John’s phone was quiet. The night before, he’d warned the show’s crew not to call.
“Unless someone’s dying,” he’d told them, quoting Margo, “find a way to handle it yourselves.” They weren’t complete idiots, he assured himself. The show was doing well. They could manage whatever came up. It was three fucking days.
Now, making up silly songs in the car, John glanced over at Margo. She was laughing the way she’d laughed with him at the party where they’d met. He hadn’t seen her laugh like that in—well, he couldn’t remember how long. She placed her hand on his neck, and he melted into it, responding in a way he hadn’t in—again, he couldn’t remember how long. The kids were jabbering away in the back. He felt a sense of peace, and an image popped into his mind. He imagined that his mom was looking down from heaven or wherever the hell she was, smiling at how well things had turned out for her youngest son, the one he’d always believed was her favorite. Here John was, with his wife and kids, now a successful television writer, heading to Legoland in a car full of laughter and love.
He remembered sitting in the back seat himself as a young boy, squeezed in the middle between his two older brothers, his parents in the front, his dad driving, his mom riding shotgun and navigating, all of them making up song lyrics and laughing their heads off. He remembered trying to keep up with his older brothers when it was his turn to add a line, and how his mom delighted in his wordplay.
“So precocious!” she’d exclaim each time.
John didn’t know what precocious meant. He assumed it was a fancy way of saying “precious”—and he knew that, to his mom, he was the most precious of the boys, not the “mistake” his brothers teasingly called him because he was so much younger than they were but instead, as his mom said, a “special surprise.” He remembered seeing his mom put her hand on the back of his father’s neck, and now Margo was doing this for him. He felt optimistic; he and Margo would find their way back to each other.
Then John’s phone rang.
The ringing phone was sitting on the console between him and Margo. John glanced at it. Margo gave him the death stare. John remembered his instructions to his staff to call only in case of emergency—unless someone’s dying. He knew that today’s shoot was on location. Had something gone wrong?
“Don’t,” Margo said.
“I just need to check who it is,” John replied.
“God damn it,” Margo hissed, the first time she’d sworn in front of the kids.
“Don’t ‘God damn it’ me,” John hissed back.
“We’ve been away only two hours,” Margo said, her voice rising, “and you promised you wouldn’t do this!”
The kids went silent, and so did the phone. The call had gone to voicemail.
John sighed. He asked Margo to look at the caller ID and tell him who had called, but she shook her head and turned away. John reached for the phone with his right hand. Then they collided with a black SUV coming straight at them.
Strapped in their booster seats were five-year-old Gracie and six-year-old Gabe. Irish twins, born just a year apart and inseparable. The loves of John’s life. Gracie survived along with John and Margo. Gabe, seated directly behind John and at exactly the point of impact, died at the scene.
Later, the police would try to piece together what had caused the tragedy. The two witnesses from nearby cars weren’t much help. One said that the SUV veered across the lane, taking the curve too quickly. The other said that John’s car didn’t adjust to the position of the SUV coming around the curve. The police determined that the driver of the SUV had a blood-alcohol level above the legal limit, and he was put in jail. Manslaughter. But John didn’t feel absolved. He knew that at the very moment the SUV had rounded the curve, he’d looked away for a millisecond—or he possibly had, though he thought his eyes had stayed on the road as he felt for the phone with his hand. Margo didn’t see the SUV coming either. She was looking out the passenger window, toward the ocean, fuming at John while refusing to check his phone.
Gracie couldn’t remember a thing, and the only person who saw what was about to happen seemed to be Gabe. The last time John heard his son’s voice, it was a piercing scream with one long word: “Daddyyyyyyy!”
The phone call, by the way, was a wrong number.
As I listen, I’m overwhelmed with heartbreak—not just for John but for his entire family. I’m holding back tears, but John, on the couch, has turned to face me now, and I see that his eyes are dry. He seems removed, distant, just as he had when he told me about his mother’s death.
“Oh, John,” I say, “that’s—”
“Yeah, yeah,” he interrupts, his tone a taunt, “it’s so sad. I know. It’s so fucking sad. That’s all everyone said when it happened. My mom dies. It’s so sad. My kid dies. It’s so sad. Obviously. But that doesn’t change anything. They’re still dead. Which is why I don’t tell people. And why I didn’t tell you. I don’t need to hear how fucking sad it is. I don’t need to see people’s faces get that sad, stupid look of pity. The only reason I’m telling you is that I had a dream the other night—you shrinks like dreams, right? And I haven’t been able to get it out of my head and I thought—”
John stops, sits up.
“Margo heard me scream last night. I woke up screaming at four in the fucking morning. And I can’t be doing shit like that.”
I want to say that what John sees in me isn’t pity at all—that it’s compassion and empathy and even a kind of love. But John doesn’t let anyone touch or be touched by him, which leaves him alone in already isolating circumstances. Losing somebody you love is such a profoundly lonely experience, something only you endure in your own particular way. I think about how gutted and alone John must have felt as a six-year-old when his mom died and then again as a dad when his own six-year-old died. But I don’t say that right now. I can tell that John’s feeling what therapists call flooded, meaning that his nervous system is in overdrive, and when people feel flooded, it’s best to wait a beat. We do this with couples when one person is so overwhelmed by anger or hurt that all he can do is lash out or shut down. The person needs a few minutes for his nervous system to reset before he can take anything in.
“Tell me about the dream,” I say.
Miraculously, he doesn’t balk. I notice that John isn’t fighting me right now, and he hasn’t once looked over at his phone today. He hasn’t even taken it out of his pocket. He simply sits up, folds his legs under him, takes a breath, and begins.
“So, Gabe is sixteen. I mean, he was, in the dream—”
I nod.
“Okay, so he’s sixteen and he’s taking his driving test. He’s been waiting for this day and now it’s here. We’re standing outside by the car in the parking lot at the DMV and Gabe looks so confident. He’s started to shave, and I see some stubble, and I notice how grown up he’s become.” John’s voice breaks.
“What was that like, seeing him so grown up?”
John smiles. “I felt proud. So proud of who he was. But also, I don’t know, sad. Like he was going to leave for college soon. Did I spend enough time with him? Had I been a good father? I was trying not to cry—in the dream, I mean—and I didn’t know if these were tears of pride or regret or . . . who the fuck knows. Anyway—”