As she returned to the car, she shifted to slow, careful breaths to avoid his smell.
To her questions about the ER visit, he said, “Yeah, I was in the ER cause my leg hurt.” And to who took him there, “Why a squad car, of course.”
“Mr. Sommerfield, do you have any children?” If she could get a name, she might be able to find where he belonged.
“Now that’s an interesting story. My wife was pregnant once. But on the day that she had her appointment the doctor took me aside and said your son’s not going to live. And he didn’t. Stillborn.”
“I’m so sorry.” It didn’t matter that it had been 60 years. It seemed to still hurt.
She couldn’t see his face since she was trying to keep the car from dying, but she heard his tone darken.
“You see. My wife lied to me. She was five years older than she said she was when we first married. She was too old to have a child. I should have beat the living crap out of her for that!”
What can one say to that? Hoping to appeal to some dormant decency, she tried, “Now you wouldn’t have done that really now, would you? And why?”
“Just for the hell of it, that’s why!”
She felt sick. She wanted this to be over. This was a hateful, nasty old man, and he didn’t deserve a ride home, if he even had a home. What was she doing? It must have been that book she’d just read, “Same Kind of Different as Me”, a book that no doubt had influenced her decision, albeit subconsciously, to stop and try to help the man.
If there had been good intentions, if there had been an opening in her heart, a desire to be a vessel for grace, they ended there. All she could do was picture the poor woman with her dead baby and her husband blaming her. All she wanted was to get away from him.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
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