“Adam, that’s not the point.”
“Which is?”
“He never told me.”
“Until today. When he told you. Voluntarily.”
“I guess,” I say, considering how much weight that should have. Probably more than I’m giving it now.
“I don’t remember that happening in college,” Adam adds.
“You weren’t friends,” I say. “You barely knew each other.”
“Whatever, it’s not a big deal.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s ancient history. You’ve been together for a decade. What, are you thinking your whole relationship is a lie or some crap? Why are you upset with him?”
“We’ve been trying to get pregnant for years. Perhaps this was relevant before.”
“Why? It happens. Teenagers aren’t the bastion of impulse control and good practices.”
“Well, it never happened to me,” I say as we pull in to 7-Eleven.
Inside the store, Adam heads straight to the counter for cigarettes while I move to that weird aisle in the back where pregnancy tests sit next to infant pain relief and geriatric fiber pills. I stare at the two types of pregnancy tests, the expensive one and the store brand, until the packages blur. I stand there for a minute, maybe two or three, while tears stream down my face and my nose runs. I don’t have the nerve to buy them, not after what Ted told me.
I go back empty-handed to the car, where Adam’s already puffing on his cigarette. I can tell from his double take that Adam has noticed I’m upset. He stares ahead, quiet.
“What happened?” he asks.
“I couldn’t do it.”
“It must be painful, month after month.”
He’s right, but it’s different this time. “If I’m not pregnant, I’ll know exactly who is to blame.”
Adam shakes his head and starts the ignition. We drive in silence for a few minutes until we turn onto the north road. I stare out the window, not noticing anything we pass, and it’s not because of the lack of streetlamps. I’m lost in my anxiety.
“You can’t be solely responsible for something that requires two people. Just like I’m not solely responsible for my marriage falling apart,” Adam says.
“The affair doesn’t help.”
“It didn’t hurt either. I’m telling you, we were already broken.”
“Adam—”
“Stop, Margot. This is about you. If you keep taking on so much of other people’s stuff, one day you’re going to get fed up and lose it. Just like Mom did.”
“You’re comparing me to Mom right now?”
“You’re becoming her,” he says. “You take responsibility for everything.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“It is.”
“It’s better than acting like a victim,” I retort.
“She was no victim. In fact, I think she’s the one who crashed the car while Dad was driving.”
On one hand I’m not surprised we’re talking about Mom and Dad, given Rini told me less than an hour ago that I might form a new story around their deaths. But on the other hand, this conversation feels like a fantasy. In over two decades, Adam and I haven’t spoken about our parents’ car accident. I’m shocked, not only by his twisted theory that Mom killed Dad, but by the mere suggestion that it was anything other than an accident. The police report was straightforward.
They were driving along the Saw Mill River Parkway, a narrow and treacherous strip of road. If you’ve ever had a car zoom by you in the right lane while you frantically try to hold the ground between the median guardrail and the two-lane highway’s center dotted line, the fact that there aren’t more fatal accidents is surprising. It was the middle of the day. My father was sober behind the wheel. They were both wearing seatbelts.
The car crashed into the median at a high rate of speed. It flipped an estimated one to three times to where it lay, unmoving, until an SUV came barreling around the sharp curve and crushed their BMW. Both were pronounced dead at the scene. Time of death put the proximate cause in the hands of the speeding SUV, and there was no evidence of foul play. Nana told us so. We had no reason not to believe her.
“It was an accident,” I insist.
“What if it wasn’t?”
I want to tell him he is sick. I want to tell him he is wrong. But I spot a light brown mass emerge from the thick trees, illuminated by the headlights of an oncoming car.
“Adam! There! A family of deer.”
In my mind, I’m yelling, but I can barely hear my own voice. I’m captivated by their presence. As if we’re the ones intruding on their space rather than them encroaching on this narrow highway.
“I can beat them. Let them cross behind us,” Adam says.
