Read Reservation Road for Free Online

it?”
    “Yes.”
    “How do you know if we didn’t stop?”
    “I know.”
    “It could still be alive.”
    “No, Sam. I’m telling you. I saw it happen.”
    “But—”
    “No, Sam. Believe me. Okay?”
    “I believe you, Dad.”
    That was the end of it. I felt numb. Dead. My son’s imagination had my dirty footprints all over it. We crossed the Bow Mills town line and drove down quiet tree-lined roads filled with people I used to know. I turned onto Larch Road and there at the end was my old house.
    The porch light clicked on the second my headlight showed in the driveway. The door opened and Ruth came rushing out to the edge of the porch. She had on a cardigan thrown loose over her bare shoulders and a long gingham dress and a pair of reading glasses dangling from a chain around her neck, banging against her breasts as she moved about.
    Not long after marrying Norris, Ruth had started dressing strangely, sometimes like an old schoolmarm and sometimes like a suburban beauty queen who’d once had a guest spot on
Hee
Haw
. Norris was in insurance and seemed to appreciate it. Personally, though, when I thought about my ex-wife at night, which occasionally I still did, she was wearing Levi’s if she was wearing anything. That was how it had been when we’d met in college, and for the first few years of our marriage. Ruth had looked as good in an old faded pair of Levi’s as any woman I’d ever known.
    I pulled to a stop, facing the porch, and immediately turned off the headlight. Darkness was what I wanted. But not Ruth: in her hand, I saw, was a foot-long Mag-Lite—heavy enough to double as a club should things get rough. She was down the porch steps in a flash and hurrying across the little lawn. I had run over one man’s boy and was holding on for dear life to my own, but as I watched her I couldn’t help thinking about how I’d laid the sod for that lawn and built that porch, how all of it had come from me and once been mine. It was petty and shaming.
    “Norris!” Ruth called, over her shoulder. “Norris!”
    Norris appeared at the door and hesitated. I had threatened to kill him once and maybe he was thinking about that now. Backlit from inside, in his Sunday-casual mode—a madras short-sleeved shirt and high-waisted slacks—he looked like one of those fun-park cardboard figures you throw baseballs at. He took a few more steps before stopping again.
    “Norris!” yelled Ruth. She was coming fast. Neither Sam nor I had moved to get out of the car. We were frozen men.
    “Looks like your mother’s a little upset,” I said.
    “Yeah.”
    “When she sees that eye she’s going to be a lot upset.”
    “I know.”
    “You and I will just have to weather the storm together.”
    He nodded. His face was pale in the darkness except around his right eye, where the skin was already coloring up pretty badly. I reached out and took his jaw gingerly in my hand. He winced and almost pulled away.
    “How’s the eye?”
    “It hurts. Is it a shiner?”
    I smiled. “Right. You’re a tough kid. Don’t forget about the ice.”
    “Okay.”
    “It was a good game, huh?”
    Before he could answer, Ruth yanked the door open on his side. I pulled my hand off Sam’s face as if he’d bitten me. She gathered him in her arms, saying, “Come here, baby,” and at the same time managed to shine the Mag-Lite directly in my eyes.
    “Ruth, get that light out of my eyes.”
    “Go to hell, Dwight.”
    “Ruth, goddamnit, turn that light off.”
    “He’d better be okay,” she said. “If he’s not okay, you’re in deep shit. Do you hear me? You’re in deep shit anyway.”
    “The light,” I said.
    But she wasn’t listening. She’d pulled Sam out into the open to better embrace him and check for damage. I got out of the car—I didn’t want to be sitting when she caught sight of his eye.
    “Hello, Norris,” I said.
    “Hello, Dwight.”
    “Sorry I’m late. The game ran sixteen innings.”
    Norris was a serious