Chapter 8
Gwen sped, swerved her pickup into the left lane to get around a Ford Escape, then had to cut back to get past an Infiniti.
Both vehicles wailed their horns at her. The sound bounced right off her consciousness, hardly registered.
hazards flashing, on the far side of the northbound lane. Gwen knew, then, that Allie had been wandering into oncoming traffic, and that Tana had been too late to save her. Someone had struck Allie and simply kept going. Tana had found her
mangled and dying in the snow, at the bottom of the embankment. Gwen got off the interstate and circled around to the northbound
side. She rolled up the ramp, lightheaded with dread. At the top, she eased off the turnpike and onto the dirt. As her headlights
splashed up the back of the Elantra, she saw Tana sitting in the open hatchback, one arm around Allie’s waist, a rough gray
blanket over Allie’s shoulders. Gwen was almost shaky with relief. She pulled in behind them and got out.
As she crossed through the headlights, Allie looked up, pale and wet-eyed.
“Are you going to yell at me?” Allie asked meekly.
“I ought to.”
Gwen took her in her arms and Allie began to cry.
“You might wanna watch out,” Tana said. “When I gave her a squeeze, she threw up on my shoes. Which—do you remember the night you all got arrested?—is not the first time.”
“I gotta stop doing that,” Allie said.
There was a Dunkin’—a cube of brown brick and glass—across from the Market Basket. The floor was filthy with dried slush.
The few doughnuts remaining behind the counter had begun to petrify, like bits of troll in sunlight. Gwen had worked in this
exact Dunkin’ when she was a teenager. Tana had worked alongside her. Gwen used to hate coming home with the smell of Dunkin’
Donuts in her hair, a perfume of coffee, creams, and (in those days) cigarettes. Her father told her to get used to it: that
was the smell of working for a living.
Tana and Allie sat together on the other side of the booth from Gwen. Allie drank swallows of coffee and Tana tore pieces
off a plain doughnut and handed them to her.
“I don’t want that,” Allie said. “It’ll make me sick again.”
“So this time aim for her shoes,” Tana said, nodding at Gwen.
Allie barked with laughter and then looked startled—as if someone else had laughed and the sound had caught her off guard.
Gwen said, “You could’ve killed yourself.” When Allie didn’t reply, Gwen added, “I guess that was the point.”
“Don’t be mad at me,” Allie said, in a small voice.
But Gwen was mad. The idea of Allie walking into traffic felt like an insult—it struck her as an act of staggering selfishness.
“Do you know what it’s like, cleaning someone off the highway after they’ve been smeared across a half mile of blacktop? Because
I do.”
“Don’t,” Allie whispered. “Please.” Her head sank and her fingers drifted up to squeeze her temples. “I just felt so bad.
It’s not fair.”
“What’s not fair?” Tana asked.
Gwen was relentless. “And never mind you almost killed yourself. You would’ve made someone else a killer in the process. Someone would have to spend the rest of their life reliving the thud it made when they drove over
you.”
“Stop,” Allie moaned.
“After what we’ve been through, you’d put that on someone else? Make a murderer of someone?”
“What have you been through?” Tana asked.
Gwen ignored her. “That was your idea of saying sorry? Getting yourself smashed like a melon? Or did you want some attention?
‘Never mind your problems, Gwen, think about me a little?’ Are we in some kind of competition, see which one of us can die first?”
“What?” Tana asked. “What’s this about a competition to see who’s going to die first?”
Allie lifted her bloodshot, tearful gaze and gave Gwen a warning glare.
“Nothing. Forget it.” Gwen reached across the table and took Allie’s hands.
“This isn’t your fault. I know this isn’t your fault.
It’s all right. It’s just the way things turned out.
Look at me.” Allie looked. “It’s all right,” Gwen told her, squeezing her hands, trying to say something for which there were no words.
Tana looked from one to the other and back, her pretty, freckled, impish face gone hard.
“I hear you two talking, but it doesn’t make any sense. It’s like that thing about twins, you know how twins are supposed
to have their own private—”
“We know,” Allie and Gwen said together.
After a moment of silence, Allie said, “Please, can I stay with you tonight? I don’t want to go home and be alone. I’ll drink
if I do, and if I drink any more I’ll pickle myself. And it’s not like I can go to The Briars. Can’t I sleep on your couch?”
“No.”
“She can sleep on mine,” Tana said.
“I’m out of here,” Gwen said, getting up. She leaned across the booth, impulsively, cupped a hand behind Allie’s head, and
kissed her brow. “It’s not your job to fix the world, Allie. It never was.”
Allie’s face shriveled. She lowered her chin and her hair fell in front of her features and she began to cry again.
Tana said, “I don’t understand any of what you two are talking about!”
Gwen said, “Thank you, Tana. Take care of her.”
She didn’t look back as she walked away. Her hands were shaking.