One Summer

18

Jack and Sammy were unloading Jack’s truck in his driveway after a long day at work. Jack nearly dropped a sledgehammer on his foot. Sammy looked over at him.

“You okay? Haven’t been yourself the last couple of days.”

Jack slowly picked up the tool and threw it back in the truck bed. “What do you think Jackie would like for his birthday? It’s just around the corner, and I wanted to get him something nice.”

Sammy shrugged. “Uh, toy gun?”

Jack looked doubtful. “I don’t think Lizzie liked to encourage that. And where can I get a cake and some birthday things? You know like hats and... stuff?”

“The grocery store up the street has a bakery.”

“How do you know that?”

“It’s right across from the beer aisle.”

Jack drove to the store and got some items for Jackie’s birthday. He was standing at the checkout aisle when he saw it. He had never been more stunned in his life. He was looking at his photo on the cover of one of the tabloid magazines that were kept as impulse buys at the checkout. He slowly reached out his hand and picked up a copy.

The headline ran, “Miracle Man Muddied.”

What the hell?

Jack turned to the next page and read the story. With each word he read, his anger increased. Now he could understand the headline. The writer had twisted everything. He’d made it seem that Jack had forced Lizzie to go out on an icy, treacherous night to get his pain meds. And then, even worse, the writer had suggested that Jack thought his wife was having an affair with a neighbor. An obviously distraught Lizzie had run a red light and been killed. None of it was true, but now probably millions of people thought he was some kind of monster.

He left his items on the conveyor belt and rushed home.

On the drive there, it didn’t take him long to figure out what had happened.

Bonnie had been the writer’s source. But how could she have known? Then it struck him. Lizzie must’ve called her on the drive over to the pharmacy and told her what she was doing. Maybe she mentioned something about Bill Miller, and Bonnie had misconstrued what Jack’s reaction had been, although it would have been pretty difficult to do that. More likely, Bonnie might’ve just altered what Lizzie had told her to suit her own purposes.

Jack could imagine Bonnie seething. Here he was getting all this notoriety, adulation, and sympathy, and Lizzie was in a grave because of him. At least Bonnie probably believed that. A part of Jack couldn’t blame her for feeling that way. But now she had opened a Pandora’s box that Jack would find difficult to close. And what worried him the most was what would happen when his kids found out. He wanted to be the first to talk to them about it, especially Mikki. He gunned the truck.

Unfortunately, he was too late.