a Red Sox T-shirt from the drawer, but Dylan’s voice rose in dismay. “Where’s my Dylan one?”
“In the hamper. You wore it yesterday.”
“I can wear it today, too.”
“Honey, it has Lívia’s spaghetti sauce all over it.”
“But it’s my good-luck shirt.”
His father had given him the shirt for his last birthday, along with an iPod loaded with songs sung by his namesake, hence “Blowin’ in the Wind” moments before. Deborah understood that it was Greg’s attempt to involve his son in something he loved himself. But the shirt had to be washed.
“What does Dad think of Lívia’s spaghetti sauce?” she asked.
“He hates it.”
Totally. “Think he’d like it on your shirt?”
“No, but she’s washing it too much. It’s getting faded.”
Deborah improvised. “Faded is good. Dad would agree with me on this,” she added to clinch it, sounding more sure than she was. Though not much taller than Deborah, Greg had cut an impressive figure with his thick sandy hair and designer clothes. But all that was gone. She didn’t know the man he was today—didn’t know what kind of man could leave his wife and children on a day’s notice.
“Can I call him now?” Dylan asked.
“Nuh-uh. Too early. You can call this afternoon.” She tussled the thick silk of his hair. “Put on the Red Sox shirt for now, and we’ll wash the other so it’ll bring you luck tomorrow.”
His eyes were sad. “Is Dad ever coming to one of my games?”
“He said he would.”
“I know why he isn’t. He hates baseball. He never played it with me. I hate it, too. I can’t see the ball.”
Deborah’s heart ached. “Even with the new glasses?”
“Well, I guess. But anyway, I sit on the bench most of the time.”
“Coach Duffy says you’ll play more next year. He’s counting on your being his right fielder once Rory Mayhan moves up a league. Honey? We need to get going or we’ll be late.”
Deborah was in the shower when the phone rang. Grace came into the bathroom and held the cordless up so her mother could see it. “You need to take this,” she cried shrilly.
Turning off the shower, Deborah grabbed the phone. It was the hospital calling to tell her that Cal McKenna had died.
Deborah felt her heart stop. When she could finally speak, her voice held panic. “Died? How?”
“A cerebral hemorrhage,” the nurse reported.
“But he had a brain scan when he was admitted. Why wasn’t it seen?”
“He wasn’t hemorrhaging then. We’re guessing it started yesterday. By the time the vital signs tipped us off, it was too late.”
Deborah didn’t understand what could have happened. She had checked the man herself on the road—no vital injuries, solid pulse. He had sailed through an initial surgery and regained consciousness. Dead didn’t make sense.
Clutching the towel around her, she asked, “Are you sure it’s Calvin McKenna?”
“Yes. They’ll be doing an autopsy later.”
Deborah couldn’t wait. “Who was on duty when this happened?”
“Drs. Reid and McCall.”
“Can I talk with one of them?”
“They’ll have to call you back. A multiple-car accident just came in. Can I give them the message?”
“Yes. Please.” She thanked the woman and disconnected.
Grace was in tears. “You said he wouldn’t die.”
Bewildered, Deborah handed her the phone and, wanting to cry herself, said, “I don’t know what went wrong.”
“You said his injuries weren’t life threatening.”
“They weren’t. Grace, this is a mystery to me.” She was badly shaken, struggling to make sense of it. “He was in stable condition. They saw nothing on the tests. I have no idea how it happened.”
“I don’t care how it happened,” the girl sobbed. “It was bad enough when I thought about seeing him in class, knowing I was the one who hit him, but now there won’t be any class. I killed him.”
“You didn’t kill him. Killing implies intent. It was an accident.”
“He’s still dead,” Grace wailed.
Death was a sidebar to Deborah’s job. She saw it often— fought it often. Calvin McKenna’s death was different.
She couldn’t think of a single useful thing to say. For her own comfort as much as her daughter’s, she simply wrapped her arms around Grace.
Deborah didn’t have the heart to make Grace go to school. The girl argued—rightly—that word would spread, and it seemed unfair to subject her to all that attention until they knew more. But neither of the doctors on call phoned back, which meant that there was little she could say to make Grace feel better.
There was no explanation for why the teacher had died— which was what she told Mara Walsh, the school psychologist, as soon as she came in. She and Mara often worked together with students struggling with anorexia or drug abuse, and, when a student had died of leukemia the year before, they jointly gathered a team of grief counselors.
Mara was shocked by today’s news. She asked questions Deborah couldn’t answer and shed little light on Calvin McKenna, other than to say that he had a Ph.D. in history— a surprise to Deborah, since he neither used the title nor listed the degree on the school website.
When Deborah hung up, she found Dylan listening. “Died?” he asked, his skin pale, eyes huge behind his glasses. Since his grandmother’s death three years before, he had known what death meant.
Deborah nodded. “I’m waiting for a call from his doctor to explain why.”
“Was he old?”
“Not very.”
“Older than Dad?”
She knew where he was headed. The divorce, coming only a year after Ruth Barr’s death, had compounded his sense of loss. “No. Not older than Dad.”
“But
