Jenny awoke in the morning in a state of near-panic. Events of the night before were scattered through her brain like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. She shook her head, repeatedly trying to collect her thoughts and sort those pieces into a coherent image. The slight headache she had wasn't helping her at all.
Jenny remembered the early part of the evening, having a light dinner with Rose and Tania. And two--no, three--glasses of wine. One was usually her limit. Especially if she had to drive. Like last night. Especially in the rain... like last night.
But they had been having so much fun and no one wanted the night to end. So, against her better judgment, Jenny had ordered second and third drinks. They had been talking and laughing and enjoying their girls night out. God, it had been a long time since they had gotten together like that. Probably before any of them had had kids.
She wasn't entirely sure what time they had finally left or what time she had gotten home. Now, in her panic, she wasn't even sure exactly how she had gotten home. That is, she knew she had driven herself home, but she couldn't remember her exact route and that was causing her heart to skip and her panic to rise.
Somewhere along that only partially remembered journey, Jenny's car had struck something. She didn't know what or where. There had been a loud THUNK that had shaken the whole car. Jenny, in a moment of blind panic, hadn't stopped to see what she had hit. Fearful of consequences, she had hurried home, pulled the car into the garage and, once she stopped shaking, fallen asleep on the sofa.
In the morning the incident was like a vaguely remembered nightmare. But as events slowly came back to her, the panic started to build. It was almost an hour before she worked up the nerve to go out to the garage and inspect the car. Sure enough, the front right of the car was visibly damaged. Jenny stared at it for a moment before fleeing back into the house.
She had hit something... or somebody. A chill caused her whole body to shudder. What if it had been a person? And she had left them to die on the side of the road. Her head went swimmy and for a moment, she thought she was going to faint. She managed to sit down on the sofa before she fell over. Then the tears came and it was ten minutes before Jenny could get herself under control again.
Jenny was still shaking slightly when she got up off of the sofa. She headed into the office to check the local news on the internet. If someone had been hit by a car, surely there would be a news report.
In five minutes Jenny had her answer. Sure enough, a pedestrian had been struck and killed in a hit and run incident the night before. The road where it occurred wasn't one directly on Jenny's way home, but it wasn't that far out of the way either. It was quite possible that Jenny, driving in the rain and under the influence, had taken that road. She couldn't for the life of her remember her exact route, but all the facts were adding up against her.
She wished her husband, Drew, was home. Then thought that it was lucky that he wasn't. How could she explain this to him? What would he say to her? What would he think of her?
Drew was supposed to return from a business trip last night, but now had to stay at least another few days to finish things. The kids were spending the weekend at his parents' house so Jenny and Drew could have a weekend alone together. The plan had been for Friday to be Jenny's night out with the girls and Saturday to be spent with Drew. It was to be a long needed break for both of them. Jenny started to cry again as she thought about how wrong everything had gone.
When Jenny finally collected herself, she decided that she had to do something. What could she do? Turn herself in? No, that was too scary to even contemplate. She thought of calling Rose to ask her, but quickly decided against it. Rose was a great friend if you needed to get something off your chest, but this was a very different problem. Talking about it wouldn't make it go away. No, Jenny needed more than just a sympathetic ear. She needed someone who could help her hide what she had done.
None of her friends were particularly useful in this situation. They would be just as lost as her when it came to getting the car fixed. And not only did Jenny need to get the car fixed, she had to get it done quickly and discretely. She wracked her brain, but the only person she could think to call was her husband's friend Tom.
Tom wasn't someone Jenny was particularly fond of, and certainly not a person she wanted to turn to for help. He was too blue collar for Jenny's taste, and he seemed to know it. He surely knew that his unpolished behavior and off-color jokes irritated Jenny and that seemed only to encourage him. He had a shady side to him, too. Nothing too overt, but Jenny suspected he wasn't above bending a few laws for his own benefit. That was what made her think that he might know how to handle her current situation.
Tom and Drew had been friends since before high school, so Jenny did her best to tolerate him. Fortunately, Drew didn't see that much of Tom and when he did, it usually wasn't when Jenny was around. Not that Jenny was happy about that either. Tom had a reputation for being a womanizer and Jenny, much as she trusted Drew, didn't really want her husband around a guy like Tom.
Over the years Jenny had learned to be nice, if a little distant, toward Tom. On the occasions she had to endure his presence, she forced herself to be courteous, if not actually friendly. Tom was obviously aware of Jenny's polite-but-not-friendly demeanor. He made a point of saying and doing things around her that he knew would bother her. It wasn't that he was mean spirited, just that he enjoyed needling her. He probably had as much disdain for her manners as she had for his, and it was just his way of showing it.
Jenny was naturally loathe to call him and ask for his help. But she was also scared out of her mind and couldn't think of a single other person she could call. At the very least, Tom was one of her husband's oldest friends. He might not be particularly keen on helping Jenny, but he'd probably do just about anything for Drew's sake. It didn't matter. Jenny knew of no one else she could call.
It took Jenny another fifteen minutes to figure out exactly what she should say and how she should say it. She didn't know how much she should tell him over the phone. And she certainly didn't want to sound as desperate and vulnerable as she felt. When she finally had a conversation composed in her head, she reached for the phone and started to dial. Her hands started shaking half way through dialing and she hung up. It took her another ten minutes and three more tries before she managed to dial Tom's number.
"Hello?" Tom's voice had the leathery, groggy sound of someone just awakened.
"Tom?" Jenny asked. She realized that it was only 8am and that Tom was almost certainly still in bed.
"Yeah?"
"This is Jenny Cartwright. Drew's wife." That was dumb, she thought to herself. Of course he knew she was Drew's wife.
"Yeah?" Tom's voice was a papery croak. Jenny could picture him lying there with the phone to his ear, eyes closed, just waiting for this conversation to be over so he could go back to sleep.
"Well, Tom," Jenny's well-rehearsed dialog was deserting her. "I, uh... I... there's been, well, a problem with the car. And Drew isn't home. And I was, uh, wondering if you could, uh..."
"Can this wait till later?" There was no mistaking the gruffness in Tom's tone. Jenny was tempted to tell him to forget it, but knew there was nowhere else to turn.
"Um... It's kind of an emergency," Jenny said, almost apologetically.
