear of the whole accident and, like greyhounds as the gates opened, the drivers in front of her were putting on bursts of speed to make up for the time they’d just lost. She, too, was stepping on her accelerator out of habit, even as she was trying to recall the state of her husband’s car. Should she pull over? Her exit was already in sight up ahead. Nothing about the way Ken had been standing suggested that he was hurt, and she didn’t recall any EMTs standing with the group talking to the police. Would Ken even have his phone on him, or would he have left it in the car when he got out? Before she could think it through, she was turning into their driveway. She decided the best thing to do was to wait. Once inside the house, she moved purposefully, switching on lights in every room. In the kitchen, she took a bottle of white wine from the refrigerator and placed it on the counter, cell phone in hand. After a moment’s reflection, she took down a wine glass and filled it for herself. When the phone rang some minutes later, she hit the talk button immediately. "Ken?” she said, even though the caller I.D. had already told her so. “Hi, yes,” he said. “Don’t panic. I’ve been in an accident.” “Yes, are you alright?” “Just a long skid,” Ken reassured her. “But the car is being towed. Can you come pick me up?” She was already heading for the door, scooping up her purse and keys as she went. “Yes, of course, I’ll be right there.” She pulled the front door shut behind her, took the phone from between her ear and neck, and ended the call. She knew she’d be able to get to the accident faster by circling around on the back roads to the exit before it, but once there, she ironically found herself depending on some commuter’s kindness as she tried to merge into the single-lane of traffic again. Nearing the accident site a second time, Chloe considered pulling off the road where the action was, but then thought it would be safer to be on the other end of the accident where Ken could safely walk down the highway to her. As she inched by the accident again, she saw that the cars had been moved to the side of the highway now and the ambulance was gone. The road was peppered with broken tail light glass, bits of chrome, and black fiberglass. The firemen stood by their engine, waiting for a signal to collect the traffic cones. Ken was still standing where she’d last seen him. She thought about honking to get his attention, but decided against it at the last second, not wanting to startle anyone. Instead, she pulled over onto on the side of the highway once she was clear of the accident and called Ken from there. He came walking toward her out of the gloom, a piece of white paper clutched in his hand, his phone in the other. She leaned over and pushed open the door for him. As Chloe put the car into gear, a tow truck pulled away with the Miata hiked up behind it like the failed stinger of a wasp. Silently, they watched it go. Chloe pulled out behind it. When their exit emerged out of the Westchester night, she put her blinker on and took it. They didn’t speak until they were back in the driveway, the engine switched off. Chloe wondered whether it would be hypocritical at this point to make some gesture of overture, but then she decided that human decency and respect for the many years they’d been together made it acceptable and she reached out for Ken’s hand and took it, squeezing it reassuringly to let him know she was listening. Ken’s voice seemed tentative and unsure as he told her how the grays and purples of the dusk had flared suddenly with red lights as the drivers in front of him hit their brakes. He described the way time had elongated as his brain did the calculations of distance and impact and how to avoid it, the long moment of the skid felt in the seat of his pants as much as anything, the sound of metal crushing ahead of him, and horns blaring, his jaw clenched against the impact he thought was coming, the breath held long after his car had come to a stop half on and half off the road. “I think that driver may be dead,” he said. They sat in the dark car, the welcoming lights on either side of the front door barely penetrating the gloom of the interior. Inside, she offered him the glass of wine she’d poured for herself, but he shook his head, choosing instead to pour himself two fingers of scotch. He drank it standing at the bar table. She had the distinct impression it might embarrass him to feel she was observing him, so Chloe swirled the wine in her glass and avoided looking at him. After downing the drink, Ken remained at the bar staring at the wall, glass in hand. She had a vision of him being loaded into an ambulance, of herself wearing black. It distressed her, surprisingly so. She put her glass down on a side table and went to stand behind him, laying her hands on his shoulders and laying her forehead between his shoulder blades to reassure herself. They sat on the sectional and ate the Chinese leftovers from the day before. She turned on a television show which she knew he liked, but when Chloe glanced over, she saw Ken’s eyes scanning the screen without focus, his plate propped on one knee, empty of food as his face was empty of expression. She thought of the accusations they had made of one another in counseling: that he had become unapproachable, that she refused to let him in. It was later, while she was propped up in bed, flipping disinterestedly through the latest issue of Conde Nast’s Traveler, that she realized that she was not hearing the familiar sounds of Ken’ puttering around the bathroom. She lowered the magazine, index finger propping the pages apart. She was already looking his way when the bathroom door opened. He hadn’t bothered to wrap a towel around his waist and there was something upsetting about his nakedness as he stood there, flaccid and hesitant. She noted that his pubic hair was going gray and saw that a bruise from the seatbelt was just starting to appear across his chest, its aggrieved blue hue suggesting depths hidden in the man. “You said yes,” Ken broke into her thoughts. “Yes?” Chloe replied, puzzled. “When I called to say that I’d been in an accident. You said yes.” He shuffled uncomfortably. “You knew where the accident was.” “I passed it on the way home. I saw the car.” Ken paused, turned his hands over, examined the palms. Thinking he was done, Chloe was about to return her gaze to her magazine when he spoke again. “You didn’t stop.” “What?” “You said you saw the car.” “Yes.” “You didn’t stop to see if I was alright,” he said. There was a question in it. “I –” she began. She looked down at the magazine. It was advertisement for an expensive Caribbean honeymoon getaway. The brilliant azure sky, the clear turquoise waters of the picture seemed photoshopped to her. She rubbed her finger against the page, half-expecting the color to come off. When she looked up again, Ken was rubbing the bruise on his chest. Chloe wondered if maybe she should have brought him to the hospital after all, but then he cupped the back of his neck in what she’d come to think of as his signature gesture. It was a gesture, along with all the other gestures through the years, that she’d always understood as vacillation, but seeing her naked husband square his shoulders decisively as he turned from her, she wondered if maybe she’d misunderstood. She wondered if things would have been different if she had thought to ask. |
Elizabeth Rosen is a native New Orleanian, and a transplant to small-town Pennsylvania. She misses fried oyster po-boys and telling tall tales on the front porch, but has become deeply appreciative of snow and colorful scarves. Read more of her work at www.thewritelifeliz.com
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