Thursday

A PERSISTENT FOUR-TONED GONG rings in my ears and I am suddenly back in the dusty courtyard of the École de Sainte Thérèse de Lisieux in Cameroon and the church bell is announcing the end of the school day. The children are shouting, their deafening din rising in the hot air as they break ranks and run wildly about—but not me, I remain firmly in line. The nuns have rulers and they'll smack you hard but most of the kids don't care. The tolling doesn't stop and I know this doesn't make sense because the bells only toll on the hour at Sainte Thérèse and school ends at four. My eyes flutter open and above me the incandescent solar system and stars of Tenney's ceiling glow dimly. I must have fallen asleep while scratching her back.

It's the doorbell, the sound growing more impatient. Beau must be a little drunk. Sometimes he can't manage the lock. I glance at the Winnie the Pooh clock. It's 3:35 a.m. I lift my hand to my forehead. I have written on my palm: Ne lui dis pas qu'il boit trop. I don't need this reminder, I never tell him he drinks too much.

I rush down the hallway, pulling tight the unraveling knot on my robe's belt. As I'm about to open the front door, I notice a line of white masking tape stuck to the door just at my eye level and on it are the words: Ne lui demande pas où il était. Of course I won't ask him where he was, though the impulse to blurt it out is always present and that's why I have to warn myself. I rip the tape off and ball it up, putting it in my pocket, rolling it around to get it off my fingertips. I take a moment to gather myself, prepare my unconcerned, relaxed face for him, and open the door.

But it's not Beau.

Two large, uniformed policemen stand there, one pale and blue-eyed, the other dark.

"Mrs. Huntley?"

"Yes?"

They wear short-sleeved uniforms that expose their bulging forearms. The policemen's eyes seem already old in their smooth, unlined faces, and they are scowling at me with such grave expressions I'm once again reminded of Sainte Thérèse de Lisieux and the stern faces of the nuns.

The pale one, whose name is Johnston, says, "Mrs. Huntley, may we come in?"

"Yes, of course, come in." I step aside. If Beau got pulled over for drunk driving again, this time they probably arrested him and I'm going to have to go pick him up. He'll be absolutely furious. Anticipating his rage, my face grows hot, my heart starts to pound, my mouth goes dry.

"Please, Mrs. Huntley, sit down," the young policeman says, guiding me into the living room where I perch myself expectantly on the armrest of the couch. "I'm sorry to have to tell you this, Mrs. Huntley, but your husband was in a car accident and he didn't make it."

For a moment I am so stunned I can't even speak. My first thought is: It's over. I work hard to force my face muscles into an appropriate expression of horror.

"Hit a tree head-on," says the other policeman, Officer Gutierrez. "He probably didn't feel a thing."

I stand, and I stumble, as if my knees can't hold me at this news, and Officer Gutierrez takes my elbow to steady me. "Please sit down, Mrs. Huntley," insists the young man, so I sit back down on the armrest.

Officer Johnston clears his throat. "Look. You may as well know this now because you're going to find it out soon enough. There was a girl in the car."

My mum used to say, Lying is necessary. Not only necessary, but good. When you tell a lie, make sure you keep it as close to the truth as possible, because it will be easier to remember. The problem is, right now I'm having a little trouble remembering what's a lie, and what's the truth.

Officer Gutierrez reaches into his pocket and pulls out a little notebook and reads: "LouKeesha Smalls. L-o-u-K-e-e-s-h-a. Do you know this person?"

Just last weekend we were at that place the Blue Bayou with Bucky and Bucky's wife, Jocelyn. LouKeesha was Beau and Bucky's favorite waitress and they loved to banter back and forth with her. I do my best to look positively stunned.

"She's ... LouKeesha's a waitress at the Blue Bayou," I tell the officer helpfully.

The young men glance at each other. They must think I'm a fool. I'm sure they feel sorry for me, the Yankee in the Court of King Beau. My mum always said, Acting like a damsel in distress is often extremely useful, just as long as you realize it's just an act.

"What is it?" I ask, my voice tight in my throat.

"Well," Officer Johnston sighs deeply, "she was killed too."

"Oh God, no! That poor girl, she was so young!" They just stare at me and it's clear what they are thinking.

"He was probably giving her a ride home," I explain. "That's the way Beau was—always going out of his way for people."

Officer Gutierrez snorts. I would like to snort myself right now. He shakes his head, making a wincing face. "Uh ... it's gonna be a little hard to explain ..."

In my mind I have a vision of that scene in The World According to Garp. They seem a little perplexed, almost frowning, and I realize I'm giggling. I'm having an attack of nerves. I shake my head and cover my face with my hands.

In a kind of stunned stupor I sit while they explain that I will need to identify the body later on and they warn me Beau's in pretty bad shape. They want me to call someone to come sit with me but I don't want to call anyone. I just need a little time to think by myself, before the sun comes up. The real cataclysm is that Tenney's life will never be the same. And I have tried so hard to keep this ship afloat. All along I was dancing to the band and the deck was tilting beneath my feet.

Eventually I get them out the door and I tiptoe back to Tenney's room. She's lying on her stomach, her left hand hanging off the bed in a fist, her silver medical-alert bracelet glinting in the yellow glow of her night-light. Poor Tenney. What am I going to tell her? I slip under her quilt and snuggle up to her warm body. I can feel her rib cage through her nightgown. She's so thin. I nestle my face into the back of her head and breathe in her little-girl scent. She is too young to understand that we are free.

The phone is ringing. I sit up, suddenly remembering. It's 8:28 a.m. by her Winnie the Pooh clock.

The phone rings and rings, and after a while voice mail picks up. I can hear murmurs but not words.

Two more calls. I get up, tiptoe out, shut the door. The cordless phone and its built-in answering machine stand in the hall on a delicate cherry wood console table. The phone trills again. "Hi, honey, it's Jeanne-Wallace, are you there?" Beau's executive assistant, that slut. "Pick up, honey. Please." Her high, sweet voice is shaky and uncertain. "Merryn, ah am so, so sorry, ah don't even know what to say. A reporter called ..." Jeanne-Wallace starts to cry, and through her hiccuping says that Bucky is away on business in Houston and she's got to call him immediately but she wanted to check in with me first. She'll call me back in a few minutes to see if there's anything she can do, anything I need ...

Ringing again. This time it's Bucky's wife. Jeanne-Wallace must have already called her. Of course she'd call Jocelyn, the Dallas cowgirl, before she'd call me, the Yankee. I pick up the phone.

"Oh, honey," says Jocelyn Buckingham, "Ah am so sorry."

"Thank you." Suddenly I feel choked up.

"Ah...