Before The Sun Sets

Chapter 5

FIVE

Linda’s full-size vehicle was crunched mangled steel. The front hood stood folded up into a wrinkled triangle. All four tires were flat. At the rear of the car James watched as the fireman who had been on the trunk, and half inside the back end of the car crawled out. He climbed down.

“Careful, sir,” the fireman said. They made eye contact for just a moment, his lips pursed, and he dropped his eyes before he held out a hand. James took it and let the man assist him up onto the rear bumper. He knelt on the trunk. On his belly, he wiggled into the back end of the car through where the rear windshield once had been. Matthew still sat in a car seat. There wasn’t a car seat in the back of Linda’s car. There should have been a car seat. He wanted to look around. He couldn’t. Not yet. Not now. Linda.

His wife sat in the driver’s seat. There really was no back seat. The car had been crushed into little more than a two-seater. He saw the back of Linda’s head. She sat so still. So quietly.

“Linda?”

Her head swiveled slowly around. The whites of her eyes were blood-red. She twitched. Her lips quivered. “James. Jimmy!”

“Hey, babe.” He finagled his way deeper into the back of the car. There wasn’t much room. “Hey, honey.”

She cried. “Where’s Matthew?”

“He’s out there. They’ve got him.”

“He’s okay?”

“He’s gonna be fine.”

“He is?” Her body shivered. She looked as if she were freezing.

James’ eyes blurred. He gave his head a shake. He didn’t trust himself to speak. His voice would betray him. Linda looked at him, though, expecting an answer. “Yeah. He’s gonna be fine, honey. How are you?”

She smiled. Her eyes went wide. “I’m stuck,” she said and laughed. “There’s no pain, Jimmy. I’m not in any pain. I’m just stuck. Embarrassingly stuck. All of these people out there are making a huge fuss. I feel so foolish, like I just want to push open the door and get out and say ‘nothing to see here.’”

She laughed.

James tried laughing with her, desperately hoping it masked his crying. “You hate all of this attention, don’t you?”

“I do. You know I do.”

James pushed an arm over the front seats and found Linda’s hand.

“I’m scared though,” she said. All of her trembled. He could tell she couldn’t control the shaking. “I don’t know why, but I am so scared.”

“I know you are, honey. It’s going to be okay.”

“I mean, I am really scared, Jimmy.” Her bright smile faltered. The tears streamed down her cheeks.

Every time she told him she was scared, James saw Linda’s face. He remembered her sitting in the car, the emergency response vehicles all around them. He had tried comforting her, but he had known she would die. That wasn’t going to happen this time. “Hey, hey,” he said. “It’s going to be fine. Everything will be all right.”

“They’re going to take the engine off my legs, Jimmy,” she said. Her smile slowly shrank.

“I know they are, honey.” He kissed away the tear that rolled down her cheek.

She c****d her head to the side. “They told me when they do this it could be … bad. Bad for me.”

“It won’t be bad, Linda. These guys know what they’re doing.”

“But they said that. They told me it could be a shock to my body.”

He squeezed her hand. “Remember that time we remodeled the bathroom?”

She laughed. “You mean when you put up a mirror and new lights?”

“I call that remodeling.”

“I know you do, I know.” She sucked at the air around her, as if she couldn’t fill her lungs.

He wished he could wipe away his own tears. He didn’t want her seeing him this way. Scared. “I touched the light socket and volts shot through my body and I dropped the fluorescent bulb!”

“You should have heard you scream!”

“You helped me clean up the shards of glass.”

“And then you finished the installation.”

“Right. I finished the job. So let these guys take the engine off your legs, and if you go into shock I will be right there. We’ll get past this mess, just like we did then. Okay?”

She tried smiling. Her lips fell each time. He knew she wanted to be strong, appear brave. “Okay. And you’ll stay right here with me?”

“Where else would I go? I’m staying right here.”

“And Matthew’s fine?” Their four-year-old son.

“He’s all right.”

“I want to see him.”

James wanted to see their son, too. “The paramedics have him. He’s on his way to the hospital. Let’s get you out of this car, and then we can join him. Okay? We can all meet up at the hospital. You’d like that, right? All of us together?”

“Yeah. I’d like that.” Linda’s lips quivered. “We were bored in the rain, Jimmy. Stuck inside the house and all it was doing was raining. I told Matt we would do something fun. I told him we would go to the mall and ride the merry-go-round in the food court. That’s what we were going to do. We were going to go to the mall and ride the merry-go-round.”

“That sounds like it would have been fun. I say when we get out of here we do that. The three of us.”

“You have work. Mrs. Rollins—”

“I took the rest of the day off.”

“You did? Can you do that? I don’t want you getting into any trouble.” She smiled. “Matthew is going to be so excited! He was really looking forward to riding on the lion. I promised him frozen yogurt, too.”

“We’ll all go and ride the merry-go-round. And then we’ll all get frozen yogurt.”

“I’m taking the rest of the day off and if they want to fire me, they can fire me.”

Linda’s smile melted his heart. He loved this woman. “Matt is really going to be excited. I can’t wait to tell him.”

“Mr. Cantrell?” Dobbs stood just outside the car. He was leaning down toward Linda’s window.

“We’re ready, Dobbs. We’re ready,” he said. The lie came easy enough. He wasn’t ready. How could he ever be ready for something like this? He wished there was more room inside the car. There was no way of getting closer to his wife. “Look at me, Linda. Just keep looking at me.”

“I won’t look away from you, Jimmy.” She had blood in her mouth. It was on her teeth, coated her tongue.

“Okay. Okay. Look at me and don’t look away from me.”

James didn’t want to blink. He kept his eyes locked on his wife. He had no idea what the fire department was doing. He heard what sounded like chains, and chainsaws. The car sounded like it was being ripped apart. It was as if metal was crumbling. And he never blinked. He never looked away.

“I won’t look away,” Linda said in a whisper, “but Jimmy, I’m scared. I’m really scared.”

“Just look at me, honey. Okay? Just look at me.”

The car moved. It was pulled away from the wreck. And all of a sudden, the front of the car was gone.

“I won’t look away, Jimmy,” she said. The engine block lifted off Linda’s legs. There was a pause. A silence fell around them. Linda grinned. “It worked! Jimmy, tell me you love me.”

James felt overwhelmed. He’d prepared for the worst. “I told you everything would be okay!”

“Tell me you love me,” she whispered.

“Honey, you know I do,” he said.

“But tell me.” Her grip on his hand weakened. Her head lolled to one side. She let go of his hand.

“Linda,” he said. “Linda?”

Her eyes were open. They no longer looked at him. They looked past him. Vacant. Focused on some unseen nothingness. He touched her face and tilted her head towards him. Was she gone? She couldn’t be. He hadn’t told her that he loved her yet! “I love you, Linda! With all my heart, I love you.”

Could she still hear him? Had she heard him?

She died without hearing him tell her that he loved her.