She held Cole’s hand tightly at the funeral. The driver and attendant had been friends, apparently from old Point Pleasant families, and the funeral was a joint affair. Their bodies lay in open caskets in the side aisle of the chapel and her eyes were drawn to them, imagining Cole in their place. She’d never be able to tolerate more than one loss every few years. Alison was enough for now. Everyone else in her life had better hang on.
How strange this must be for Cole, to be at a funeral he felt no part of. There wasn’t a familiar face in the crowded church. The first few pews were full of people in black, hunched over and white-faced. Cole sat stoically next to her, the clean white bandage on his head and the ghostly green and yellow bruises on his face making it clear to any observer who he was and why he was there. But no one could see the pain inside him. She worried that he still blamed himself for the accident or for his patient’s baby—or for letting that bitch act out her fantasies on him in the hospital.
It scared her that he hadn’t planned to tell her. They’d made that pact to be open with each other and he’d broken it already.
Cole pushed her toward the line of people filing past the caskets. She knew this was what he was waiting for. He was hoping he’d remember them when he saw their faces. The air in the church thickened, and she kept her eyes on the door instead of the bodies. She remembered Cheryl’s description of the driver, how he’d been nearly beheaded. She didn’t want to see how they’d made him presentable for an open casket.
“So young,” Cole whispered to her.
She shut her eyes and leaned against his shoulder.
“They’re strangers,” he said. “It’s as if I never laid eyes on them before.”
He was quiet when they got home. Closed in on himself. He wanted to go to bed although it was not yet dinnertime. He swallowed a couple of pills, and she followed him up the stairs at the snail’s pace he set. He was still stiff and fragile. And so withdrawn. He ignored her. She would have guessed he was angry with her if she hadn’t seen the tightness in the muscles of his face and known his head was hurting. He sat on the edge of her bed and stared out the window at the sea while she pulled down the covers.
“Get in, babe,” she said, wishing he would speak to her.
He undressed and moved woodenly onto his back, his eyes squeezed shut and his teeth clenched. He stretched out slowly, sighing like an old man. She lay down next to him and watched his face.
“Is there anything I can get you?” she asked.
He pressed his fingers to the space between his eyes, as if waiting for the pain to pass before he answered. “No,” he said. “I’m sorry I’m grouchy. I’ll be okay when the medication takes hold.”
“You’re not grouchy. You’re just depressed.”
He looked up at the ceiling. “I’m wondering how to face Dana. Not to mention Cheryl and anyone else who might have heard the rumors.”
“You’re an innocent victim, Cole. As surely as if you were a woman accosted on the street.”
He made a face. “It feels like shit. I can understand why Rennie thought we’d blame her after she was raped. Except I’m a grown man. It’s humiliating.”
“You were as incapable as an infant to prevent it.”
He looked into her eyes. “Thank you,” he said.
“For what?”
“For saying that. For understanding so well. For going to look at dead strangers with me. And for coming to bed with me at five-thirty in the afternoon so I don’t have to be depressed alone.”
“You’re welcome.”
He ran his finger across her cheek. “I’d like to make love to you,” he said, “but I’m limited by my disabilities.”
“I accommodate the handicapped,” she said.
He took her head in both his hands and kissed her and there was no doubt in her mind that they’d find some way to make love.
She woke up alone in the morning. Cole had obviously decided to go in to work. She hoped he’d only work the morning. He wouldn’t make it through a day of examining patients, not the way every little movement made him wince.
She pulled on her shorts and running shoes and picked up the wastebasket to take downstairs to empty. A small beige envelope lying among the white tissues caught her eye. It was addressed to Cole, in fluid, European-looking handwriting. She remembered that writing.
She took the envelope from the basket. It couldn’t be from Estelle. He would have told her. She slipped the card out of the envelope and read it slowly.
Darling,
I heard about the accident, and that you are all right.
That means everything to me.
E.
She remembered Cole the night before, making love to her, laughing with her. She remembered the feel of his warm body next to her the whole night through. Surely they were okay. And he’d thrown the card away, parted with it next to a bunch of soiled tissues.
But why hadn’t he told her?