Chương 13
On Monday, she returned to the operating room.
No music played during the first procedure. The circulating nurse usually chose a playlist, but everyone seemed uncertain whether normal preferences applied to someone from a viral video.
Hannah finally said, “Can we have something that does not involve acoustic guitar?”
The nurse grinned and selected old soul music.
The operation lasted six hours.
For most of that time, Hannah thought only about tissue, blood supply, tension, and closure. The narrow focus felt like mercy.
When she left the hospital after dark, Nathan waited near the employee garage.
He stood beside a concrete pillar with his hands in his pockets.
“You should not be here,” she said.
“I didn’t go inside.”
“That is not the problem.”
He nodded. “I need to ask you something.”
“About your care?”
“No.”
She waited.
“Sloane says she wants to release a joint statement after the legal review.”
“Yes.”
“She wants you included.”
“I don’t.”
“Why?”
“Because public truth becomes entertainment.”
“It already is.”
“That does not require my cooperation.”
Nathan looked tired. The scar near his temple appeared more pronounced beneath the garage lights.
“She says your father is losing contracts.”
“He blames me.”
“Do you care?”
“Yes.”
Nathan seemed surprised.
“I do not want him destroyed,” Hannah said. “I want him unable to use his version of Owen’s death against us.”
“Is there a difference?”
“There should be.”
Nathan leaned against the pillar.
“I loved him,” Hannah said. “That is the embarrassing part.”
“He’s your father.”
“That does not automatically make love reasonable.”
“No. It makes it common.”
She studied him.
“How are you?”
“I sleep at my brother’s house. His children wake me at six and ask whether I’m married yet.”
“What do you tell them?”
“That paperwork is delayed.”
“That seems dishonest.”
“They’re five and seven.”
“Children understand canceled weddings.”
“They also repeat everything at school.”
A car turned into the garage, headlights moving across them.
Nathan waited until it passed.
“I haven’t ended the engagement,” he said.
“That is not my business.”
“I know.”
“Then why tell me?”
“Because part of me thinks staying makes me weak.”
Hannah looked toward the exit.
“After the fire, people expected me to be grateful for everything,” he continued. “Grateful to be alive. Grateful for surgery. Grateful Sloane loved me when I looked different. Sometimes I couldn’t tell whether I loved her or owed her.”
“You do not owe someone marriage because they saw you injured.”
“I know that when you say it.”
“You know it without me.”
“Maybe.”
He rubbed the bare place on his finger.
“She did not lie about loving me.”
“No.”
“She lied about the shape of her life.”
“Yes.”
“Can people rebuild trust after that?”
Hannah thought of Denise in the grocery aisle, Sloane at the police station, and herself across the street from Owen’s funeral.
“Sometimes,” she said.
“Did you?”
“No.”
“That is not encouraging.”
“I was not trying.”
Nathan looked at her.
The sentence surprised Hannah too.
She had called her distance survival, but survival had become routine long after danger changed shape. She had not tried because failure would have proved Alan right about the family being beyond repair. She had not tried because anger was easier to preserve than uncertainty.
Nathan pushed away from the pillar.
“Sloane asked me to visit the crash site with her.”
“Are you going?”
“I don’t know.”
“You should not go because she asks.”
“Then why?”
“Go if you need to understand what she is asking you to carry.”
He nodded.
“Will you go?”
Hannah shook her head.
“I’ve been there enough.”
Three days later, she went.
The road had changed. The county had widened the shoulder and replaced the old barrier with concrete. Weeds grew around a small wooden cross set beyond the drainage ditch. Someone had attached faded plastic flowers to it with wire.
Sloane stood near the cross in jeans and a black blouse. Nathan waited closer to the road. Denise remained in Carol’s car.
Hannah parked behind them.
Sloane looked at her but did not ask why she had changed her mind.
They walked into the grass.
Traffic passed in bursts. Each vehicle created a rush of air that moved the weeds and tugged at their clothes.
“The car stopped there,” Hannah said, pointing toward the lower part of the ditch.
Sloane looked down.
“I thought it was closer to the road.”
“It felt closer because of the lights.”
Nathan stayed several feet away.
Sloane touched the wooden cross. The name OWEN had been carved unevenly into the grain.
“Who put this here?”
“A friend from school,” Denise called from the car. “It was replaced once.”
Sloane crouched to remove dead leaves from the base.
“I remember him asking for food,” she said.
Hannah nodded. “He wanted fries.”
“We told him there would be food at the party.”
“There was.”
“He hated all of it.”
“He ate three brownies.”
“He said those were emergency food.”
Nathan looked toward the traffic.
“What happened immediately before you reached for the phone?”
Sloane remained crouched.
“Hannah said she was calling Dad.”
“What did you think he would do?”
“Come get me. Ground me. Call Derek’s parents. Tell everyone I was a slut.”
Denise flinched inside the car.
Sloane continued. “Dad used embarrassment like a leash. I thought if Hannah called him, my life was over.”
“You knew the car was moving,” Nathan said.
“Yes.”
“Did you touch the wheel?”
“Yes.”
The word came without qualification.
Hannah felt the world narrow to the ditch, the passing cars, and her sister’s hand resting on Owen’s cross.
Sloane stood.
“I’ve been trying to remember whether it was my palm or my fingers. I don’t think it matters anymore. I reached across a driver because I wanted the phone. I touched the wheel. Hannah pushed me away. We both moved it.”
Hannah looked at her.
Sloane’s eyes were wet.
“I’m sorry.”
Hannah had imagined those words for ten years.
May you like
They were too small.
That was not Sloane’s fault. Some injuries outgrew language.
