Authors: Maria Rachel Hooley
"I love you," Carrie had whispered, leaning close as she'd lain her cheek by his ear, her breath a whisper on his skin.
Even though Robbie wanted to keep holding on, Carrie pulled away, gasping as though his fingers had burned her. The wind picked up her hair and blew it into her face, momentarily hiding her features, and it was only when she brushed the long strands back that Robbie noticed two important things: that the tears that streamed down her cheeks in paths that suggested she had been crying for quite a while and that instead of wearing her wedding ring, she held it between her index finger and thumb, examining it.
"Are you all right?" It was all he could think to say.
She looked at him with that same shell-shocked expression. Her lips moved. She was trying to form words, but nothing came out. She just kept looking at him with hurt, haunted eyes that seared right through him.
"Carrie?" Robbie asked, pleading. "Say something, baby." He felt himself collapsing inward from the weight of all which seemed to be hanging in the balance. "Please," he pressed, thinking something had to make her talk to him. He couldn't live in this silence. It was tearing him up.
Carrie's bottom lip quivered, and she seemed close to breaking down as she slowly lifted her hand to show him the ring. Then, in that strange voice, she said, "She loved you."
Robbie staggered back a couple of steps. It wasn't the odd voice, but the fact that she was crying. More important, she had referred to herself in the third person and in the past tense, as though that other person had died in the wreck.
The hair rose at the back of his neck as she looked at him, and had it not been for the glow of moonlight on her skin, he might have lost her completely to darkness.
"Carrie," he said, his voice thick. "That's your wedding ring, baby." He could feel his body shaking as he gently took the ring to slide back on her finger, just as he had done when they were wed.
Carrie was here, yes, but then again she wasn't. It was her body, and it carried their baby, but beyond that, he felt he were standing before a stranger who was as lost as he was.
"What are you doing out here?" he whispered as the wind blew long strands of hair into her face. Normally, Carrie would have become annoyed at that but now just let it spill into her eyes and plaster itself against her cheek, almost as if wasn't even there.
"The wreck." She lifted her hand and pointed to the ground where the car had been found.
"You shouldn't be here, Carrie. It's dark enough so nobody can see us standing in the middle of the road. I almost hit you. Let's go home." He nodded and started to guide her back to the truck, hoping he would be able to get it out of the ditch. Of course, as he passed the back, he quickly realized he was going to have to call for help. There was no way he was getting that truck back onto the road without wrapping a chain around the bumper and pulling it out.
"Great. This is great," Robbie murmured, glad that he'd left his cell in his pocket from earlier; otherwise they'd be walking back to the house.
He dragged the cell from his pocket and hit Galen McCoy's number. If anybody would be willing to drag his sorry butt out of bed to help Robbie, his best friend would do it in a heartbeat--and he'd gripe later.
After two rings, Galen's groggy voice answered.
"Hey, Galen, it's Robbie. I need your help, man." Robbie paused as his best friend started heckling him about calling at such a late hour. "No, I don't need money. I need your truck at the accident site. I accidentally went off into the ditch."
A flurry of words came at Robbie. Hell, Galen was just as exciteable as his wife, Beth, who happened to be Carrie's best friend.
Robbie shook his head in frustration. "Look, I'm fine. Carrie just walked down here, and I couldn't see her in the road. I swerved and went off into the ditch. Now I need some help. Can you pull me out or not?"
He waited again, grateful when Galen agreed, telling Robbie he'd be there in a few minutes. Once Robbie had ended the call, he slipped the phone back into his pocket and looked at Carrie, who was focused on her belly, both hands touching the swell.
"How's our baby?" Robbie asked as he stepped closer. Carrie looked at him, watching as he slowly eased his hand toward her stomach. For some reason, he expected her to move or stop him, but she let his hand settle next to hers. Although he would have liked to have felt the baby kick, their child was silent and still at the moment, rather unusual because Carrie had often talked about how active the little one was at night.
"Is the baby okay?" he asked, pressing a little harder to encourage some movement beneath his palm. Nothing.
"Sleeping," Carrie whispered.
"Are you okay?" He stepped even closer, his hand lifting from her stomach to slip under her chin so he could try and get her to meet his gaze. She was slow in following his lead, and her lips parted slightly. Her nostrils flared gently with each breath, and he found himself lost in her, transfixed by her beauty.
"I am alive," she murmured and looked toward the part of the pasture where the car had rolled during the accident.
"Thank God." Robbie felt the breath catch in his throat and leaned closer still, feeling rather like a schoolboy as he moved to kiss her.
Always before, she'd responded immediately, welcoming his kiss, but now, beneath a million stars scattered amid the dark heavens, she didn't seem to welcome it at all. In fact, it movements seemed foreign to her. Even though she knew he was her husband, she didn't recognize the way their bodies had always fit.
Robbie would have tried harder, desperate to feel something that would help him believe everything was going back to normal, but he didn't get that chance, not with Galen's truck heading for them. He knew it was Galen because almost nobody else drove down this road at this time of night.
"There's Galen," he finally said, reluctantly easing away from his wife as the truck bumped down the country road, slowing as the driver spotted Robbie and Carrie standing to the side of the road.
"I'll be right back," Robbie said.
As was usual for Carrie these days, she didn't look at him or respond. Instead, she glanced skyward, her expression filled with a longing Robbie didn't understand.
Galen eased himself out of the truck and walked to meet Robbie, the beam of his flashlight drifting across the ditch until he'd spotted the truck. He shook his head. "Damn. Looks like you really got it stuck good."
"Yeah."
Galen, a tall, lanky man in his late thirties, looked over at Carrie. "Now that's a miracle." His gaze softened as he watched her looking up at the stars.
Robbie felt his shoulders stiffen. "Meaning what?"
"The wreck was bad, Rob. Her car was mangled all to hell."
Robbie flinched and closed his eyes, all the while thinking that if he heard one more person say something like that, he'd go nuts. It was just too much.
Robbie took a deep breath and then forced a reply. "She's here, and she's with me. That's all I care about."
But was it? He didn't know. He did have Carrie, yes, but she was distant--her but not her-and yet he couldn't imagine his life going on like this. This distance between them was just too hard to accept.
Galen nodded. "Okay. Well, let's focus on get your truck out of the ditch so you can go home. She should be resting."
His best friend offered one last glance at Carrie, a frown playing across his features before he pulled his truck up behind Robbie's and attached the tow chain. Five minutes later, the truck was back on the road, Galen was unchaining the bumper, and Robbie was nodding for Carrie to get in.
"Thanks, man." Robbie patted his best friend's shoulder appreciatively. "Don't know where I'd be without you."
"In a ditch," Galen shot back as he threw the chain in the back of his truck.
"There's that."
As Galen opened his mouth to offer another witty comeback, his cell rang. Pulling it from his pocket and checking the display, Galen shook his head. "Lord, Beth, give me a couple of minutes, will you?" Still, he thumbed the button and put the phone to his ear.
"I'm almost done here."
Robbie chuckled, imagining Beth sitting in bed with some kind of list. Beth was an extraordinary list-maker, and Galen never had a shortage of things to do, much to his frustration. At the sound of Robbie's laughter, Galen shot him a go-to-hell look and turned away.
"Well, it does take a few minutes to pull reckless drivers out of ditches. You know that. You've been in the ditch before."
Robbie looked at Carrie, and even though it was difficult to make out her profile considering how dark it was, he thought he could see her resting her head back against the seat. With any luck, she'd be asleep again in a few minutes, and that thought relaxed him somewhat. All the strangeness seemed to disappear when his wife was next to him, sleeping. Granted, that was an illusion, but it made him feel better all the same.
"What?" Galen said, shaking his head. "Slow down, woman. You're talking too fast." He shook his head and shoved the phone at Robbie. "Here--see if you can make sense of what she's saying."
Robbie smiled and took the phone.
"Hey, Beth."
"How's our girl?" Beth's voice came out nervous and breathy. "I've been worried about her, but I couldn't come to the hospital. I've been so sick."
Robbie nodded, though he knew Beth couldn't see. He couldn't seem to help himself. "It's all right. She's good. I just need to get her home. Thanks for letting me borrow Galen long enough to get the truck out of the ditch."
"You're welcome. Would it be okay if I came and stayed with her for a few minutes tomorrow?"
At the thought of that, Robbie could feel his stomach tighten. It wasn't that he minded Beth being there; it was just that Carrie's behavior had become strange, unpredictable, and he worried his wife might do something that made Beth think twice.
Beth is her best friend
, he thought.
She's not going to judge Carrie because she's having an off day.
Robbie's jaw clenched. "I don't know, Beth--she's still not herself."
"So maybe she needs a little girl time. I could sit with her for a few hours while you go off with Galen." She waited for a response, and when none came, she said, "Come on, Robbie--what would a couple of hours hurt? I miss her."
Galen watched Robbie and smiled, waiting. "Oh, all right. What time?"
"About ten. Tell Galen I'll see him soon and to be careful on his way home so he doesn't run off into any ditches himself."
"Will do. Bye."
The phone went dead in Robbie's ear and he handed it back to Galen. "You're wife is nothing if not persistent."
Galen threw his head back and laughed. "How do you think we ended up married in the first place? She wouldn't take no for an answer."
Robbie folded his arms across his chest. "Still, you knew that call was coming," he countered, "and you didn't warn me."
Galen propped his arm on the truck bed and cocked his head to one side. "And even if I had warned you, it wouldn't have mattered. Beth would still be coming over tomorrow, and we'd still be leaving to do something...God knows what...to give them their girl time. Besides, as Beth told me this morning, she needs to finalize all the details for Carrie's baby shower, and when that happens, that is no place for either you or me to be, my friend. Now I'm going to go home and crawl into bed, hoping you're planning on staying out of the ditch from here on out."
Robbie laughed and shook his head. "Definitely. And thanks."
He walked back to his own truck, and as he slid behind the wheel noticed that he'd been right. Carrie had turned sideways so she could rest her head on the back of the seat. Her eyes were closed, and she slept, oblivious to everything that was going on around her.
For a moment, he watched her, amazed at how her skin seemed to glow in the cool moonlight. Her long, red hair spilled across her face, and Robbie, knowing his wife hated that sensation, gently pushed it back, worried it might tickle her nose and wake her.
As his fingers tangled slightly in her hair, she exhaled softly, and he was worried she was going to wake up, so he forced himself to turn back to the wheel, start the truck, and drive back to the house. He'd almost made it when Carrie's body slid into his and her head rolled onto his shoulder. A smile touched his lips as he thought of all the times she'd sat this close and just slept. He couldn't help but steal a couple of glances her way, grateful for the moment.
He pulled into the driveway and parked in front of the house before gently adjusting Carrie so she wouldn't fall over when he got out, and when he'd turned her so she rested back against the seat, he whispered, "Stay there for just a minute."
Although he was pretty sure she hadn't heard him, her body complied, and he quickly strode around the truck to the passenger side, where he eased her out and into his arms to carry her back inside. He had just unlocked the front door and pushed it open when Carrie's eyes fluttered open. There was that moment when she was drifting between dream and consciousness, when things were hazy and surreal, and Robbie suddenly felt her looking at him, her eyes taking in every part of him.