The Divide by Nicholas Evans

him.
    The car was a little silver Japanese thing. He had to shift the seat all the way back to get his legs under the steering wheel. Sarah would probably think he was being cheap and should have rented something bigger. They hadn’t seen each other in more than a year and he already felt dread welling in his stomach. He started the car up, reversed from the parking bay and slowly headed out toward the highway.
    The second time they had spoken on the phone, before Sarah flew home from Italy, she had fully regained composure. She was cool, almost businesslike. Not a tear was shed by either of them. Ben had been expecting a discussion but it was more like listening to a series of announcements. The body would be shipped back to New York, she said, and that was where the funeral would be, where all Abbie’s loved ones lived. The all excluded Ben, of course, but he let it pass. And it would be a burial, which was how Sarah’s family had always done these things. Ben had been planning to suggest a cremation, with the ashes scattered here in Montana, the place Abbie had so often said she loved best in all the world. But he wasn’t going to get into a fight about it.
    There was more to come. Sarah had already phoned Josh in New York. He was, she informed Ben, “devastated but okay.” How to break the news to their son was another thing Ben had been expecting to discuss. He was furious. He had been all set to fly to New York to do it in person and now wished he hadn’t waited. Moreover, Sarah had also organized for the boy to go stay in Bedford with her parents. Indeed, they had already driven to the city to collect him. Sarah would see him, albeit briefly, when she got back, then fly on to Missoula. Josh, she said, would not be coming with her.
    Ben had thus been thoroughly preempted and excised. And, as usual, he swallowed his anger and said nothing. It was a technique Sarah had used over and over again since he left her and she now had it honed to perfection, excluding him from important decisions about their children with such a casual—sometimes even friendly—aplomb, that to complain seemed churlish. The underlying message was always the same: By leaving, he had revealed his total lack of love for them and had thereby forfeited all rights of consultation.
    Sometimes she did it so brilliantly, he couldn’t help but be impressed. And though it surprised him that she should choose to do it now, in their shared desolation, he realized later that she had in fact surpassed herself. For now he would have to call Josh in the enemy camp of his former in-laws. George and Ella Davenport had always considered him unworthy of their golden daughter and his desertion had vindicated their contempt. Ben was now properly consigned to some lower stratum of cheats, liars, and ne’er-do-wells.
    Immediately after he had finished listening to Sarah’s list of decisions, he called Josh’s cell phone.
    “Hey, Joshie.”
    “Hi.”
    “I was going to fly over and tell you about Abbie, but Mom says she already told you.”
    “Yeah.”
    “How are you doing?”
    “Okay, I guess.”
    There was a long pause. Ben thought he could hear whispers in the background.
    “Are you with your grandma and grandpa?”
    “Yeah. We’re in the car.”
    “Oh. Right. Well, say hi to them for me.”
    “Okay.”
    “Mom says you’re not coming out to Missoula.”
    “What’s the point?”
    His voice was so flat and colorless that Ben wondered if the boy had taken too many of those antidepressant pills he’d been on for the last few months. Or perhaps he was just dazed by the news or embarrassed to talk in front of Ella and George. Ben cursed himself for not going to New York. It was he who should be with his son at this time, not those two.
    “Well, I guess you’re right. Listen, will you call me when you’ve got a moment to yourself?”
    “Okay.”
    “Bye, then. I love you, son.”
    “Yeah. Bye.”

    The Valley View Funeral Home and