It’s 8 a.m. You’ve dropped the kids at school and you’re on your way home when this crazy blur of squirrel runs onto Allen Drive. You don’t hear a thing. Instead, you feel him. A small bounce of the car, a tiny jolt, and now he’s just a bump under your wheel, his frantic squirrel energy still. You wonder whether you could have swerved or veered or stopped short, even though it’s raining and windy and November leaves swirl about the road. You pull over and call your husband at the office. He laughs, not unkindly. He tells you It’s okay.

It’s 10:00 a.m., and you’re back at home, a dishcloth in hand. You spray it with Windex because you’re all out of Pledge. You’d use anything to rid the house of the dust settling everywhere. Dust to dust, you think. Words in the Bible, you think, though you don’t know for sure. You aren’t religious but you’re wondering about God. Because of the squirrel. Because of the dust. Where does it all go?

It’s 3:00 p.m., suddenly, so you rush to the car to pick up the kids, but you drive real slow. It’s still raining, and you want everyone safe, including the squirrels. Once the kids are buckled in the back, you surprise yourself by offering up a prayer. You say thank you God because you love your kids, and sorry God because sometimes you don’t love them enough. Then you start the long drive to your daughter’s skating practice, noticing how quickly the sky darkens, how the rain seems to fall faster, harder, in the dark.

It’s 4:45 p.m. when you pull into the lot. You call home. Your husband should be there by now, but he doesn’t pick up. He’s probably out walking the dogs. He doesn’t answer his cell either, so you and the kids enter the rink where you talk to the other mothers about Salchows and axles.

All the while, a funny feeling tugs at your gut because your husband never walks the dogs in the rain. He sends them out back, turns on the TV. He should have picked up the phone.

It’s 8:00 p.m., twelve hours after you killed that squirrel. Skating practice is over, and on the ride home you keep calling your husband, calling and calling. You leave messages, lots of them. These are the days of landlines, of answering machines that flicker red. And that funny feeling, it grows hot. It isn’t really funny, not one bit funny, and thoughts burn in your brain, thoughts of kids and husbands and bright, slippery leaves. Thoughts of that squirrel and your car and your wheel. When get to your house, there’s no trash barrel by the curb—your husband always puts the trash barrel by the curb. When you press the remote and the garage door opens, his car’s not there. Your not-so-funny feeling takes a dark turn.

It’s 10:00 p.m. Inside, the only light is the blinking red flash of the answering machine. The only sound is your own voice hurtling out when you press play: Jay! Where are you? Over and over. Seven messages. There’s one more. From Marion, the neighbor: Call Me. Any. Time, she says, which is strange, you think. It’s late on a weekday and you know she turns in early. You call Marion and she answers on the first ring. Is everyone all right? She asks. Only after you say Yes does she tell you this: The police are looking for you.

It’s 10:09 p.m. and you’re dialing 911. Because you live in a small town, you can say your name, ask your question, and you’ll get an answer. I’m Diane Gottlieb you say. Is my husband dead? you ask. And though it’s not really an answer, the dispatcher gives you all the information you need: We’ll be right over.

It’s 10:10 p.m. You hang up the phone and pick up the cloth, the smell of Windex fixed in its weave. And you dust. Because soon you will have guests. Guests you didn’t invite. Guests you don’t want over, but over they will come. They’ll be right over. They said so.
___

Diane Gottlieb is the editor of Awakenings: Stories of Body & Consciousness (ELJ Editions) and the Prose/CNF editor of Emerge Literary Journal. Her writing appears in River Teeth, Witness, Colorado Review, Florida Review, SmokeLong Quarterly, Chicago Review of Books, HuffPost, Hippocampus Magazine, 2023 Best Microfiction, and The Rumpus, among many other lovely places. She is the winner of Tiferet Journal’s 2021 Writing Contest in nonfiction, longlisted at Wigleaf Top 50 in 2023 and 2024, finalist for The Florida Review’s 2023 Editor’s Prize for Creative Nonfiction and finalist for the 2024 Porch Prize in nonfiction. Find more on her website and @DianeGotAuthor.

Artwork by Tyler Haberkorn