It happened twenty years ago on New Year’s Eve when I was seventeen.
We were driving home from Amy Lassiter’s party.
A stark and cold and moonlit night.
Sean was behind the wheel and I’d closed my eyes, exhausted from cross-country skiing most of the afternoon.
I knew Sean had been drinking a little at the New Year’s Eve party, but we hadn’t been hanging out together and I wasn’t sure how much he’d had.
I never saw the deer.
He swerved, lost control of the car on the icy road, and we spun into the other lane, where an oncoming vehicle struck us, smashing into my side of the car and whipping us around toward the shoulder. We skidded toward the side of the road into a snowbank, which was probably the only thing that kept us from rolling over.
Sean and I both walked away from the crash, but the driver of the other car, a fifty-one-year-old woman named Nancy Everson, didn’t make it.
I never saw the deer.
At the time, the responding officers hadn’t questioned Sean’s story about why he swerved and, as far as I knew, hadn’t asked him if he’d been drinking at the party or done a Breathalyzer test. If they had, none of it raised any suspicions.
In the flickering swathes of emergency vehicle lights, I’d watched the paramedics roll the gurney with Mrs. Everson’s motionless body onto the ambulance. Then, troubled and deeply saddened, I looked away to the side of the road.
The moon was bright, and I expected to see deer tracks, but the field of snow looked pristine, unblemished.
Excusing myself for a moment from the paramedic who’d just checked Sean and was now approaching me, I walked closer to the side of the road.
No tracks.
I crossed the road and took some time to study the snow stretching beyond the other shoulder but saw no sign that a deer had recently fled across the field on that side either.
A week later, after Mrs. Everson’s funeral, I’d brought it up to Sean. “Which side of the road did you say the deer came from?”
“The right.”
“The right.”
He looked at me oddly. “Yes. Why?”
My heart was racing. I had one more question, and though I didn’t want to ask it, I did. “How much did you have to drink that night, Sean?”
I could tell by his silence that he was reading all the subtext of my words, and for a long time he didn’t speak. When he did, his voice had turned cold. “I only had two beers.”
I hadn’t replied. What could I say?
Whatever else Sean might have known about what happened that night, he kept to himself.
But things were different between us after that. He retreated into himself, and his normally infrequent outbursts of anger became more common, more pronounced. Everyone else believed it was from unnecessary guilt about the accident, but I’d always wondered if maybe the guilt was deserved.
Since then, the two decades of unwieldy silences had only deepened the rift in our relationship.
“Pat?” Amber said.
Her word jarred me back to the moment. “I’m sorry?”
She and Sean were staring at me.
“I was telling Sean how you might be teaching at the Academy again.”
“Possibly,” I said absently, still caught up somewhat in my thoughts. “Yes. I might.”
We talked for a few minutes about the Academy and how the move to DC might affect Tessa, especially if we left Denver before the end of the school year.
“She tells me it doesn’t matter, that she’s cool with it if I want to go.”
“She might be saying that just because she wants you to be happy,” Sean observed.
“True,” I admitted, a bit reluctantly. “You might be right.”
At about ten minutes to 1:00, Jake interrupted by calling to tell me he was going into a meeting with Ellory and then had a phone interview with Director Wellington to brief her on what we knew. His press conference must have gone well; he sounded in high spirits. “I don’t think I can make it to the sawmill by 2:00. Maybe 2:15, 2:30 at the earliest.”
“Okay. I’ll get a ride over there. See you when you get there.”
After we hung up, Sean, who’d heard my side of the conversation, said, “No ride, huh?”
“I’m trying to get to the Pine Shadow Sawmill.”
“Where Donnie worked.” Again, past tense.
“Yes.”
Amber spoke up. “I’ll be heading that way. I can swing you by.”
Okay, this was awkward.
“It’s been awhile since I’ve been on a snowmobile,” I hinted to Sean.
He thought for a moment. “Sure, I can give you a ride over there, introduce you to the guys. Sometimes people around here… Well, let’s just say you’ll make more progress if they know you’re the brother of someone local.”
“I’d appreciate that.”
“Randy’s watching the shop this afternoon. I just need to give him a call, let him know where I’m gonna be.”
“Give him my cell number,” I suggested, but before I could hand Sean my phone, Amber gave him hers. I jotted down my number on one of the napkins sitting on the table. Slid it to Sean so he could pass it along.
While he turned aside to talk to Randy, Amber turned to me. “I should give you my number too. In case you need to get ahold of me.”
“Okay.” She’d texted me earlier, but I confirmed that the number I had was correct, then Sean said good-bye to Randy and gave his wife back her cell. “We’re all set.”
We stood; I reached for my wallet, but Sean held up his hand. “I got it.”
Although I had the urge to argue, I accepted. “Thanks.”
“My sled’s right outside. I don’t have an extra helmet, but-”
“I’ve got one in my trunk,” Amber offered. “It might smell like a girl, but you’re welcome to use it.”
Sean laid some bills on the table. “All right. Let’s go. I just need to fill up on gas and we can take off.”
As we walked outside, a few isolated snowflakes drifted through the wind and found their way to the ground.
Though still in its infancy, the snowstorm had arrived.