The Trust

Chapter 14: Divine Intervention

This is how I die.

I'm convinced of it. And just when things are starting to go my way. See, this is why I don't trust the money situation — nothing good ever happens to me without something awful sneaking up behind it.

I can almost hear the rich baritone of the true crime narrator on the shows I watch, dictating the last moments of my life. "It was an ordinary Tuesday in October. Frazzled working mom Darcy Douglas had gone out to run a few errands when she noticed someone odd lingering by her car. Little did she know, a murderer had set a trap and lay in wait to pounce from the shadows..."

Except there weren't any shadows and no one had jumped out to kill me just yet. Still, I had all the doors locked up tight. It's foolish of course, no one is going to murder me despite my wild imagination. The truth is less exciting than that — I had a minor win today, now something shitty has to happen to balance it out.

With no juice left in my phone, I'm stuck with my flashers on by the side of the road until some good Samaritan stops to rescue me. I hate feeling so helpless. I'm an independent woman, I should be able to go around to the back and find the spare tire, jack the car up and fix it myself like a boss. But I don't know how to do that. Just like I don't know how to put up a shelf, play golf, bait a hook, or fix a leaky faucet. Girls who know that stuff learn it at their father's knee — the ones with dads who have the patience to teach them. The fatherless have small black holes where basic knowledge should be on all things traditionally male. I'm completely lost inside a hardware store, having never set foot in the place growing up. The sights and smells are completely foreign to me, it's like visiting a country where I don't speak the language.

The few isolated splats of rain on the windshield quicken and soon it's covered in a thin, icy film of sleet. I picked a great day for a breakdown.

If I do get murdered today, that would be a a cruel irony. I hear the TV narrator again in my head: "It was a life cut tragically short. And just when the woman had found the perfect pair of sneakers." 

I think about the surprise that Clive had planned for me, just when I was close to giving up all hope for my marriage, and it gives me a bit of a lift despite my predicament. 

My feet in the pinchy shoes are cold. I weigh my options: either sit here and freeze to death or get out and freeze to death walking to the nearest gas station for help. No one came to rescue me so far. Maybe if I get out and look pathetic in the rain, standing next to the car that might work — a walking advertisement for a helpless female. But would it attract a helper or a murderer?

I couldn't be sure. And despite it being just after rush hour, there aren't a lot of cars zipping by.

I see a shiny black truck crest the hill in the distance, creeping by in the freezing rain. It doesn't look familiar at all, it's fancy — one of those giant new models that cost as much as a small house in my town. I watch as it crawls toward me and realize it's a woman driving, hunched over the wheel. The truck wrapped around her is too big for her, like an adult outfit on a child. She looks familiar though.

With a shock of delight, I realize it's my aunt Eva. I lay on the horn frantically and wave my hand out the window, hoping I don't scare the crap out of her. She sees me and flashes the hazards briefly before swinging towards me in the world's slowest illegal U-turn. In seconds, she bundles me into a quick hug and then into her massive vehicle. She calls a guy she knows who runs a garage and offers me a cup of coffee from her thermos while we wait for him. It slides into my blood like warm, bitter love.

"Warm up girl, your hands are like ice," she says, rubbing my arm. "Want your butt warmer on?

"My what?"