As I steer the car down the mountain curves, the tires squeak on the rain-soaked gravel. Finn stares out the window, lost in his thoughts as we pass ‘the spot’. The place where our mother crashed and died.
A near-by tree hosts brightly-colored ribbons and a small plain cross. It’s lonely here, reverent and quiet. It’s a place that I usually ignore, because otherwise, it makes my heart hurt too much.
Unexpectedly, though, Finn lifts his head.
“Can you stop?”
Startled, I brake, then pull over. “What’s wrong?”
He shakes his head. “Nothing. I just need to be here for a minute.”
He gets out, his car door creaking as he closes it. I’m uneasy as I follow, because we’ve never stopped here before, not since we hung the ribbons and staked the white cross into the ground. It’s sacred ground here, but it’s also emotional ground. And emotional ground is dangerous for Finn to tread on.
“Whatcha doin’?” I ask as casually as I can, following him to the side of the steep incline, to the place where mom plunged over the side as she was talking to me. Balancing here, with our toes poking over the side, we can still see where the trees are knocked down and damaged from mom’s car hitting them. I feel a wave of nausea.
“Do you think she was dead before she hit the bottom?” Finn asks, his voice emotionless. My heart squeezes in my chest.
“I don’t know.”
I’ve thought about it, of course, but I don’t know. Dad didn’t tell us and I can’t bring myself to ask.
“What do you think about the other car?” Finn asks, his gaze staring down into the ravine and definitely not looking at me. I inhale, then exhale, pushing the guilt away, far away from me, over the mountain, over the cliffs, into the water.
“I don’t know,” I answer honestly.
It’s the truth, because afterward, Dad wouldn’t tell us what happened to the occupants of the other car. Who they were, how many. He thought I was feeling enough unwarranted guilt, enough pain and torment. He wouldn’t talk about any of it and we were banned from turning the television on for weeks, just in case the news carried coverage. You’d think it would be maddening, but at the time, I was so immersed in grieving that I almost didn’t notice.
The problem is, it didn’t stop the guilt.
Because I killed people.
Staring down the side of this mountain, looking at the gouges carved into the trees from the metal of the crashed cars, the destruction of the forest…it’s all evidence. Whoever mom hit is dead. That’s apparent.
And that’s my fault. I killed them just like I killed her.
The only real question is, how many were in the car? Was it one person? A couple? An entire family?
“Do you think there were kids involved?” I ask quietly. Because the thought of that… God. It’s unbearable. I picture scared little kids strapped into car seats, covered in blood and terror. I squeeze my eyes closed to block out the imagined sight.
“I don’t know,” Finn answers, his voice just as quiet. “We could find out, if you want. We could look up the newspaper articles. If you think knowing would be better than not knowing.”
I think on that for a minute, because it’s tempting, so tempting. Then I shake my head.
“If dad won’t tell us, then it’s bad,” I decide. “That means that I’m better off not knowing.”
Finn nods and stares wordlessly out over the trees.
Finally he speaks. “But what was a car doing on this mountain? We’re the only ones who live here. No one else has any reason for being here that late at night. The Home was closed.”
It’s a question I’ve wondered about ever since it happened. Mom was rounding the curve in the middle of the lane because she wasn’t expecting anyone to be there.
But someone was.
And they’d hit each other head on.
“I don’t know,” I reply and my chest feels like ice, like my sternum will freeze and shatter. “Maybe they were lost.”
Finn nods because that’s a possibility, and the only one that makes sense, before he grabs my hand and holds it tight.
“It’s not your fault.”
His words are simple, his tone is solemn.
A lump forms, sticking halfway in my throat, in a limbo area, where it can neither be swallowed or cleared.
“It is.” My words are just as simple. “Why aren’t you mad at me for it?”
When Finn finally looks at me, his eyes are tortured, and blue as the sky.
“Because it can’t be undone. Because you’re the most important person to me. That’s why.”
I nod because now I know the truth. He’s not mad at me because he thinks I’m not at fault. It’s clear that I am. He’s not mad at me because I’m all he has, because I’m a part of him.
“We’ve got to go. I’m going to be late.”
I nod in agreement and we back away from the edge. With a last glance at the sad ravine, we climb back into the car, damp with the drizzle and our tears, and drive silently to the hospital.
When we’re inside, Finn turns to me before he slips into his room.
“There is a grief group. You should check it out.”
“Now you sound like dad,” I tell him impatiently. “I don’t need to talk to them. I have you. No one understands like you.”
He nods, because no one understands like him. And then he disappears into the place where he draws his strength, around people who suffer just like him.
I try not to feel inadequate that they can help him in ways that I can’t.
Instead, I curl up on my bench beneath the abstract bird. I pop ear-buds in my ears and close my eyes. I forgot my book today, so disappearing into music will have to do.
I concentrate on feeling the music rather than hearing it. I feel the vibration, I feel the words. I feel the beat. I feel the voices. I feel the emotion.
Someone else’s emotion other than my own is always a good thing.
The minutes pass, one after the other.
And then after twenty of them, he approaches.
Him.
The sexy stranger with eyes as black as night.