Needful Things - Stephen King [91]
He thought of the gentle relentlessness with which she had forced him toward ideas he had either ignored or overlooked. And during that time he tried to deal with a new set of feelings about Annie's death; once the roadblock between him and his grief had been removed, these of her feelings had poured out in a flood. Chief and most distressing among them had been a terrible rage at her for concealing a disease that could have been treated and cured and for having taken their son with her that day. He had talked about some of these feelings with Polly at The Birches on a chilly, rain-swept night last April.
"You've stopped thinking about suicide and started thinking you're angry, Alan." about murder," she'd said. "That's why you He shook his head and started to speak, but she had leaned over the table and put one of her crooked fingers firmly against his lips for a moment. Shush, you. And the gesture so startled him that he did shush.
"Yes," she said. "I'm not going to catechize you this time, Alanit's been a long time since I've been out to dinner with a man, and I'm enjoying it too much to play Ms. Chief Prosecutor. But people don't get angry at other people-not the way you're angry, at leastfor being in accidents, unless there has been a big piece of carelessness involved. If Annie and Todd had died because the brakes in the Scout failed, you might blame yourself for not having had them checked, or you might sue Sonny jackett for having done a sloppy job the last time you took it in for maintenance, but you wouldn't blame her. Isn't that true?"
"I guess it is."
"I know it is. Maybe there was an accident of some kind, Alan.
You know she might have had a seizure while she was driving, because Dr. Van Allen told you so. But has it ever occurred to you that she might have swerved to avoid a deer@ That it might have been something as simple as that?"
It had. A deer, a bird, even an oncoming car that had wandered into her lane.
"Yes. But her seatbelt-" "Oh, forget the goddam seatbelt! " she had said with such spirited vehemence that some of the diners close to them looked around briefly. "Maybe she had a headache, and it caused her to forget her seatbelt that one time, but that still doesn't mean she deliberately crashed the car. And a headache-one of her bad ones-would explain why Todd's belt was fastened. And it still isn't the point."
"What is, then?"
"That there are too many maybes here to support your anger.
And even if the worst things You suspect are true, you'll never know, will you? "No. " "And if you did know She looked at him steadily. There was a candle on the table between them. Her eyes were a darker blue in its flame, and he could see a tiny spark of light in each one.
"Well, a brain tumor is an accident, too. There is no culprit here, I per Alan, no-what do You call them in your line of work?-no petrator.
Until you accept that, there will be no chance."
"What chance?"
"Our chance," she said calmly. "I like You very much, Alan, and I'm not too old to take a risk, but I'm old enough to have had some sad experience of where my emotions can lead me when they get Out of control. I won't let them get anywhere Close to that point until you're able to put Annie and Todd to rest."
He looked at her, speechless. She regarded him gravely over her dinner in the old country inn, firelight flickering orange on one of her smooth cheeks and the left side of her brow. Outside, the wind played a long trombone note under the eaves.
"Have I said too much?" Polly asked. "If I have, I'd like you to take me home, Alan. I hate to be embarrassed almost as much as I hate not speaking my mind."
He reached across the table and touched her hand briefly. "No, You haven't said too much. I like to listen to you, Polly."
She had smiled then. It lit up her whole face. "You'll get your chance, then," she said.
So it began for them. They had not felt guilty about seeing each other, but they had recognized the need to be careful-not