“I’m so sorry.”
“I’m so sorry.”
I thought she was sorry Ruby was gone.
It took me fifteen days to understand what she was really apologizing for.
Three days later, Jason opened his eyes.
His head was bandaged.
His left leg was in a brace from hip to ankle.
Tubes ran into his arm.
When he saw me, he started to cry.
I’d never seen him cry.
Not once in seven years.
I took his hand.
“I know,” I whispered.
“I know.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Hannah, I’m so sorry.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“A truck ran the light.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
He squeezed my hand so hard the bones ground together.
“Don’t go look at her,” he said.
“Meredith told me you wanted to.”
“Don’t.”
“Keep her the way she was.”
“Promise me, Hannah.”
I promised.
My phone buzzed on the tray table.
He looked at it.
I turned it face down.
He looked at me.
Then he closed his eyes.
Jason signed everything.
Meredith brought the forms to his bed.
Hospital papers.
Release papers.
Papers from Mercer and Sons.
Jason’s Uncle Walt had run the town’s only fu.neral home for thirty years.
“Walt will take care of her,” Meredith said.
“You won’t have to do anything.”
“You won’t have to see anything.”
I couldn’t hold a pen anyway.
My hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
On the fourth night, I couldn’t stand it anymore.
I got in the car at two in the morning.
I drove to Mercer and Sons.
The lights were off.
Except one.
In the back.
The room where Walt worked.
I knocked on the side door.
I knocked until my knuckles hurt.
Walt opened it in a flannel robe.
He looked like he hadn’t slept either.
“Hannah.”
“Let me see her, Walt.”
“Honey, go home.”
“I’m her mother.”
“I know you are.”
“Five minutes.”
“One minute.”
“Just let me hold her hand.”
He filled the whole doorway.
He wasn’t a big man.
But he didn’t move.
“There’s nothing in that room you want to see,” he said.
“You don’t know what I want.”
“Hannah.”
