Free Leaving the World by Douglas Kennedy Page B

winding path to ascertain that no car was parked there. Then I drove the rest of the way to his house. It was exactly as he had described it – a small salt-box structure, situated on an elevated prospect looking right out on the water. I walked around the house and stopped when I saw the room that was obviously David’s study: a small simple space, with a desk, a bookshelf and one of the several Remington typewriters that he owned (he refused to write anything but academic stuff on a computer). The desk faced a wall, just like his office at Harvard – ‘Otherwise I’d look out the window and get distracted by everything that’s going on outside.’ I found myself getting shaky. But I forced myself back into the car and returned to the main road, parking at the little general store just opposite David’s place to buy a bottle of water.
    Or, at least, that’s what I told myself I was doing there. Once inside, the elderly, flinty-looking woman behind the counter gave me the skeptical once-over that she probably reserved for anyone who wasn’t a local during the off-season.
    ‘Hey,’ she said tonelessly. ‘Get you anything?’
    I asked for some sparkling water and a copy of the local paper.
    As I paid for them, I said: ‘I was just taking a walk down on Popham Beach and saw the police tape. Did something happen there?’
    ‘A guy steered his bicycle into a truck,’ she said, making change for me.
    ‘An accident?’
    ‘If a guy deliberately steers his bike into the direct path of a truck, it’s no accident.’
    ‘Did you know the guy?’
    ‘Sure did. Professor from Boston, had a place just across the road. Pleasant enough guy. Never would have thought . . .’
    ‘But how can they be sure that it was—?’
    She gave me a long, cold look.
    ‘You’re not some kind of reporter, are you?’ she asked.
    ‘Just interested,’ I said, sounding nervous.
    ‘You know the Professor?’
    I shook my head.
    ‘You know Gus?’
    ‘Who’s Gus?’
    ‘Gus is my second cousin – and the fella who was driving the truck. The man’s completely devastated about what happened. Been driving the same fish truck ’round here for over twenty years. Never hit anything or anyone. Poor guy’s in total shock, won’t get behind the wheel again. Says he saw the Professor biking towards him and, then, right when he was almost alongside him, the Professor swerved right into his path. Completely deliberate . . . like he wanted to get hit.’
    ‘But maybe he ran into a pothole on his bike and—’
    ‘If Gus says he swerved into him, he swerved into him. Gus is a little slow in the head, but if there’s one thing I know about him, he never lies.’
    I left. I got into my car, drove off and hit the highway. Somewhere south of Portland I had to pull off the road because I was crying so hard.
    If Gus says he swerved into him, he swerved into him.
    I wanted to believe my own version – the one I created after seeing the site of the accident. But here now was contradictory information – from the one authoritative source at the scene.
    Maybe that was why I was crying so hard – not just because David’s loss was finally hitting me with full-frontal force, but also because the manner of his death was so ambiguous.
    When I returned to my Cambridge apartment that night, I discovered, in my mailbox, a plain white postcard. On one side, in David’s scratchy handwriting, was my address, and a Bath, Maine postmark. On the other side were three words:
    I’m sorry
    David
    I went up to my studio and sat down at my little dining table. I put the card down and stared at those three words for a very long time. My head was swimming. His last message to me. But what was he telling me? I’m sorry  . . . and I’m going to kill myself ? Or: I’m sorry for the mess I’ve caused ? Or: I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you about the book ? Or: I’m sorry I’ve disappeared ? Or  . . .
    Nothing definitive. No answers. Just more