Just beyond the Russell town line, the rambling Westfield River came into view. It was a spectacular sight, and Julie followed Sam into a scenic pullout. She dismounted and removed her helmet, shaking her head to let her long, chestnut hair tumble to her shoulders.
“I find it so insanely hot every time you do that,” Sam said after removing his own helmet.
“And this is so insanely beautiful.”
Julie took an invigorating breath. Already some flashes of color were brushed upon the leaves of the vast forest, just beyond the riverbank. The fall was always Julie’s favorite season-a time for renewal and optimism, and of course pumpkin everything. This would be the first year Trevor had no plans to go trick-or-treating. Julie was surprised that this made her feel a little sad.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a phone call from Paul. “Hi, what’s going on?”
Paul said, “Trevor has to do a book report and wants to know if you can pick up the book for him at the library.”
Julie kept her annoyance in check. “Paul, I’m in the Berkshires. I believe you have the same access to a library as do I. And why wouldn’t he want to go to a library? There’s no place better.”
“I’m working on a sculpture and Trevor’s enjoying helping.”
Her jaw tightened. “You better not be giving my son a blowtorch,” Julie said.
“No. You made your feelings about that quite clear.”
“Well then, let me make this clear to you, as well. Don’t be lazy. Go take your son to the library. Give him a hug from me. I’ll see you both tonight.”
“But-”
“Good-bye, Paul.” Julie ended the call.
Sam gave Julie a wry smile. “You really are a great ex, you know that?”
“My mother taught me how to do it right. She had plenty of practice.”
“Third time’s the charm.”
“Paul means well. He’s just a little, I don’t know-immature, I suppose.”
For all of Paul’s deficiencies, he loved his son. Julie was happy that she and Paul kept a cordial relationship. She could wish all she wanted for Paul to be more mature, more reliable, more dependable. Then again, they were divorced for good reason. Paul might not have had full-blown Peter Pan syndrome, but indications of the condition were certainly there.
In college, Paul’s carefree attitude, his spontaneity, his joie de vivre, had captured Julie’s heart. Years later, and especially after Trevor was born, what had been endearing turned frustrating. Julie was all for carefree moments, but on a daily basis, what she wanted most was a partner.
Many of Julie’s friends admired her ability to keep the acrimony to a minimum. She simply felt that it served no purpose. Trevor benefited from having two parents actively involved in his life.
“You know I rarely speak to Karen since our split,” Sam said, “but when I do it’s a lot less friendly.”
“You don’t have kids with her, so there’s less of a reason to keep up friendly relations,” Julie replied.
Sam gazed out at the rambling water, looking a bit wistful. “When we got married, I thought kids were in the plan.”
“She thought you were going to go work for your father’s company and become obscenely rich. I’ve said it before. It’s not a coincidence that as soon as you decided to become a teacher, Karen decided she didn’t want kids. It was emotional blackmail, nothing more.”
Sam got that faraway look in his eyes again.
“I love what I do, but I regret not becoming a father.”
“You’re great with kids and with Trevor,” Julie said.
“Speaking of Trevor, I bought the wood for the table we’re going to make. I can’t say he seems super excited to help me, but he didn’t say no, either.”
“He’ll come around eventually,” Julie said. “This is hard for him. It’s a big adjustment for us all.”
“I know I’m not Trevor’s father, and I would never try to replace Paul,” Sam said, “but I’m going to treat him like a son. That’s a pledge and a promise.”
A lump wormed into Julie’s throat. “Just another reason why you’re the man for me,” she said.
They rode the rest of the byway and got lunch at a cute restaurant Sam had found on Yelp. The journey home was easy and wonderful. Julie rode alongside Sam whenever possible, and otherwise kept a safe distance behind him. For those few hours, all her worries about Trevor, the pressures of her job, nagging concerns about selling her home and moving in with Sam receded to the back of her mind. The road liberated her from anxiety. She loved the feel of her bike, and admittedly took pleasure in the looks she got from other motorists. Her engine hummed like a finely tuned instrument. The vibration against her hands relaxed her muscles.
Everything about that moment was perfect.
CHAPTER 7
They left 95 to merge onto 109, a busy two-lane road that wound through a number of quiet suburbs. Sam’s home was ten minutes away. Julie planned to park her bike in Sam’s garage and drive her Prius into Cambridge, arriving in plenty of time to greet Trevor-with his library book, she hoped. Her electric car did not turn heads like her motorcycle, but she got occasional questions from people considering a purchase, and a few scowls from some who typecast her as a tree-hugging liberal.
A white Honda Civic, driving erratically in front of Sam, triggered Julie’s concern. The first sign of trouble came when the Civic swerved onto the shoulder where the road curved sharply. The car wheels chopped up dirt and gravel, kicking loose stone onto the road before the driver corrected the error. The sky had darkened enough so Julie could see light from a cell phone illuminate the driver in a bluish haze.
Damn menace, she thought.
Sam motored along behind the Civic while Julie slowed to put some distance between her bike and the distracted driver. She wanted Sam to do the same; sometimes he trusted that his riding skills would trump other people’s stupidity.
The road turned. Julie could not see around the bend, but she did note that the double yellow dividing line was a solid one.
Do not pass. Blind curve.
Maybe they need a line for “don’t look at your phone while driving,” she thought.
The Civic veered again to the right. Julie’s breaths came in short bursts. She suddenly felt unsteady on her bike as her anxiety spiked.
She glanced at the speedometer.
Forty.
She had no wiggle room if that Civic did something really foolish. Before Julie could honk out a warning to Sam, the Civic swerved yet again, this time steering into the left lane just at the point when the blind curve straightened.
Immediately, Julie saw what was coming down the road. A red pickup truck (Ford, Dodge, impossible to say) was headed right for the Civic. The world downshifted into slow motion.
Julie, who had sensed the danger, knew for certain that the Civic had drifted too far left to avoid a collision.
These cars are going to hit… slow down… pull off to the side of the road.
She braked, preparing to pull over. The driver of the pickup blared his horn and slammed on his brakes. The truck went into a skid and the Civic turned hard right. Long black skid marks marred the road where the Civic’s tires failed to gain traction. Sam braked maybe a second after Julie, but he was in front of her, closest to the coming crash.
The next moments happened fast, too fast to take it all in, and yet each brutal detail came at her like single frames of an advancing filmstrip. The pickup swerved to avoid a head-on collision, but the Civic smacked into the truck’s rear. There was a ferocious crunch of metal on metal. Glass shattered. The impact changed the trajectory of the pickup and sent it at an angle into the oncoming traffic. It crossed the highway dividing line and came shooting toward Sam like a half-ton missile.