I felt dizzy. I gripped the arms of my chair. “So, Gord Esterhasz…”
“Was in the car with me. Along with Frankie Goorevitch. My best friends.”
“But…you said their names were Randle McMurphy and Ben Willard.”
“I lied.”
My brain could not compute what he was saying. Ferdinand sat on my lap, purring loudly, oblivious.
“I’ve wanted to tell you so many times.”
“Tell me now.”
And so he did. Parts of his original story were true. There’d been a basketball game, near Barrie, Ontario. Gord had driven them up in his mom’s station wagon.
But there were parts he’d made up. Parts he’d left out.
They were invited to a party after the game. Jacob and Frankie had just wanted to head home. But Gord wanted to go, and it was his car. So they agreed to go for an hour.
There were kegs at the party. Jacob had a few drinks. He didn’t think anything of it. Gord was their designated driver.
But Gord got loaded. He could barely stand up. Frankie was pretty drunk, too.
The three of them decided that Jacob would drive.
It was snowing a lot when they left. Gord got in the backseat. Frankie sat up front. Jacob thought he was being careful. He made sure everyone was buckled up. He drove the speed limit.
They’d been on the highway for about twenty minutes when it happened. Jacob thought they hit a patch of black ice, but he’d never know for sure. He just remembered losing control of the car. It hit the guardrail and spun. It flipped a bunch of times.
Jacob lost consciousness. When he came to, he was trapped inside the ruined car, his arm pinned under a pile of crushed metal. Frankie was beside him, unresponsive.
He couldn’t see into the back. But even if he could have, he wouldn’t have seen Gord. Gord had unbuckled his seat belt so he could stretch out and sleep. He’d been thrown through the windshield like a rag doll, landing thirty meters from the car.
He died on impact.
The first responders used the Jaws of Life to get Jacob and Frankie out of the car. They were taken to the hospital in the same ambulance. Jacob woke up without his arm. Frankie was paralyzed from the waist down.
Jacob was charged with impaired driving causing death. His parents hired a really good lawyer. She argued that there were extenuating circumstances, that it could have been black ice, not driver error, that caused the crash. In the end, though, the judge found Jacob guilty and sentenced him to a year in a youth facility.
As in jail, basically.
Jacob didn’t tell me much about his time in juvenile detention, except to say he was on suicide watch for months.
I guess it explained why he didn’t like to be in enclosed spaces.
Gord’s mom started to post stuff on Jacob’s Facebook page and sent him weekly letters with Bible scripture, telling him he was going to burn in hell. She thought he’d got off too easy.
He was released after six months, in November. His parents moved in December. They had been working on getting job transfers ever since the trial. They wanted to give Jacob a fresh start.
Jacob deleted all his social media accounts, which explained why I hadn’t been able to find him. He told me his name never popped up in association with the accident or court case because he was a juvenile and his identity was protected.
His parents didn’t leave a forwarding address and their phone numbers were unlisted. But Mrs. Esterhasz found them anyway. In February the letters had started arriving again.
My brain struggled to compute everything Jacob had just told me. It was far too much to absorb. “Why did you give your friends fake names?”
“I didn’t want you to have anything to Google.”
“Is that why you said they both died?”
“I guess. I don’t know.”
“But I told you the truth about Maxine. Every last detail.”
“Yes. But you don’t look like a monster at the end of that story.”
The voice in my head was getting louder. If he lied about this, what else did he lie about?
“I was afraid you’d judge me,” he continued. “You and the others.”
“We wouldn’t have judged you.”
He shook his head. “Not true. If I’d told you what I’d done from the start, you would have seen me in a totally different light. I wouldn’t have been Jacob. I would have been Jacob, the Drunk Driver Who Killed His Friend.” He knelt down in front of me and grabbed my hands. Ferdinand leapt from my lap. “That’s where we’re different. Maxine’s death wasn’t your fault. But with my friends…it was my fault. I’ve lived with the weight of this every day. And then I met you, and Ivan, and Koula, and Alonzo…you were all seeing the me that I was before the accident.”
“They opened up to you, too.”
“I know. And I listened. I got to know them. I got to know you. And in my own small way I tried to help. Do some good deeds. I tried to be like Clarence Odbody.”
“Who?”
“The angel who wants to earn his wings in It’s a Wonderful Life.”
I could hear and feel my heart pounding. “So you tried to turn your new Vancouver life into the plot of a movie.”
“No. I don’t know.”
“And the rest of us were supporting characters.”
“No! Of course not. Look, nothing I do will take away what happened. But at least when I was focused on helping you and the others I could feel okay about myself for brief moments of time.”
A truly awful thought struck me. “Does this mean I was a good deed?”
What he did next broke my heart.
He hesitated.
“Oh my God.” The room tilted sideways. I hadn’t had a fainting spell in months and I really didn’t want to have one now.
“Listen to me, Petula. Yes, at first, I thought I could help you get over some of your irrational fears. Help you loosen up a bit—”
“Loosen up?” A wave of nausea crashed over me. Suddenly everything made so much sense.
“But then I started falling for you, and all your quirks. I fell for you big-time—”
“Why should I believe you? How can I believe you?”
“Because it’s me. You can trust me.”
I lost it. “Listen to yourself! You lied to me, Jacob, you lied to all of us. I mean, Jesus—you killed someone! And we had no idea. Because you’re a really good liar.” Another awful thought struck me. “Were you lying when you said you loved me?”
“I can’t believe you’re asking me that.”
“Really? You can’t? How can I trust a word that comes out of your mouth? How do I know you like the shark socks I made you? How do I know your middle name is Schlomo?” I felt the bile surge into my throat. I wasn’t going to faint. But I was going to barf. I grabbed my garbage can just in time.
Jacob placed his hand on my back while I retched.
“Don’t touch me. Please, just go. I need you to leave.”
“Petula, please—”
“Go!”
When I finally lifted my head, he was gone.