Page 13 of The Wrong Track

I scoured the newsletters, the cast lists of plays, bulletins about community service projects. Lily’s name came up again and again, so involved and always a leader. Tears also bubbled up, but I brushed them away and moved to my next project.

I learned that it was too easy to find someone’s address. I would have to be very, very careful when I moved—but Kilian was dead, I reminded myself. He was, because I’d even seen the picture, and today, with the sun shining, I could convince myself that it wasn’t some deepfake stunt. But even if the picture had been real, it didn’t mean I could ever let down my guard, because he was just one of many. There were all too many guys out in this world who were exactly like him, and I’d already met some of them. I knew them very personally.

This librarian didn’t look up as I left, which was good, much better than Beth Ellen checking on me. I walked carefully in the parking lot in case this one was icy too, before I got into the car and drove over to the address I’d found.

It was a nice street. Typical, like it could have been in any American town. I looked at the trees and houses lining it, which were not too big or too small. One or two still had some Christmas lights up but they were mostly neat and tidy, the snow shoveled out of the driveways and off the sidewalks, some with smoke coming out of the chimneys in the darkening sky.

There were lights illuminating the house at the address I’d found at the library. There were lots of cars in the driveway and several more parked along the curb at the street. If I hadn’t known about the accident, I would have thought that there was a party going on here. I slowed slightly and looked at the red shutters, the matching front door, the brown shingles on the roof and the white boards of the siding. Tobin’s grandpa had gotten a good house, I decided. It reminded me a lot of my own grandmother’s place, not because it looked the same, but because it was just very square and ordinary. Normal. I liked it.

The red front door opened and I quickly faced forward and drove away, accelerating until I remembered Hazel’s tips for winter driving. Then I went slowly for the rest of the way home, to my temporary rental. It didn’t feel normal at all.

∞

The next day, Sunday, I was back on that same street again. I drove just as slowly as the night before, this time because I wasn’t exactly sure what I was doing there. Hazel had called and asked me to stop by and since the library was closed, I didn’t have anywhere else to take myself. So I figured I’d go.

I was a little curious, just a little. To see the inside of the house, that was what I was curious about, and also to find out why Hazel had wanted me to come. There were fewer vehicles than the day before but I recognized her little car parked in the driveway. I pulled up to the curb instead, ready to go if I needed to, and I walked carefully to the door. Tobin’s pathway was neatly shoveled and I felt big crystals of salt crunch under my feet. I knocked carefully, two times, and waited for a moment, still ready to leave.

Hazel opened the door and a rush of heat met me. It felt wonderful. “Remy!” she announced. “Come on in. I’m so glad you’re here.” And I was very glad to come inside because it had started to snow again. “Can I take your coat?”

She could, because it was plenty warm inside this house. “Thanks,” I said as she hung it on a hook next to the one I recognized as Tobin’s. Her eyes went to my stomach and I adjusted my sweater, pulling it around from the back so it would bag more over my front. For work, I’d been wearing all my pants unbuttoned and unzipped but when I was off, I wore sweatpants. The ones I had on today were nice and shapeless.

“Have you eaten?” she asked, because this was Hazel and she always wanted to feed me.

“I’m good.” My eyes took in everything as we went into the living room. There was a fireplace and a black leather couch and some steel and glass looking stuff to make up the rest of the furniture. It was decorated like a guy lived here for sure but I could picture the room with cozy furniture, a different color from the sickly whitish-yellow paint on the walls, something over the windows other than a sheet held up with blue tape like he had now. It was a nice room even without those improvements, though.

“Come on,” Hazel said, gesturing me down a little hall. I followed her slowly into a bedroom.

A woman sat next to the bed, a woman who had probably been blonde but was now mostly grey, and she stared at me with an expression that made me think I’d made a mistake in coming here. But the man reclined on that bed was smiling at me, even though his face was so pale that it was almost the same color as the fresh snow outside.

“Hey,” Tobin greeted me. “Remy, have you met my mom? This is Charlene Whitaker,” he announced, and the woman seated next to him waved slightly, not looking any happier to see me.

“Hello,” I told her. I looked at Tobin’s leg, in a big boot and resting on a pile of pillows. “Does that hurt?”

“Doesn’t feel great,” he said. “I have to go back to get it set in a cast. That should be fun.”

I watched Hazel get very worried so I said, “You’ll just shake it off. No big deal.”

His mom, Charlene, frowned at me. “It is a big deal because he has fractures in both his lower leg bones. It will take months to heal.”

“Thanks, Mom. Haze, at least now I know how it feels to get hit by a car.” He held up his palm for her to slap. “Twins, right?”

No one laughed and in fact, Hazel looked as if she were going to cry. And Charlene glared at me, like I was at fault.

Ok, my curiosity was satisfied: I’d seen the house, I’d seen Tobin. Yes, I could admit that I’d wanted to see him for myself, but now I had. I started to back out of the room, stepping slowly and carefully so the movement couldn’t be immediately detected.

“Mom, can you get me some water?” he asked. “And maybe something to eat?”

Her face relaxed a little. She was worried about him, I realized, not mad. That was how you would look if your child was hurt, even if he was old. Older than I was, anyway. She nodded and got up, and Hazel, who was not tricky at all, looked between Tobin and me and got a funny, furtive expression on her face.

“I’m going to help Charlene,” she announced a fraction too loudly, and scooted out the door.

“Haze has no game,” Tobin said. “She’s the worst liar on the planet.” He sounded like he was glad, though. “She knew I wanted to talk to you. Can you sit down so I can see you better?”

I did, in the chair that his mother had been in. I wondered what he would want to talk about as I pulled the sweater again, fluffing it in the front. Close up, he looked so tired, and I could see what I recognized as pain on his face. Like how you looked when you were trying to hide it. “Are you taking anything?” I asked him. “Do you need it now?”

“I’m ok.” He moved his hips and his lips turned a little whiter. “This came out of nowhere,” he told me. “Literally. With the snow falling so hard, we didn’t see the car coming until it was on top of us. I would have pulled that guy out of the way if I had.” He sighed.

Hazel had told me that the stranded motorcyclist was doing better. I thought that Tobin really would have tried to save that guy, though, because I’d seen how nice he had been to the man throwing the fit in the library. It would have been easy enough to just grab him and drag him out of the media room and onto the sidewalk. If your arm was held and twisted in the right way, it hurt so much that it felt like the bone was going to break. It hurt so much that you would give in and you’d do anything to make it stop. But sometimes, your bone broke anyway because the person twisting it enjoyed seeing you suffer.