“What’s so important that it can’t simply be mailed?” I asked, motioning toward the envelope in her hands.
“It’s some boring business document Hank wants this man to have and it’ll take too long to mail it. He hasn’t had time to get it to him himself. Hank’ll be pleased we delivered it.”
The day was bright and warm and I wanted to please her. To do something right in her eyes.
“All right,” I said, against my better judgment. I backed the car out of the driveway and headed north along our hilly tree-lined street. Driving, I felt the sudden thrill of freedom. We rolled down our windows and the warm air filled the car.
“Hank should let you use this car all the time,” Lucy said as I turned a corner. “He’s so stingy.”
“He’s not stingy,” I said, thinking I should defend my husband. “He’s really a fine man.”
I felt her staring at me and I glanced at her. “What?” I said.
“You don’t know Hank at all,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
She played with the clasp on the manila envelope. “There are things about my brother … You have no idea, Tess,” she said. “You’re so na?ve. He’s using you, you know. I suppose that’s fitting. You used him, so he uses you.”
My hands tightened on the steering wheel. She was tapping into a fear that haunted me when I was at my weakest. I would tell myself that Henry was a good man. On my darkest days, I reminded myself that as miserable as I was, I would have been worse off without him. I’d learned to ignore his moodiness. I’d learned to accept his explanations when he came home late at night from work—and on the few occasions when he didn’t come home at all.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “How is he using me?” I ignored the dig about me using him. It was an argument I would never win.
“Never mind,” she said. “Let’s just drive.”
“No, really, Lucy,” I said, downshifting as we approached a stop sign. “You can’t start a conversation like that and then…”
“You don’t really know him, that’s all.” Her voice had a tight, sinister edge to it. “He’s not who you think he is.”
I laughed uncomfortably. “So mysterious!” I said. We’d reached 321 and I turned onto the wider road in the direction of the river. “I’ll have to ask him to tell me all his deep, dark secrets.”
“Do not tell him I said anything.” She leaned her head closer to the open window, the breeze blowing her hair around her head. “Let’s just shut up about it, all right?”
“Fine,” I said.
We drove for a few minutes in silence. I saw the broad river ahead of us, the sun reflecting off its glassy surface. We were nearing the long bridge when an explosive sound suddenly filled the car and we veered abruptly to the right. I yelped, pressing the brake hard, but the car was no longer in contact with the road. It sailed over the grassy shoulder and down a steep slope, straight toward the river. Lucy screamed, her hands on the dashboard. One of the tires blew, I thought. Maybe more than one? We seemed airborne for the longest time and I grabbed wildly for the steering wheel as it spun out of my control. My foot still pounded the brake, but it did nothing to slow us down as we catapulted toward that blinding sheet of glassy water. I let out my own scream as I glanced at Lucy. She looked stunned, a trickle of blood running from her forehead and down her cheek, her lips forming some sort of prayer.
The Buick hit the water nose first and it felt as though we’d crashed into a wall of concrete rather than a river. The car instantly began to sink, chilly water rushing through our open windows, spilling onto my lap, pooling on the floor of the car. It rose quickly up my calves. My thighs.
“Let me out! Let me out!” Lucy screamed, her arms flailing.
My heart felt like a drum in my chest as I tried to open my car door, but the pressure of the water was far too great. “Climb out!” I shouted to Lucy. She was frantically rolling her window up in a futile attempt to keep the river from pouring into the car. “Don’t roll it up!” I shouted. “You need to get out that way!”
She seemed dazed, that prayer or whatever it was still on her lips. The water had quickly risen to my chin and I filled with terror at the thought of it covering my head, stealing my breath. Maneuvering my body onto the seat from beneath the steering wheel, I grabbed the door frame and fought the current of water as I pulled myself through the open window. I gasped for air and realized I’d been holding my breath even though my nose had never been underwater.
The roof of the car was still above the surface of the river. I held on to it as I pulled myself around the car to the passenger side. Reaching blindly into the water, I tried to grab the door handle. Drawing in a breath, I pulled myself below the water’s surface. Lucy was on the other side of the window, her head tipped back as she struggled to keep her nose above the rapidly rising water. I knocked ineffectually on the glass, trying to pantomime that she needed to roll her window down. She didn’t seem to understand me and I watched the level of the water quickly reach her nose and pull her under. Her blue eyes were wide with terror, beseeching me to save her, her hand pressed flat against the window. I rose to the surface of the water, gasping for breath for real this time, and paddled as quickly as I could over to the driver’s side of the car. I would have to go back in through the open window and somehow pull her out. I filled my lungs with air and dove under the water and through the window. My legs still outside the car, I grabbed Lucy’s shoulder with one hand, her hair with another. I tugged and only then realized her legs were pinned beneath the dashboard. She turned her terrified face toward me and I watched in helpless horror as the life left her eyes. I was frozen for a moment, my brain numb with fear before I became aware that my lungs were about to burst. In a panic, I retreated through the window, one thought in my mind: Air. I need air.
And then I had no thoughts at all.
PART ONE
AUGUST 1943
1
Little Italy, Baltimore, Maryland