The Driveby

I couldn’t get it out of my head. I couldn’t. I began obsessing. Why did Sophie call him from the park? Are they actually having an affair? Am I fabricating my own torture? Or am I denying reality? Why am I on this ferris wheel again? You’ve already seen this movie, Corinne. It wasn’t very good. Don’t you remember how it ends? I had to know. Know. Now. Right now. Right this minute. Immediately. With my own eyes. It was like a madness washing over me, and I felt powerless to stop it, or even slow it down, it was careening away from me like an out of control train car. Downhill and gaining speed with each passing minute. I didn’t call Kathy. I already knew what she would tell me. I already knew what I would tell me, if only I had the willpower to listen to the rapidly diminishing functional remainder of my own brain. Stop. NOW. Don’t do this. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Sit down. Tone it down. Calm down. Lay down. Breathe. Inhale. Exhale. Do nothing. Make a list (there is always some fucking list to be made). Go to sleep. Sleep? Are you fucking kidding me? She would tell me that. My mother would tell me that. I would tell me that. An independent panel of unconcerned citizens would tell me that, and yet those slowly growing crazies were staging a hostile takeover of my brain, and doing it with machine guns. It was useless to resist. Was I trying to resist? Did I even want to resist? I wanted to KNOW. The distortion of reality, the feelings of betrayal…. The common root of so many a bad decision. Was he over there right now with her? Were they lying to me? Are my own instincts lying to me? I am going to KNOW. NOW. I went into the children’s bedroom. I loaded Isa into the car and buckled her into her seat. She didn’t even open her eyes. It was a little cold, but I had carried out her blanket and I covered her in it. I opened Drew’s car door and went in to get him. He let me carry him out and put him in his seat before he said sleepily, ‘mommy, what are you doing?’. Don’t worry sweetie, we just have to run to the store. Close your eyes. I didn’t really need to say it, they were already closing and his head flopped to the right. I covered him up too, in my black fringy woolen shawl that he had insisted on sleeping with that night and then climbed into my seat and closed the door with a muffled thud. As I backed out of the driveway, I noticed that the lights were still on in the house, and I remembered that I hadn’t locked the door. And we had almost no gas, and I had no money, maybe we even had negative money in the checking account. And every single credit card in my wallet was maxed out. What if I didn’t have enough gas? I checked my wallet. Yeah, $.43. I checked the gas level on the car computer. 11 MILES REMAINING, it bleeped at me in orange letters. We can make it, I thought, shoving down the little voice in my head that was attempting to point out that this was an amazingly stupid way to waste the last few miles of gas that I had left for the weekend…. What am I doing? Oh listen, I told myself, I think I have a couple of wadded up dollar bills in my bag amidst all those crumpled up cough drop wrappers, and the cupholder is filled with change. We can make it. Ah, but if I have to get gas near her house, I’ll need to pay in cash anyway, I couldn’t charge it- otherwise he will see that I filled up near her house at this time, and how would I explain that? He’d know. God, there are so many fucking things to think about. Maybe if I could concentrate enough on those, I could keep ignoring the big obvious one- think about what you are becoming, Corinne. Is this what you want your life to be? Ok, I can’t get caught doing this, I distracted myself. Focus. We drove out into the darkness. Into the calm of driving under the blanket of night. It occurred to me that to properly jump into my new career as an undercover spy (or is that stalker…?) I should wear my sunglasses. But that was obviously ridiculous. It was dark out. Behind the wheel, I felt strangely relieved, even though my heart was pounding. I had some control. I was directing the steering wheel. It felt sturdy and reassuring in my hands, responding to each silent movement that I imposed on it. I was doing something. I was going somewhere. Ok. This is what I need. This is good. This will help. I was going to KNOW. If those two weren’t going to provide me with any resolution, I was going to go out there and provide it for myself, dammit. Empowerment. …..Right?? I convinced myself that I was going to know, and that was certainly going to make me feel better, even though part of me knew that whatever I saw there I would then have to interpret….. what would it mean even if he is there? Will you be convinced? Of what will you be convinced, Corinne? That they’re having an affair? Not necessarily. That they’re betraying you? You already know that, Corinne. What are you going to gain with this expedition? What will you KNOW? When will you have the information to feel secure that you KNOW enough? Whatever it is that you need to KNOW…. We drove closer, and I rolled my window a down crack to smoke a cigarette as we continued forward. As we finally started to approach her street from the main, my heart started to pound more. No longer fear of what I might see, now it was simply fear of being seen. It seemed like there were more streetlights than usual. Each time we stopped at a red light, I looked around nervously, feeling exposed. As if moving provided some sort of camouflage…. As if the car turned one of those cartoon blurs when it was in motion. Whatever I do, I need to keep moving, I thought irrationally. I located her street sign, that I had passed just hours before, and I listened to the punctuating click of the blinker as I waited to turn onto it. It seemed different somehow. I rolled up my window, fearing that Drew would wake up and recognize where we were. And say ‘Hey mommy, what are we doing at Sophie’s house?’. I didn’t want that happen. What would I tell him? What would he tell papa? What would papa tell all of our friends? I will drive by only once, I told myself, and come out on the Crescent Street exit. And go home. I drove by… the street seemed longer than I remembered, with more curves, and though I had been there just hours ago, I had trouble finding her house in the dark. Probably because I was looking around at each car so nervously. What if he saw me? What if he was walking down the street? I finally saw her house, surprisingly lit up… literally every window upstairs and down… glowing unnaturally amidst the darkened street…. I sped up, what if she’s looking out the window? What if she sees me? There. I’ve passed it. Gabriel’s van didn’t seem to be there…. but maybe he wouldn’t park it right out front. And what if I didn’t see it? My heart was racing so much that maybe I just didn’t see it. So I turned around and drove back up the street…. Still nothing.