But his truck went off the road on Hollis Avenue. On the north side of town. Nowhere near his job. Nowhere near his home.
The police report said he was on his way home from work. That was what the officer said on my porch. That was what everyone said. But it never made sense, and I didn’t have the strength to ask why.
“It was a Thursday,” Marta said. “In March. It had rained all day. In the evening, the pipe under my sink, the same pipe, it started leaking again. Not bad. Just a little. A drip.”
She was staring at the floor between us.
“I should have put a bowl under it,” she said. “Like you do. I should have waited until Saturday. But I was alone and I was nervous, and it was dark, and I thought, what if it bursts again like before? So I called him.”
My chest was so tight I could barely breathe.
“He said he was just finishing work. He said he’d stop by on his way. I said no, no, it’s raining, it’s late, come Saturday. He said, ‘Marta, it’s ten minutes. I’ll be there.’”
She pressed her fingers against her eyes.
“He came at seven-thirty. He fixed it in fifteen minutes. A washer. Just a little washer. Then he sat at my kitchen table and drank a cup of coffee and ate two of my poppy seed cookies. He gave me the sunflowers. He said, ‘For the prettiest girl on the block.’ He said he had to go because he was meeting a friend to watch the basketball.”
She took a long, shaking breath.
“He left at eight-ten,” she said. “I stood at the window and watched his truck. His taillights. Going north on Hollis. In the rain.”
She stopped.
“At eight-thirty I heard the sirens,” she said. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know it was him. Not until two days later, when I saw it in the newspaper.”
