When he leaves the house, he leaves the radio on.

“So there’s something to come home to,” says Tom Ruprecht.

Life is lonely. It is lonely because of a small, fateful shift — a few minutes lost, a small detour, an extra cup of coffee, a rented car. Ruprecht puts the tiny, seemingly unrelated pieces together again and again. And again and again, they put him and his wife, Signe Larson, at a Getty station in Middletown last year. They put them in the same place as a complete stranger who would undo their lives in a split second.

“You think about it a lot, day and night,” he says.

He thinks about going back into the bed and breakfast in Newport to ask for directions. How many minutes did that take?

He thinks about the portable GPS system they didn’t bring with them and how that might have meant a quicker, easier departure from Newport.

He thinks about the extra coffee he drank that August morning and how that created the need for a “pit stop” at Johnny’s Getty on West Main Road.

He thinks about how he and his wife decided to rent a car for the drive from Florida to Martha’s Vineyard instead of using their own car and how the gas tank on the rental car was on the opposite side from their car. Did that make a difference in who was standing where?

He thinks about the change in plans they made as they headed north, how his wife recalled a visit to Newport years before, and how much she liked it and thought it would be fun to see it again.

It was last minute. Newport was on the way. They were in no hurry.

It is impossible not to ask the questions, even though there are no answers. What if they had been a few minutes later, a few minutes earlier? What if another person’s bad habits had been held in check that day, rather than spilling over at a gas station?

We all do it. We all question how seemingly random events come together to take us to a certain place at a certain time and create an unexpected turn in our lives. Tom Ruprecht isn’t sure he can ever stop.

Signe Larson — who would have been 62 last Tuesday, who loved to travel, play mahjong, cruise the Florida waters in their 26-foot boat, ride a Jet Ski and care for animals — died in Florida on Aug. 25, 2007. She died 12 days after that stop in Middletown.

Larson died after more than 30 years of marriage to Ruprecht. There were supposed to be a lot more years, good years filled with shared interests in a good place.

They met at a party in Columbus, Ohio, in 1969. He had graduated from Ohio State with a business degree, she from Bowling Green in speech therapy. They married in 1974, raised two children and spent their working lives in western Ohio. Signe (pronounced Sig-nee) decided to remain Signe Larson because, she said, one unusual name was enough. She worked as a speech therapist in Columbus schools for 30 years. Deaf students were among those she worked with.

She was in Big Sisters. He was in Big Brothers.

When they retired, they looked for a while to find the right place. They found it in Cape Coral, Fla. Ruprecht says there is a wonderful sense of community there.

Then, in August 2007, they headed north to Martha’s Vineyard and stopped in Newport. On Aug. 13, they stopped at Johnny’s Getty. Tom needed to use the bathroom. Signe decided they might as well top off the gas tank.

“I was in the restroom and I heard what sounded like a terror scream,” says Ruprecht. “I heard a crash. I came out of the restroom. It looked like a car had bumped our car.”

Signe was lying in the back seat of the car, comforted by the gas-station attendant. As the police later reconstructed the accident, a woman who had been at the station had apparently crashed into one car, forcing it into Larson as she stood by her car. The woman then drove away.

Larson was taken to Newport Hospital and found to have massive trauma on her left side but no broken bones. Ruprecht says doctors at the hospital said she would have considerable pain but should make a full recovery.

Ruprecht took his wife back to Florida. They flew first class for the first time. On Aug. 25, their daughter Michelle was visiting from her home in California, and Signe suggested that her husband take their daughter out for a Jet Ski ride.

Ruprecht got his wife settled into bed, with heat where she needed it and ice where she needed it. Then at a time when her recovery seemed to be progressing as the doctors in Newport had predicted, there was yet another strange turn, another question for Ruprecht to ask and ask again.

He is not sure whether he could have gotten back home in time to save his wife if he had answered her first phone call. But he didn’t hear his cell phone ring because of the noise of the Jet Ski engine. When he finally shut the engine off, he did hear his phone. His wife told him she was in pain and having trouble breathing. He and his daughter rushed home.

A rescue squad did make it to the house and got Larson to a hospital, but it was too late. Signe Larson died of a pulmonary embolism caused by massive trauma.

Now, Rebecca Faulkner, 28, of 26 Stockton Drive, Middletown, faces charges of leaving the scene of a deadly accident, drunken driving, and reckless driving in connection with a deadly accident. According to the police, Faulkner crashed her car into another car while trying to drive from the Getty station. She drove that car into Larson, who was standing next to her vehicle.

Faulkner allegedly fled the scene, but a witness followed her to the parking lot of a restaurant and took away her keys. The police said Faulkner failed a field sobriety test and did not cooperate with efforts to give her a chemical breath test.

Ruprecht came to Rhode Island when the grand jury heard evidence in the case in April and will attend the trial when it is scheduled. He has been working with prosecutors. He has also tried to look into Faulkner’s background, although he says it is tough getting information in Rhode Island.

“I’m not interested in any kind of revenge,” he says. “I’m interested in getting her off the streets.”

Back in Cape Coral, his neighbors have been wonderful. He has no plans to move from the house that, he says, is Signe’s house. It has her small touches everywhere he looks. He’s still trying to figure out her system for organizing the kitchen cabinets.

Neighbors wanted to do something in Larson’s memory. They collected family recipes, published a cookbook and donated the proceeds to Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

bkerr@projo.com