He’s still on the lean side, and at twenty-five he barely passes for twenty-one out of uniform. Facial hair isn’t even an option for the poor guy; it grows in in blond patches.
He reaches down to settle a comforting hand on my shoulder. “Text the sitter and let her know you’ll be home in a half hour, tops. I’ll give you a ride as soon as backup comes. They’re on their way. Just a few more minutes.”
I manage a soft “thank you,” as I focus on the cloth in my hands, now splotched with blood, most of it not mine. I can’t imagine what the rest of me looks like.
Keith leans his back against the cruiser, his gaze drifting over the wreckage. We don’t see this sort of thing very often in our small community. “Damn, Cath. That was crazy, what you did tonight. Brave . . . but fucking crazy.”
“I couldn’t just let him die.”
“Yeah . . .” He sighs. “It could easily have gone another way, though.”
“He would have burned alive,” I whisper hoarsely. It’s the only answer I can give, because I can’t let myself think of what could have happened. My throat tightens every time the thought of Brenna waking up without a mother tomorrow edges into my thoughts. And I know it’s only the beginning. No matter what happens to that guy—whether he lives or not—I will be playing a horrific game of what-if for months to come.
Keith shakes his head to himself, his eyes on my Grand Prix. “I definitely can’t fix that.”
I groan.
Three more cruisers roll up behind us then, their lights flashing but no sirens. No doubt the town’s CB radio junkies will have heard about the accident by now. They’ll be jumping in their cars and trying to get close to the scene soon enough. I’m surprised someone from the Tribune isn’t here yet.
“All right, give me a quick minute and then I’ll take you home. Unless you’ve changed your mind about the hospital?”
I test my right wrist. Agonizing pain shoots through my forearm, but at least I can move it. “It’s just a sprain. I’ll be fine,” I promise through gritted teeth. It must have happened when we tumbled into the ditch, though I didn’t feel a thing. It’s swollen to almost twice its normal size, and the paramedic who cleaned the scrapes on my legs wanted to take me in, but I refused. I’ve never wanted to go home more than I do right now, to shower the blood and ditch water off my body and curl up with Brenna’s small warm body, and not worry about how the hell I’m going to get to work without a car or serve platters of food without the use of my right hand.
Keith opens his mouth, no doubt to argue with me.
“Please, Keith.”
He sighs. “Yeah, give me a minute.” He marches toward the approaching officers, while I climb into his cruiser, yanking the door shut to trap the heat in, my single shoe resting on my lap, the heel snapped off. The other one is lying somewhere out there, lost in the tumble.
I wrap the soft gray blanket Keith gave me around my body, and watch and listen quietly from the passenger seat as the firefighters mill about, their bright yellow suits an oddly comforting sight. A middle--aged man with gray wing-like stripes at his temples, in black pants and a jacket that reads CORONER on the back, arrives. I can’t imagine the gruesome sight left on the hood of the car. I close my eyes at the very thought and instead listen to the car radio, alive with chatter, most of it code that I can’t understand. I doubt it’s seen this much action in decades.
A few minutes later, Keith slides into the driver’s side. The car’s still running, the heat pumping out to warm my wet body. “So, we haven’t released your name to the media yet—”
“Don’t! Please. I don’t want to give this town any reason to talk about me.” It’s guaranteed to dredge up the past, and that’s something I’m hoping Brenna never hears about, until I decide to tell her. Many years from now.
“I know. That’s what I told everyone.”
I reach up to pull my seat belt across and hiss with pain as I bump my injured wrist.
He watches me quietly for a moment. “What are you going to do about work?”
“I’ll figure something out. I always do.” As much as it makes me cringe, I do have some savings that I can use to keep us afloat. That took me forever to accumulate.
“Maybe your parents can help?”
I spear him with a look. There’s no way I’m asking my parents for money. I’m sure they’re up to their eyeballs in debt anyway, putting Emma through four years at Columbia. At least my little brother, Jack, earned a scholarship to Minnesota.
He heaves a sigh. “But you’re going to tell them about this at least, right?”
When I don’t answer, he groans. I make Keith sigh and groan. A lot.
“Are you really that surprised?” Keith, who still lives with his parents and has what I consider an abnormally close relationship with them, just doesn’t understand why things are the way they are between us. He’s constantly offering his advice on ways to “fix our problems,” no matter how many times I tell him that some things will always be broken beyond repair.
“Come on, Cath! What do you really think she’s gonna say?”
“That I can’t help but make poor life choices?” My mother’s reedy voice is already filling my head. “How could you put a stranger before your daughter!”
I push away the guilt edging in with that thought, because I’m asking myself the same question.
“I don’t think she’ll do that this time.”
“I do.”
“Well, that doesn’t mean you’re right.”
“Don’t you dare, Keith.” Keith lives three blocks away from my parents and he has no problem sticking his nose in other people’s business.
With a heavy sigh, he agrees. “Whatever you want, Cath. But them finding out about this through someone else isn’t gonna help things between you guys.”
“They’re not going to find out because I’m not telling anyone. And you’re not releasing my name.”
“Right.” He pulls a three-point turn and edges past the other cruisers on the shoulder.
“Besides, Emma and Jack are in the middle of final exams. I don’t want this to distract them. God knows she’d blame me if they didn’t both get straight A’s.”
“She wouldn’t blame you.”
“She needs to assign blame in every situation. It’s her MO.” For most of my childhood, that blame fell on me. Jack tripped and fell? I wasn’t watching him carefully enough. Emma lost her glasses? They were obviously buried somewhere in the sty that was my half of our shared room.
We round the bend in the road and all I can see are lights. Red and blue flashing lights from the police blockade and, beyond them, the hazy glow of headlights in the fog. At least a dozen, with the hint of more approaching in the distance. More than I would expect for a Balsam County car accident, as tragic as it may be.
Keith slows the car, allowing the officers to move the barricade enough to let us through. Beyond us, cameramen and reporters fill the open lane, filming.