STORY DESCRIPTION:
Six years have passed for Daniel Laughlin since he lost his parents in a car accident. Still dealing with the pain of that tragedy, the one thing that has eluded him is closure. A nurse who rendered compassion to his mother at the scene was never identified. As much as Daniel and his family wanted to thank the person, the closure he sought might only be gained by learning what his mother’s final words were, which were apparently said to only the nurse. With his life suddenly taking on new hope when his new accountant, Amanda Harper, becomes an integral part of his personal life, he seems able to finally put the pain of his parents’ death behind him. He learns in the most difficult manner that such a hope might not be possible after eventually learning what the unidentified nurse knew about that night.
STORY BEGINS HERE:
This grief was not a wound. It was a recurring, painful reminder for the person experiencing it. If it were a wound, then it rendered Time’s boast of healing all such wounds as untrue. No, this grief was not a wound. It was a permanent affliction that knew no relief. Some saw grief as a journey that began with a tragedy’s arrival and ended with the acceptance of that tragedy’s aftermath.
That version, however, implied the journey be made only once. No, this grief was an easily-triggered memory that shared the tragedy’s solitary journey’s beginning and end, but not its once-only occurrence. It was a memory that always began in the mind and ended in the heart and insisted to be constantly recalled, as it always had been for the past six years.
This grief was formed from the death of two people in a car crash where fault was firmly affixed. As it was almost daily done, the electronic newspaper account of the accident six years ago was read by the one grieving once more today, with the six years that had passed of reading the same story feeling no different than it was always yesterday.
A husband and wife were killed in a two-vehicle crash that saw the car leave the elevated Westbound lane of the County Expressway and move down a culvert between that and the Eastbound lane of the expressway. It exited below on County route 115, where it was struck by a construction vehicle heading north. Both occupants were pronounced dead at the scene.
Ron and Catherine Laughlin, owners of Laughlin Electrical Contracting, died from their injuries despite the exhaustive measures by emergency personnel. The only witness to what occurred on the expressway itself was a driver for U.P.S. He described for police that as he moved around a bend in the right lane of the expressway heading west, he saw the 2007 Chevy Cobalt already half way off the left lane.
By the time he reached that point of the expressway, the Laughlin’s vehicle had traveled down the culvert between the two elevated sections of the expressway to be struck by a dump truck operated by an employee of Monument Construction. The witness indicated that he saw no other vehicles on the road ahead of him.
A spokesman for the county sheriff’s department indicated that an investigation was underway to determine what caused Mr. Laughlin, identified as the driver, to drive off the expressway and end up in the road down below. We’ve been told that law enforcement officials did not expect any announcement regarding if charges will be filed against the driver of the construction vehicle before the investigation was complete. Statements from witnesses on County Route 115 all indicated that with the unexpected way that the Laughlin’s vehicle entered the road way, it left the driver unable to stop in time or avoid the collision and that his speed was not a factor.
—– 1 —–_____________________________________________________________________________________
The spokesman indicated that all possibilities will be investigated in this unusual fatal accident. We were informed that a steady rain had been falling at the time of the accident, so weather might have been a factor, as well as mechanical failure. Medical examiners will conduct tests to determine if Mr. Laughlin might have been experiencing a medical emergency. Also, the results of the toxicology tests are expected to take up to a week.
Witnesses also did report of a young woman that arrived shortly after the accident, who identified herself as a nurse and interacted with the still-conscious Catherine Laughlin before she slipped from consciousness just as emergency crews arrived. It was a matter of minutes before resuscitation efforts were ceased and both Mr. and Mrs. Laughlin were pronounced dead.
We were also informed that the young woman had been the only one to talk to Mrs. Laughlin. She spoke to the dying woman in what the witnesses described as her convincing Mrs. Laughlin that her and her husband would be alright. It was mentioned by most of the witnesses how peaceful the young woman had made Mrs. Laughlin feel. When the police attempted to talk to this woman, she had already departed the scene.
…..
Daniel Laughlin did not feel Time marching on when he thought about his parents’ deaths. Reality, however, did maintain its forward cadence. His accountant of six years since Daniel had taken over the electrical contracting business after the death of his parents had retired last year after tax season had ended. Any attempt to self-navigate the myriad monster that was a business tax return was steadfastly resisted. He took Ed Benson’s suggestion, Ed being the retiring CPA and the accountant to Daniel’s parents for nearly twenty years prior, and Daniel contacted Amanda Harper.
He left a message after hours on the voice mail of Integrity Accounting Services, the firm solely owned by Amanda Harper. The message gave a reason for the call and a call back number, but he left out Ed Benson’s recommendation. Daniel thought that could be brought up directly. The current tax and calendar year had yet to end and it was still months before filing was necessary, but Daniel saw the chaos that tax season became for CPAs. He would leave nothing to chance by waiting to find Ed’s successor.
Ed was quite complimentary in his praise of Amanda Harper’s skill and like any business, referrals were always welcome. So, it was disappointment that Daniel felt the following morning when Lisa from Integrity called back a little past ten to inform Daniel that the firm was not taking on new business clients at this time. Daniel, now grateful that he had not waited, called Ed to seek another option.
“Hey, Ed. It’s Daniel Laughlin. How are you?” “Fine, Daniel. Retirement is actually better than I imagined.” “That’s great, Ed. You left out the part where you’re driving your wife crazy.” Ed could only respond with a laugh as Daniel got to the point of his call. “Hey, really quick. Do you have someone else to recommend to replace you cooking the books?” Perplexed, Ed asked, “I thought you were going to call Amanda Harper’s company?” “I did. They called back and said they weren’t taking on new business clients at this time.”
—– 2 —–_____________________________________________________________________________________
“Amanda Harper told you that?” Daniel could not mistake Ed’s confusion, as it created Daniel’s own. “No, it was someone from her office. Her name was…Lisa.” “Lisa? Lisa is Amanda’s executive assistant and that’s not a decision Lisa would make. I would have thought that Mandy would have called you back herself and with an entirely different answer. Let me make a phone call and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.” Daniel took it to mean that since Amanda Parker had turned down Daniel as a client, Ed sought another solution. “Ed, you don’t have to call around for me. I can do that if you give me a name.”
“Actually, I’m calling Mandy. I’ve been sending her a lot of old clients and if she’s reached a saturation point, which is unusual, I need to know that. I would think that if Amanda declined your business, she would have called you herself or me.” Daniel took the opportunity to defend Amanda Harper. “Well, maybe she’s not so horrible as you seem to be implying. I never mentioned that you referred me.”
“That’s typical of you, Daniel. You never like to get ahead unless you earn it. This isn’t something like that. This is about me.” The way Ed said it so emphatically caused Daniel to laugh at the unexpected turn. “Seriously, Daniel, there’s a reason I want most of my former clients to end up with Mandy’s company, so let me call her. Talk to you soon.” Before Daniel could attempt to halt Ed’s extra effort, Ed disconnected.
The call Daniel received about ten minutes later was from Amanda Harper herself. He said ‘hello’ and paused for a reply. He had imagined a woman in line with Ed’s generation, but her voice had a youth to it. “Hello, Mr. Laughlin. This is Amanda Harper. I apologize for the confusion on the matter. I didn’t realize Ed had recommended you and….”
“That was my fault,” Daniel insisted. “Well, there really isn’t any need to assess blame to anyone. Truly. The reason I’m calling you is that you should have heard it from me and for that, I apologize, but we wouldn’t be able to take you as client. Hopefully, this doesn’t inconvenience you.” Her tone did not completely hide the forced need to have declined Daniel twice.
“No, not at all. I feel bad now that Ed called you.” “Oh, don’t. Ed really cares about his clients and I can tell he sees you more as a friend, actually.” “Yeah, me, too, although I sort of inherited that friendship when I took over the business from my parents. I…” “Um, Mr. Laughlin, I don’t mean to cut you short, but I have a conference call I need to get to. Good luck with your search.” Taken back by the brusque manner of the woman, all Daniel could do was retreat.
“Thank you for the call, Ms. Parker. Goodbye.” “Goodbye, Mr. Laughlin.” Daniel could only imagine that Ed had perhaps scolded Amanda Parker and that her phone call to Daniel was at Ed’s insistence. Hoping that wasn’t actually the case, Daniel held off calling Ed. The matter to find a new accountant still had time. What weighed on Daniel was Amanda Parker’s manner. Did she truly resent Ed’s interference? If Ed did send that many referrals to her, it hardly would appeal to Ed to continue that if he learned of how Amanda dismissed clients when she rejected their business.
Perhaps she was having a bad day, Daniel thought, and it had nothing to do with Ed’s involvement. The holidays were in full rage, with it being two weeks until Christmas, and some people struggled through them. Despite the way she ‘apologized’, there was something in her voice, something personal.
—– 3 —–_____________________________________________________________________________________
Whatever it was, he held no animosity toward her. Life had its particular way of altering the plans of human beings in the cruelest way. With Daniel aware that death was sometimes the harsh instrument of the alteration, it had taught him that little in this world matched the level of how angry we often reached about things.
When Daniel’s parents were killed in that car crash a little over six years ago, his world shattered. For his two sisters and himself, who lost more than parents, to the two young grandchildren who lost grandparents they would likely not remember and to the scores of lives his parents’ lives touched in ordinary and amazing ways day in and day out, the world lost a piece of itself that could never be replaced.
The grief he felt still, and the way it refused to fade, had him assign it to the positive impact his parents had on his life during their lives that required, as its due, as much of an equal, adverse reaction to their deaths. Either way, it became something he lived with. He’d wait until Monday to call Ed back and begin the C.P.A. search once more. But Life was in an altering-of-plans mood and Daniel was about to experience this.
When his phone rang half an hour later, Daniel saw Ed’s number. “Hey, Ed.” “Hello again, Daniel. So, what did she say?” Having gotten right to the point, it wasn’t Ed’s approach that intrigued Daniel. It was the urgency in his voice, which had implied much when it shouldn’t have implied anything. “Well….she apologized for not calling me herself and….again, said she couldn’t add on any new clients at this time.”
“No other reason? And you didn’t get the impression that she specifically didn’t want to add you as a client?” Such a question re-focused Daniel’s mind on how he had sensed something personal in Amanda Parker’s voice. “I didn’t really ask, but what possible reason could she have to not want me as a client? We don’t even know each other. Unless……” “Unless what?” Ed prompted. Daniel believed his reply would be too mundane for Ed, but nothing else insisted in Daniel’s mind.
“Maybe we did a job for her or someone she knows and there was an issue.” An exasperated sigh echoed through the phone and registered in Daniel’s ear. “Daniel, when was the last time you, or your parents for that matter, had an issue with a customer that would cause another professional to decline your business?” Ed had a point. “Okay, so it’s personal. I don’t know how…….but………” Daniel paused there as the answer seemed obvious now.
“But what, Daniel?” “Ed, I may not know why it’s personal, but I think you do and since you haven’t told me yet, you obviously feel you can’t. Where does that leave me?” “All I can say is that I don’t think she’d ignore you if you actually went to her office.” Daniel pondered such an action and realized his curiosity would eventually lead him to do just what Ed suggested. But why was Ed so intent to see this happen? “One question, Ed, if you can answer it. If she sees me and realizes who I am, will it make it painful for her or get her angry?”
“Possibly, probably, both. It shouldn’t stop you from going.” Daniel disregarded telling Ed that was a compelling reason to not go. “And whatever it is you know, Ed, you didn’t find out until you called her today?” This found Ed curious. “That’s right, but I don’t understand how that matters or how you reached that conclusion.”
—– 4 —–_____________________________________________________________________________________
“Well, if she told you today, she obviously assumed you’d say nothing to me, which technically you didn’t. Plus, you would have never recommended me to her in the first place without calling her first if you already knew whatever it is that bothers her about me.” Ed conceded that Daniel’s logic was strong.
“And now you’re wondering if you should go see her. Right, Daniel?” “Yeah. I mean, I don’t want to upset her.” Ed’s reply seemed void of logic. “I’m sure you’re going to upset her, but that’s why you need to go.” Strangely, it was under that contrary circumstance that Daniel decided to follow Ed’s advice.
When Daniel reached the office building that I.A.S.’s offices were located, he hoped he was making the right decision. That it seemed unimportant to Ed that Amanda Parker would be upset when Daniel believed they were meeting for the first time had him too curious to back away from his intention now. He saw it as a chance to hopefully right a wrong he believed existed. If Amanda Parker was somehow offended or wounded by something he or his company had done, Daniel needed to know what it was and find a way to fix it.
Walking into the reception area of the company that took up half the fourth floor, he saw a large, open office with activity that fit as ‘bustling’. They certainly would be perceived as a major player in accounting circles. “Hi, I was hoping to see Amanda Parker?” he pleasantly announced to the receptionist named Emily. “Do you have an appointment?” she just as pleasantly asked.
“No, I don’t. But it’s rather important.” Glancing at her wall of phone lines lit and unlit, Emily announced, “Well, let me see what’s up. She doesn’t appear to be on the phone at the moment. Your name?” “Daniel Laughlin,” came Daniel’s slow reply. He was happy when his name didn’t register with Emily.
Buzzing the intercom, Emily said, “Miss Parker?” “Yes, Emily?” “There is a Daniel Laughlin here who wishes to speak to you.” There was only silence returned. After a moment, Emily tried again. “Um, Miss Parker? Mandy?” Perplexed, Emily began to explain. “It appears the intercom is not working,” saying this as she stood to go directly to Amanda’s office, although Emily was surprised when her journey lasted only a couple of steps.
“Oh, here she is now,” Emily announced as Daniel adjusted his line of sight to match Emily’s. He watched a young woman walking toward him that embodied a successful professional woman. Beyond that, she was not a woman he would have forgotten he had met in the past, which made him certain that whatever slight Amanda Parker felt had been inflicted by him, it had been done in an unknown manner, so he hoped he could now remedy it.
“Mr. Laughlin, I’m not sure why you felt it necessary to come here, but again, I am not in the position to add you to my firm’s client list,” she said in an even tone that did not match the aggravation in her eyes. Daniel saw Emily’s puzzled reaction to hearing this and when Emily silently returned to her desk, quite surprised by her boss’s refusal of new business, any doubt for Daniel that this wasn’t a personal matter for Amanda Parker was erased.
—– 5 —–_____________________________________________________________________________________
“I truly don’t mean to upset you, Miss Parker. I’m not really here about an accounting matter. Ed Benson said that….” A panicked Amanda interrupted him. “He told you!?” she exclaimed. She was agitated and Daniel watched her consciously gain control of her emotions. Her raised voice drew unwanted attention from some of her employees who were scattered about the immediate area in cubicles. She immediately addressed the lack of privacy.
“Let’s go to my office,” she more demanded than suggested, with a confused Daniel following quickly. Upon reaching her office, he stepped past her as she waited to close the office door behind him. She skipped the professional offer for Daniel to sit and started in. “I begged him to not tell you. All I wanted was for him to realize why I couldn’t have you as a client. He betrayed me by….” And now Daniel interrupted, but in a matter of accurate appeasement.
“All he said was that you would not ignore me if I showed up. Miss Parker, again, I am not here to upset you, which I am clearly failing miserably at, but it’s rather obvious that somehow, I or my company has offended you and I am at a lost to know what that is. But I am not at a lost to fix whatever it is that has hurt you.” Having realized that she gave away more than Ed had, it still did not stem her anger for Ed.
“Mr. Laughlin….” “Please call me Daniel.” Pausing in exasperation, she continued once she realized that Daniel didn’t deserve her animosity and her calmed tone reflected this. “Daniel….I can absolutely assure you that you and your family have never done anything to upset me. If Ed has gotten you curious as to why I can’t give you the specific reason why I can’t be your accountant, I truly, truly apologize that I can’t satisfy that curiosity for you.” He appeared to not be fully accepting hearing this as she then further justified her position.
“My reason is my own and hopefully that will help you understand that you and your family have never once harmed me. There is nothing that you need to regret. If you’ll excuse me, I have a lot of work to do. The end of the year is rolling around pretty fast.” She returned to around her desk and sat. Feeling dismissed again, he turned to the door. Watching him walk away, she had wanted to talk to this man for so long.
Yet, now with the opportunity at hand, she couldn’t. He stopped just as he reached the door and slowly turned to face her. Her apprehension showed in her face and it wasn’t his purpose to cause it. “I won’t bother you again. I promise. But now I’ll talk to my family about this because the only thing I’m sure of is that this has nothing to do with my business.”
Unsettled by the conclusion and unsure how he reached it, she responded. “Why do think that? And talking to either of your sisters won’t make a difference.” She realized immediately her error and all she could do was wait, for Daniel’s expression told her that he also realized her error. “Well, it’s interesting that I mentioned my business and myself, but twice you said ‘you and your family’. It’s even more interesting that when I did mention my family, you referred to my two sisters. You’ll forgive me if I take the chance that I might not be wasting my time to see if one of my sisters knows you.”
—– 6 —–_____________________________________________________________________________________
As he turned away once more for the door, Amanda, not angry but also no longer upset, softly said, “October 19th, 2011.” The date was one he wished never existed beyond its place on a calendar. Hearing it brought him to a halt. Whatever she had hidden, her knowing this particular date kept him from leaving, which he interpreted as something she now wanted. Pivoting slowly to face her again, as he cautiously walked to her desk and as she rose from her seat, their gazes locked in revelation.
There was only one thing she could say that made sense out of her reaction to him, although then it seemed senseless, as it always had to Daniel and his two sisters. He still needed to hear it. She didn’t need to remind him of what the date meant. Already angry with herself for having said anything that was forcefully balanced, it swayed with Daniel’s right to finally know.
“I was there that night, Daniel. I was the one…who talked to your mother.” He watched her eyes begin to glisten. It was, he knew, purely sadness that caused this reaction in her. At least he could now understand why it had taken so long for Daniel to find out who it was who had stopped at the scene of his parents’ accident and comforted his mother as she slowly faded from life. Having told Catherine Laughlin, and the peace of mind it provided her, that her husband Ron Laughlin was being tended to by medical personnel when his life had already ended, it was what gave Catherine a great solace at the end.
Unable to move to see her husband’s lifeless body in the driver’s seat, believing this gave Catherine such comfort that in her dying moments, she could say things that she would have not said if she knew of her husband’s death. She was able to talk in what amounted to less than three minutes about her children and grandchildren, unaware that her injuries were soon to prove fatal as well.
Daniel and his sisters had unsuccessfully searched for the woman who had said she was a nurse and who witnesses said made his mother’s final few minutes in this life as peaceful as possible. Standing before Daniel was that woman. Once the emergency vehicles reached the crash site, Amanda had disappeared in the hectic aftermath of the crash that claimed his parents’ lives.
Daniel and his sisters never had the opportunity to thank her. It was something Daniel hoped to do as much as he held tightly to the notion of one day looking the person responsible for those deaths in the eyes. To tell that person how he hoped that night would haunt them every day of that person’s life was the most painful motivation he would ever experience.
“We looked for you. We wanted to thank you, to tell you what we had heard you did, how you kept……..” His emotions surged in him, recalling how people told police of this woman who disregarded her personal safety. He imagined how she partially slid under the turned-over car and lay sideways to hold Catherine’s hand and listen to her speak about her children, how she told Amanda to make sure they told Ron that she wasn’t still angry about the tree he cut down outside their home.
Seeing Daniel breaking down slightly, her own tight rein on her tears slipped from her grasp as they drifted down her cheeks. “There’s no need to thank me. When I stopped, no one seemed to be sure what to do. I just thought how scared your mom was and I did what I hope someone would do for someone I cared about.” As he cleared away the dampness from his eyes with his thumb and index finger, he challenged her lack of appreciation for her act.
—– 7 —–_____________________________________________________________________________________
“What you did, what you gave my mother those last few minutes, was an awareness of only life, not death. When you told her that my father was being taken care of and he would be okay, when she could then focus on getting herself taken care of because, as a nurse, you believed everything would be alright. So, she believed you….and I thank you for those wonderful things you said.” She was actually appreciative of his gratitude, but skeptical of its necessity.
“Daniel, all I did was try to help her get through those few minutes. As I mentioned, no one else seemed to realize that was what needed to be done. I did that by telling her lies that you just called wonderful things. It was hardly that. I was in shock, I imagine. At best, I was running on adrenaline.” Her blunt assessment hindered him from trying to have her accept his thanks in as gracious a manner as it was extended. Something else was at work here, he thought. Something from that accident that kept her from staying that night or coming forward afterward when the family used social media to reach out to find her.
“I’m sorry. I’ve obviously not considered this from your point of view. You wished to remain anonymous and I should have respected that, which I will, beginning right now. I did not mean to make you uncomfortable by telling you how much what you did meant to my family….” He grimaced once he saw her expression become distraught, and admitted, “And I just did it again. Didn’t I?” There was only regret in his voice, which now caused Amanda to rethink how much she wanted to have this return to her past.
“Actually, I should apologize. Your family endured so much with that crash. You would think that whatever comfort you could salvage from the incident wouldn’t be something that someone, with me being that someone, would basically imply you should interpret what happened from my vantage point. That is horribly unkind of me and I am not an unkind person. So, I am grateful to hear that what I did helped and that my reason for wanting to remain anonymous now appears to me……to have been selfish. I did know you were trying to find me and I did see you and your sisters on the news thanking me and that was all I really required, if that.”
Even with what she said, Daniel understood that there was a traumatic element to what she did that haunted Amanda. Perhaps when she identified herself as a nurse, there was truth to that, at least a partial truth, but she also might have thought such a declaration could be used against her. “If you’ll indulge me one more question……” “Of course,” she quickly replied, seeking an end to this.
“You said you were a nurse.” Smiling so he knew he hadn’t dug too deep, she said, “That’s not really a question, but yes, I did. I thought it would make it easier for your mother to believe me when I said things. Anyway, I was in nursing school for six months with the idea I could help people get better when the reality of it was that it wasn’t going to be the case enough times and I got out. I’m not particularly proud of saying that, so please keep that between us.” He decided to remove the focus from October 19th, 2011.
“Of course. If it helps, whatever someone chooses to do in life, it hopefully is something they can feel good about. If you know that doing something would make you unhappy, you’d eventually regret doing it and then the job you do suffers. If you became a nurse, it’s not something you could do halfway.” Hearing this man say that struck a chord for her. “Well, my mother never saw my choice that way. Guess what my mother is, which should have you able to guess what my dad is.”
—– 8 —–_____________________________________________________________________________________
Daniel answered with the obvious and sympathetic reply. “She’s the nurse, he’s an accountant.” “Yeah,” she responded with a hint of sadness from the long-standing conflict her choice still caused in her family. He hoped such a conflict didn’t actually cause a divisive issue within her family. His had always avoided the petty things that derailed families from an optimal life together, something that his parents’ death fully reinforced for Daniel and his sisters.
“Well, I imagine they are both quite proud of you for the business you’ve built.” “Yeah, I know they are,” she half-allowed, as if she wasn’t sure regarding her mother but assumed it to be true. Understanding that he was trying to eliminate the intense nature of their meeting, it wasn’t tension that she felt. A sense of relief for her always hoping this day never came began to fill her since that day was now at hand. And she needed to make amends for how she treated him today and to not regret telling him of what she did long ago.
“By the way,” she began with a brighter demeanor very different than he experienced from her to this point, “I heard you are in the market for a new accountant, that the guy that had been counting on his toes for you for all these years finally gave up his broken abacus. I can whole-heartedly recommend my company since the previously declined determination of your new client status has been rescinded.”
He found himself now focusing on her as a woman and not as an accountant. He would not fail to have a reason to maintain a professional relationship with her. There was a facade to her that he only now realized was in place in her workday life that wasn’t something he believed false. It was necessary for her, like a storm door that protected the real entrance to a home. His parents’ death had affected her greatly and when others would have sought the grateful acknowledgement his family wished to convey to her, she shunned the opportunity. It was intriguing for him to meet such a woman.
“Yeah, that hasn’t changed for me, to have you take over for Ed, who will be informed how you insulted him.” Giggling, she said, “And I’ll be sure to tell him you did not come to his defense at all.” It was then each realized that the conversation was effectively completed as far as his purpose for being there went. The accounting process was still about six weeks away from beginning, so nothing really required being discussed now. All that was left for them was to say ‘goodbye’. Neither was in a rush to do that.
“So, should I make an appointment or wait for you to call me?” he said, reaching and nearly grasping a saving rope. Nearly. “Actually, Ed has been E-mailing all his files of his former clients and we’ll get that all sorted and Lisa will get in touch.” That was unhelpful, he thought to himself. “Okay, I’ll wait for your call…um, Lisa’s call. Sorry.” Smiling at his uncomfortable state at the moment, she said, “Well, maybe Lisa will be too busy to call, and I’ll call.” “S.L.A.P,” he replied and immediately cringed internally.
She looked at him, her eyes expressing her confusion. “Slap? Like a high five?” she asked as she tried not to laugh. “Uh, not a high five. An acronym for ‘Sounds like a Plan. And goodbye, which is not an acronym, just my chance to leave and stop embarrassing myself.” “Goodbye, Daniel,” she cordially said as he dragged his regrettable self out the door. He was soon down on the main floor of the four-story building. Almost to the exit and still feeling like a social disaster was when he heard the voice of his new accountant behind him.
—– 9 —-_____________________________________________________________________________________
“Daniel!” she had called out and her tone, although perhaps simply due to the open acoustics, carried an urgency. Not wanting her to have to walk the whole distance, he started back toward her as her pace implied the same urgency as her voice when she came down the final few steps of the stairway. Breathing a bit more deeply, she said, “Can you not tell anyone else about how……um, that it was me?” There were no conditions asked of her beyond his discretion, but to not tell his sisters seemed wrong. “Um….I’m not sure…if that’s the right thing to do. I mean, you seemed relieved to have finally told me. And I know my sisters would be thrilled to meet you.”
“I know I’m asking a lot from you, knowing what it means to your sisters, but if I promise you that one day, I will tell them myself, can it please remain between us for now?” There was a sense of pleading in her voice, as if to tell his sisters who she was meant that Mandy could be injured somehow. What was it she was afraid of? A thought now seeded its way into his mind, sown and hopefully forgotten soon, to be left to wither away. This made his choice a simply one.
“Okay, it’s just between the two of us for now. And obviously Ed.” “Thank you,” she said and turned back. He watched her take a few provocative steps her outfit and shoes demanded and when she turned back to him abruptly, he realized she knew he was looking at her in a way that had nothing to do with tax forms, although ‘form’ still applied. Not allowing this to go unchallenged, she defiantly asked, “Were you just checking me out?” Having no reason nor desire to deny his appreciation of her physical appeal, he replied with a sincere, serious expression, “Like a library book.”
Accepting his ‘guy’ compliment as she laughed, her response further altered their course. “You know, with what I just asked to keep between us, that’s when you were supposed to blackmail me into going to dinner with you. What is wrong with you?” Her mood, so distant from when they met, was now playful in a way that said so much about what was behind the ‘storm door’. “I was shooting for free accounting costs, but if dinner is all I can expect, it is one of my three favorite meals of the day. As far as what’s wrong with me, I was committing all my felonies starting today alphabetically and ‘Arson’ is actually next. A before B. Blackmail was tomorrow.”
“Okay then. There you go. Well, I’ve been blackmailed by more intelligent and better-looking guys than you, so this will be new for both of us. I’m just going to mark it down regarding what’s wrong with you as you getting low doses of electricity shot straight to your brain on a daily basis at your work, with the amount doing little to enhance your appeal as a human being, let alone as a guy. Here’s my card.” She was grinning through the ironic intent of her last dozen or so words when he took the card and held out her hand to receive his in exchange.
Instead, in the spirit of turn around being fair play, he called out, “Ah, SLAP,” as it took on a second meaning then and he ‘slapped’ her hand. “Very funny, Mr. Acronym. You’re not going to give me one of your cards?” “I don’t have any. You’ll just have to wait for this dumb, ugly guy to call you, which makes you a complete loser. Just so you know, all those small doses of electricity have a great side effect. I glow in the dark.” “Really?” she asked in an excited voice that he found enchanting despite how absolutely false he knew she was being, before she added suggestively, “All of you glows…. like every inch?”
—– 10 —–_____________________________________________________________________________________
Uniquely bested, happily humbled and romantically intrigued wasn’t often something a human being felt at the same time, but it was this for Daniel at the moment. “I’ll get back to you on that,” he said in surrender. Looking at her card, he remarked, “I’ll call you tonight, okay?” She seemed suddenly unsure of herself as the conversation became serious. “Yeah, that would be great. Talk to you later.”
With that said, she turned away in a hurry, as if none of this would remain ‘real’ if she stayed. As she reached the stairway, he now called to her and waited for her to face him. “Remember, nothing will be said by me.” Her smile of gratitude hid the regret she felt of what she hadn’t told him of the night his parents died.
…..
It was almost eight and he still hadn’t called her. First impressions can be filled with unintended misinterpretations, but short of an emergency, she knew he would call. By 8:30, she began to worry that something had gone wrong. She thought of calling Ed to get Daniel’s cell number. The only number in Ed’s downloaded files, which Mandy accessed after Lisa had them sent over from Ed’s, had Daniel’s company’s phone number listed. Being unsure who would hear her message and when, a personal message left on the company machine was not a choice. Finally, at 8:40, her cell rang and with an unfamiliar anticipation, she answered. “Hello.”
“Hi, Mandy. It’s Daniel Laughlin. I would have called sooner, but I had to find someone to read me the phone number. I read words fine, fourth or fifth grade level as long as fourth and fifth are spelled out, but numbers, forget it. That’s what I admire about you as an accountant. It’s nothing but numbers. I forget who said it, but did you know that 5 out of 4 people are bad at fractions?” She couldn’t help but be charmed by his way, the gentle humor that spoke of a strength he possessed as a good person. She played along with his whimsical take on numbers.
“It was Steven Wright. Actually, I’m allergic to numbers. Calculators? Can’t go near them.” “Really? It seems like it would be a problem for you, but you seem to have a very successful business despite what I believe is a very rare medical condition.” “Yeah, I just hire really good people and stay in my office. I would think that numbers would be important in your line of work.” “You would think so, but I’ve never really made the connection because about an hour after every job we finish, whether it’s a building or a home, it starts on fire and burns to the ground. Weird.”
“That is weird. Um, maybe it’s good that you don’t understand numbers, because I have a feeling that other people have made the connection between the fires and your company and that your insurance premiums are a very, very, very….large number, as in I’d be breaking out in rashes for weeks.” “That may be true. Every time my office manager writes that check, she cries for the whole day, muttering something about not retiring until she’s ninety. By the way, is ninety old?”
—– 11 —–_____________________________________________________________________________________
She couldn’t maintain the goofy nature of their conversation and had to laugh. He liked hearing her laugh, for he had a feeling it was not a common occurrence for her. “Anyway,” she began, “Have you decided what restaurant I’m to be blackmailed at?” “Yes. I made reservations at the Downing Square for Friday night. Have you ever eaten there?” Her happy agreement with his choice resonated. “Yes, a while ago. I always wanted to go back, but I never had…..the chance.”
Knowing she would have finished that sentence differently if this wasn’t their first time going to dinner together, and what he hoped would not be the last, it was pleasing for Daniel to hear his choice was met with appreciation. “I’ll call ahead and request menus with no pricing. It wouldn’t do me any good and we don’t need you sneezing all over the daily specials.” Through a laugh once more, she commended him. “Very wise, sir. So, should we meet there? And how exactly will you know when, since telling time is, pretty much, heavily reliant on num……bers.”
“Hey, this isn’t my second rodeo. Voice commands in my cell phone gets it done. Different sounds tell me when to eat which meal. My sisters tell me where to go.” With mentioning his sisters, which dominoed into both of them realizing what they had yet to discuss, the conversation slid unhappily to needing a conclusion, which the burster of the bubble himself provided. “I’ll pick you up at 7:30 if that’s okay.”
The tone of her voice had shifted to a less jovial one. “Yeah, that’s great. I’ll text you my address. Talk to you Friday, then.” “Yes, I believe you will,” he replied in an attempt to resurrect the mood of half a minute before. Her functional but pleasant ‘Goodnight’ was matched by his. They both spent a majority portion of the rest of the night pondering the how and the why of not talking about what Daniel’s mother said to Mandy that witnesses had not overheard.
…..
When she opened the door Friday night at exactly 7:30 and he saw her in attire that did not fall into ‘work appropriate’ and all that implied, he slowly said, “You look…..beautiful.” The way he hesitated to say ‘beautiful’ caused her to be curiously cautious. “Um….thank you?” she replied and the shaky nature of his fully-intended compliment was now known to him. “I’m sorry,” he grinned, “but you absolutely should not doubt what I said.”
Cheerfully, she replied and explained her reaction. “Okay, then, thank you, with no question mark in my voice this time. It just seemed like you were going to say a different word instead of beautiful, which I now do not think would be a good idea.” “Well, another word, yes. But not instead of ‘beautiful’, in addition to. ‘Astonishingly beautiful’ was the original version. Then I thought you’d think it was a little too much, which it wouldn’t be as far as accuracy, and then it would be all awkward before we even left your building.”
Smirking, Mandy ‘agreed’. “Well, thank god that didn’t happen,” adding, “I just don’t know if I would have left my apartment with you if it had got awkward, like, right away, if you called me astonishingly beautiful instead of only beautiful. Bullet successfully dodged.” Trying to suppress her laugh at the ‘non-awkward’ awkwardness when his exuberant nodding in compliance at how happy he was that he ‘never’ called her astonishingly beautiful, he replied, “Me, too.”, which actually had no context, which caused her to not suppress her laugh.
—– 12 —–_____________________________________________________________________________________
They didn’t say much to his car, nor on the ride to the restaurant. It was strictly a comparing of notes on how this time of year usually passed for them. The holidays, especially Christmas, was not a happy time for everyone and each expressed a vague difficulty. Each also intended for the other to choose the direction of the conversation once at the restaurant, for there was the matter of Daniel’s mother that they had yet to talk about beyond it being learned by Daniel of Mandy’s connection and the short duration of time they already had discussed it. It was a conversation both were nervous about for different reasons but both recognized its necessity to have.
As they were seated, Mandy pointed out how there were prices on the menus. “Well, they obviously didn’t fulfill your request,” she drolly pointed out. Enthusiastically, Daniel replied, “That’s because…..I learned my numbers.” “You did? That’s fantastic, Daniel! I’m so proud of you.” When his expression went to melodramatically distraught, she allowed herself to be drawn in. “What’s wrong? Let me guess. You’re still having trouble with division?” With her biting her lip to once more not laugh and extinguish their fragile false reality, he ‘sullenly’ replied.
“No, I did okay at that, except for not getting the correct answer even once. Minor hurdle. It’s that I feel bad because you’re still allergic to numbers.” Her own burst of enthusiasm was a tonic for what ailed him. “No, I’m cured! It turns out there was an antidote the whole time.” “Really? What is it?” “Chocolate milk. Who knew?” “So, you drank chocolate milk today and you’re cured?”
“Not totally. No chocolate milk yet, but I did have a hot fudge Sundae at lunch and then I walked around with a calculator all afternoon and I only had a few sniffles and a bit of a sore throat.” Daniel greeted that as the good news it was. “Well, the important thing is that we both have no reason to fear numbers anymore. Did you know that they arrange them in a specific sequence? It’s called numerical order.” She nodded her ‘slight’ knowledge of the subject. “I was, like, vaguely aware that was going on, but I thought it was an urban legend. Since it’s true, it seems like a good idea.” “I agree,” came his very ‘serious’ reply.
The waiter then arrived at their table to take their orders and they stowed away their secret manic world for the present. As they waited for their meals, she voiced a certainty about herself. “I’ve never done this before, date a client.” “Really? I do it all the time. It makes it so much easier to pad the bill.” She studied him half a second and it was an annoyingly quarter second too long in realizing he was kidding about both assertions.
“Jerk.” Smirking as he read the dessert menu in anticipation, he replied, “I’m rather proud of the fact that I’m an honest person. In fact, the only person I’ve ever kept the truth from was a friend of mine. His name is Ed Benson, the famous toe-counting accountant.” Rolling her eyes at his second attempt at ‘fooling’ her, her response of, “If I wasn’t so hungry and these bread sticks weren’t so good, you’d be pelted at this point. By the way, if it’s the same Ed Benson who I know, he got rid of any clients that ever asked him to file false records. By get rid of, I mean they’re all presently in prison.” “It sounds like the same guy. Very strange, right?” A soft, blissful feeling filled Amanda.
—– 13 —–_____________________________________________________________________________________
Daniel’s manner was not only charming and disarming, it was something she could learn to cherish. Relationships were always difficult for her. She had trouble letting people in. It made her feel vulnerable because she had been betrayed in high school and in college by friends and boyfriends and never understood the easy way those betrayals occurred. It made it seemingly mandatory for her to shut that part of her life away to concentrate on her career and then her business.
She never lost hope that she’d find love, the lasting kind that enhanced life in all its possibilities. Despite the short time she knew him, with a lot of background material regarding Daniel received from Ed, Daniel was the kind of man her heart would open to. This dinner, however, was all she would ever allow to happen between them. It threatened to cause the evening to become a sad memory for her when she actually needed it to restore any semblance of hope her happiness had to once more be rekindled, even if it was not to be with Daniel.
“So, I believe we’re supposed to tell each other about all our failed romantic relationships,” he announced as she saw him read this off of a handwritten list which he had pulled out of his shirt pocket. With a look of incredulous amusement, she watched him continue to read his list to himself. “Oh, damn,” he exclaimed as he then admitted his error. “This is the ‘Things-not- to-do-on-a-first-date’ list.” As he feigned being upset and not the actual embarrassment if this was not staged, he looked at her and asked, “Any chance you have your list of things to do on a first date?”
“Well, no, I don’t have that list. But if I did, I think not mentioning a list like that actually exists…would probably be at the top of my list. Someone hearing you might get the impression you’re a little unbalanced, but at least I’d be able to tell them that we know why. Once more the accumulation of all the little shocks you’ve been getting over the years as an electrician rides to the rescue.” “That is true. Oh, and don’t forget the glow in the dark added benefit.”
For a moment, all they could do, all they wanted to do, was to take in the other through a perfect, shared gaze. It was almost an interruption when their food arrived a few seconds later. The reason they were there, to share a meal that didn’t have anything to do with ‘blackmail’ nor numbers in the real world, was underway. The food was delicious and each sampled the other’s plate. Mandy slowly pushed away the notion of this being the only time she’d see Daniel socially.
As the meal progressed, it became not needed to be said that they should not talk about Catherine Laughlin this night. This wasn’t about that fateful night on this occasion. Yes, that was why their pasts painfully connected but not why their futures seemed to be becoming connected now. Each had been alone for a long time, another conversation they avoided tonight. They journeyed through the meal and dessert in the present time. Anything mentioned of their pasts was simply to provide a context for the here and now.
The time went by quickly and when she offered to split the cost, he insisted he was a full-service blackmailer and covered all costs. The ride home was what the ride home always seemed to be, shorter, time-wise, than the ride there. That pleased neither of them. She also thought of a second thing that she semi-hoped would not be brought up, and that was the notion of a second date.
—– 14 —–_____________________________________________________________________________________
Mandy had never had such an enjoyable first date. Despite the circumstances of what connected them, she knew how radically different Daniel would view her if she told him everything about the night when she comforted his mother before she died. Mandy was now back to needing their relationship to remain a strictly professional one. She could not allow a second date and hoped he wouldn’t pursue it. That was all about to end as he pulled up to her apartment building.
“I was wondering if we were going to go the whole night without talking about my mother and I’m glad we didn’t get around to it. I know that it still lingers with you, and I’ve waited six years to find you, so I can wait a little longer, if that’s even necessary. And my promise not to tell my sisters still holds. What I want to give you is something the police gave us. It’s witnesses accounts of what they heard said between you and my mother and if there is nothing you could add, then I’ll find a way to get my sisters to realize that we, well they, should not need to meet that wonderful person that talked to my mom those last few minutes.” He reached into his glove compartment and pulled out a basic white envelope and handed it to her.
Staring at the envelope in her hand and what would be false closure for her, ‘How could he be so generous?’ she thought. He knew, without the specifics, that she wished to never have to tell his sisters despite how she had promised to do so. Now, he had provided her with a way to never have to talk to him about it either if the police had the complete dialogue that passed between two strangers. “I’ll read through this tonight and anything that is missing, I’ll tell you and we can figure out how we tell your sisters.”
“Tomorrow……why don’t you read it tomorrow? That way tonight isn’t about a horrible thing that happened a long time ago that never feels like a long time ago. Dinner can be what it truly was, which is the most wonderful evening I’ve had in literally years. Come on, I’ll walk you to your door and your being blackmailed will be officially over.” Before she could respond, a response that would echo his words but from a far different sentiment, he was out of the car, as if hearing what her reply was could endanger the night’s magic. It wouldn’t have, but she cherished how he wouldn’t risk what being with her felt like.
Opening the door for her, she took his hand just as she had when he gentlemanly helped her out of the car at the restaurant. Her perfectly snug dress actually insisted his help was required, less she struggle slightly in a femininely modest way. Standing, she didn’t let go of his hand as they, in a contented quiet, entered the building and took the stairs to the second floor. He then voiced why he appeared unwilling to hear her impression of the evening as they neared her door to her apartment.
“Hey, look, I hope you don’t believe that my interest in you is because of…of only my mom. It’s not. I mean, yeah, that’s what we have between us, but it’s already a smaller part for me. And here’s why you should know that’s true. Before I found out……about it being you…….when I was just trying to get you to be my accountant, I thought, ‘There’s a woman I hope can’t hold her alcohol’.” She laughed at the unexpected end of his words. How could she walk away from how he made her feel?
—– 15 —–_____________________________________________________________________________________
“Well, I’m still upright and I did have that third glass of wine. Maybe a woman with a tolerance for alcohol is actually required to have a tolerance for you and the evil way you often finish a sentence the way a sentence isn’t supposed to finish.” He feigned confusion. “Okay, I wasn’t really listening to what you said, so…..are we moving in together or not?” She began to laugh again, not wanting this to end, beyond its necessity for tonight. There existed, she convinced herself, no reason not to see him again.
“Okay, Daniel, so as first dates go, this was a complete disaster.” He shrugged and through the appearance of deep thought, replied, “Which means a second date is basically mandatory. Right?” Experiencing no resistance to his suggestion, she replied, “Exactly, oh wise one. We owe it to blackmail victims everywhere to repair the damage. With Christmas next Sunday, and with maybe we try to not force this too much, I hope we can have dinner before that again and then pick up after New Year. No pressure that way.” As much as he wanted to include her in his Christmas and New Year’s plans with his family and friends, he accepted her need to not rush their relationship.
“Sounds good. Thursday?” “Thursday works. I really like the Downing Square by the way, especially….” and here was where she finished the sentence the way she wanted to earlier in the week during their phone call, “……since I have someone I want to go back there with.” His immediate ‘confusion’ did not worry her as he stammered, “So, you’re…..you’re bringing a date to our next date?”
Shaking her head in a smiling happiness, she said, “Goodnight, goofball,” and then, so very naturally, stepped toward him to kiss him goodnight. His slight-retreat of a reaction was proof he didn’t expect it. It told her that he did not anticipate such an ending to the night, as if it was possible for her to not wish to kiss him goodnight after the wonderful evening. But this wasn’t a rejection to her, only a reinforcement of what a great guy he was.
“I know you want to kiss me, so stop playing hard to get,” she grinned and he seemed embarrassed a bit by how the tried-and-true gender roles seemed reversed at the moment. Recovering, he sneered in absolute irony, “Wow, we’re just nothing but numbers to you accountants. Just another pair of lips. You CPA’s are all alike. Fine, I’ll kiss you.” Another laugh made the kiss still a moment away, but it was a moment each spent in contemplation of the other. They then kissed goodnight with an equality to the kiss that rendered neither specifically ‘kisser’ nor ‘kissee’. The night blissfully ended there.
…..
Thursday night seemed to not want to arrive, but it eventually did. They stayed in touch with texts during the day and a quick conversation after eight p.m. each night. It was part of his routine to work until eight going over proposals so the week between Christmas and New Year could be earlier finishes to each work day or days off entirely for him and his crew. It was a less playful night at the restaurant than their first date, mostly formed by things they talked about during the week, which left only two topics to explore at this dinner; significant others from their separate pasts and the night of his parents’ accident. It was ‘significant’ how they both geared their talk toward the former.
“It occurred to me,” Daniel began over drinks, “That neither of us specified or asked the other if there was someone else in our lives, which makes the other night hell-worthy if there is.” Contemplating how it should have come up before the date was set, she recalled how it seemed irrelevant to her when she had hung up after that first personal phone call.
—– 16 —–_____________________________________________________________________________________
“I thought of that, but I know I wasn’t that type of person to do that and realized you weren’t either. But I am not involved with anyone else and I am sure you aren’t. I’ve been cheated on and the thought of ever making someone, someone that at some point I cared for deeply, feel like I did, isn’t something I’m capable of.”
He appreciated her line of thinking and how certain things didn’t have to be confirmed. “I like that neither of us thought that of the other, that we could not do that. You’re right about me. Being unfaithful seems like a lot of work. Actually, work isn’t the right word because I’ve never avoided work. Added stress seems to be the correct way to describe it.” Mandy easily agreed. “Yeah, you tell one lie, then more follow. People get caught in the lie, not the truth.”
“That itself is so true and you wonder why they do it. I’ve also never been married.” Mandy was able to mirror this reply. “Neither have I. Not even close, actually. Do you think it’s unusual that neither of us has ever been married?” Her question did not insinuate something incomplete about themselves, only what might be a statistical anomaly that two people in their mid-thirties would not find one of them with a failed marriage on their romantic resumé. “I’m not sure. I mean, most of my friends and my sisters are on their first marriages.” She wouldn’t let the free shot pass.
“Oh, so you’re expecting them to get divorced and then married again? That must cheer them up.” “First of all, you’re walking home. Second, that’s not what I meant, although as it was pointed out to me once, all marriages either end in divorce or death.” Daniel saying this seemed to take away the breathable air from between them. She watched him withdraw from the world immediately around him, which included her.
She reached across the table and put her hand over his, which pulled him back into the here and now. “Sorry….about that,” he offered. “Daniel, you don’t ever have to apologize for thinking about your parents. And I suspect that with the sense of humor you have, you got it from one or both of them and even such dark humor is still humor.” He stared at her hand caressing his in concern. ‘Push past it, Daniel’, he insisted to himself.
“You’re right. My Dad had a great sense of humor and my Mom took her job of telling him when he wasn’t funny very seriously.” The way he said it and with how she caught the intended contradiction in his words quickly returned the air between them. “That’s sweet,” she replied and she sought more from him. “So, have you always been this way?”
“Um, I’ll answer that if you first clarify what ‘this way’ means.” “I will happily explain. You are just……..so easy to be around. You’re funny in a rare way and at no one else’s expense, which is more rude than humorous usually. You listen to and comprehend what others say. You’ve learned your numbers and most importantly, in the event of a power outage, you glow in the dark.” Chuckling, he replied, “In the words of John Cleese, high praise indeed. Thank you. But seriously, how I am since we met is how I was for most of my life.”
In a lapse of awareness, she then committed the same error Daniel had of not realizing what they implied, except her mistake was not as palpable. “What happened to change…..oh my god, how thoughtless of me. Daniel, I’m so sorry. I didn’t….” Now, he rushed to console her.
—– 17 —–_____________________________________________________________________________________
“Hey, hey, hey, it’s fine. I don’t think it’s a bad thing that we can sit here and talk and have it slip both our minds for a while about that night. I was always like you see me now, just like they were and how my older sister Jill is. My younger sister Dee has a little more manufactured drama to her existence but only in small episodes that we get to tease her about afterwards. If you had known my parents……I mean beyond……” She despised herself for what she felt she had compelled him to talk about.
“Daniel, we don’t have to talk about this. I mean, I know we should, but not right now, just like we didn’t need to last week. I know you’ve been waiting, maybe even hoping for me to bring it up, about what your mother said and if there’s something else she said that night. So that you don’t keep wondering, and I should have told you sooner, there isn’t anything else I remember that wasn’t in the police report. I hope that doesn’t let you down, that if you were hoping for more and there isn’t anything else, that maybe that’s a good thing.”
He didn’t respond and he certainly didn’t doubt her. He had hoped for something more, maybe something to hold onto, to render that night as complete, though not finished. It would now be good to try and allow that night to finally finish for him and his sisters. But that actually wasn’t possible, yet. Though that night was nearing being complete, it was still far from finished regarding the accident’s aftermath.
“We can think of how to convince my sisters that we’ll never find out anything else about that night so you don’t have to tell them it was you.” “‘We’ convince, but ‘I’ don’t tell them? You’d still like me to tell them even though I don’t have anything more to say?” “Only from a sense of how grateful they want you to know they are for what you did. But I know this isn’t what you want, at least not now. The thing is, if we don’t tell them soon, we never should. Even if I’m alone in feeling this, this feels like something……very special between us and I think if we tell them months or even years down the road, it’s going to hurt them.”
“Ditto times a hundred on how great this feels between us, Daniel and telling your sisters won’t threaten that. We’ll try to find a way to convince them first, and if not, after the Holidays, we’ll tell them. At least, you have closure now and I’m sure it will come for your sisters soon.” Looking down at his plate, she realized he didn’t have closure. “Daniel, I promise you, there is nothing else that your mother said that you don’t already know.” “I know. It’s like now the night is complete for me, knowing all there is to know about that night. But it’s not closure I have. I won’t have that until…….”
A chill filled her, wondering if he was never going to be able to put the grief of that night behind him. But she was mistaken that it was grief he was now, once more, dealing with. “Until? What is it that will give you closure?” He hadn’t expressed this sentiment to anyone except his sisters, who owned the same sentiment. “The day I look into the eyes of the person responsible for my parents’ death and make that person feel the guilt they should have, a guilt I hope always haunts them for what happened, then I’ll have closure.”
—– 18 —–_____________________________________________________________________________________
It was shocking for Mandy to hear this. The subdued rage in his voice spoke of an anger he had always carried with him. This was altering in real time for her how well she believed she had gotten to know him despite the short time frame of their acquaintance. She felt forced to give a response despite how severed she felt from the moment. Her response didn’t match what she was thinking. “Um….I thought……..I thought the police didn’t find the driver…uh, the guy driving the dump truck at fault.”
Chastising himself in his mind, ‘Why did you do this? Why bring this part of the issue to light, to burden Mandy with now knowing it wasn’t only grief that still trapped him. “Hey, forget I said that, okay. It’s not about…let’s just say that I have my opinion about the truck driver that won’t change because it’s that rock solid and….I just…please forget I said anything.” Now upset as Daniel was, she couldn’t forget that he said it, that the driver of the construction vehicle was guilty in Daniel’s mind. Under normal circumstances she would want to urge him to talk about this deeply-held anger, but she chose not to.
As the meal had almost run its course, Mandy suggested they skip dessert. “That’s okay with me, but only if you’re sure,” he replied. They got out of there shortly after. It was another quiet ride back to Mandy’s apartment. Pulling up and shutting off the car, the somber mood was something they shared, not something affixed to the night gone wrong.
She knew he wished to talk and she desperately wanted to know what was on his mind regarding the dump truck driver. It surprised her with what Daniel first brought to the surface, for it was as if their conversation regarding marriage was taken off ‘pause’. “I was actually close once, to getting married.” Needing her unsettled internal reaction to hearing this to not show, all she could do was keep him talking and she hoped her tone was an even one.
“Really? When?” It was something he hadn’t talked about for a long time. It owned the same time line of the engagement ending six years ago as his parents’ death. “I got engaged almost four months before my parents died. It…..the relationship, it didn’t survive either. She didn’t understand how much my parents’ deaths affected me and I didn’t understand how much they didn’t affect her. She told me she couldn’t be around someone that was so sad all the time.” Mandy did not hesitate to target that relationship’s failure on his former fiancée.
“To learn that about her, that something she didn’t possess as a person, which was something very important to have, and as painful as it had to be for you, a woman like that doesn’t deserve you.” Had she gone too far? Were her words to be interpreted as simple hyperbole? She waited for his gaze to meet hers. “I mean it, Daniel. I’ve spent less than ten hours with you and you are a fantastic person. And I mean that even having been blackmailed by you.”
His chuckle was needed, but short-lived. “It’s been a long time since I’ve felt this……alive. And that’s all because of you.” He leaned toward her and they kissed, a kiss that began gently and soon became more passionate. “Walk me to my door?” she softly asked. It wasn’t something she needed to ask but was, to him, her way of ending the evening. Wondering if this meant something had gone wrong, perhaps a subtle mistake made on his part because she did not appear outwardly upset, he wordlessly got out and then helped her out of the car.
—– 19 —–_____________________________________________________________________________________
Just as they did the night of their first date, they held hands to her door and she even held his hand as she unlocked her door. “I’ll need my hand back,” he said as she pushed open the door. Her response was well-received. “I’d give it back, but then I’d have to throw you over my shoulder and carry you in. Don’t think I won’t.” They kissed once more and then stepped inside with her still leading him by the hand. They closed the world and all the unwanted things about it away for the night.
…..
The next couple of weeks, the weeks beginning with Christmas and New Year’s Day, had them balancing family and friends separately from just the two of them. The self-obvious pressure of a new relationship did not need this time of year to add to such a necessary importance of getting to know each other. In a way, the secret nature of their quickly-formed, deeply-romantic relationship ensured no unforeseen participation by the family and friends. Those family and friends were not so much casually avoided as strategically excluded for now.
Through January, as both their chosen careers began to ramp up for the busy spring, they found work a more pleasant endeavor than the demands of tax season and estimate season, respectively, usually permitted. This came from knowing that the nights when possible, they would each be with the one person in the world they most wanted to be with.
Daniel thought about how long it had been since he felt like he did. He could easily admit his relationship with Mandy had eclipsed the emotional depth of his voided engagement. Mandy believed that she had never felt this way in her life. What emerged was the topic of the night of Daniel’s parents’ deaths falling away. Mandy appreciated that it had become a matter of Daniel not influencing her to tell his sisters as he truly knew she felt.
They got away for a weekend at the end of January at a B & B an hour and a half east of Lake City. Given the time of year, it was amazing how the weather in its gracious way allowed people to be out in it. It found the new couple able to get a lot of cross-country skiing in. The two nights settling down in front of a roaring fire, a fire that did not generate the more intense heat of the two nights they spent together, had them waking up together in front of the fire’s remnants.
They couldn’t see each other for more than an hour or two every other day or so the first two weeks of February and the goal was to revisit the B & B for a belated Valentine’s Day the last week-end of the month. The week in between allowed for only a Saturday night dinner at a popular restaurant that shunned the dreaded ‘upscale’ label, thus making it accessible for the masses. It was decided to meet there since Mandy was across town working at a client’s office. To drive home and have Daniel waiting would prove inefficient.
She got there after he arrived and she saw him exit the restaurant when he saw her pull into a parking spot. Liking how he kissed her ‘Hello’ in the way neither needed to think about it, it was who they were now. Two people who were the most important person to the other and who no longer had any reason to not let the world know that. Given that neither had met the other’s family and only a few friends out of happenstance, only strangers got to witness it at the moment. Mandy could not fathom how Daniel hoped to change that this evening.
—– 20 —–____________________________________________________________________________________
“Okay, before we go in, I just want to let you know that my sisters and their husbands are here. I want them to meet you and…..” A fear-filled anger rose in her. “You promised me you wouldn’t tell them. I thought you finally understood that I wanted only you to know it was me with your mother that night. How could you betray me like this?” Her severe reaction worried him as she turned to leave, uncertain of where to go but feeling that staying would make things worse.
Seeing how hurt she was, he could not let it escalate with her departure. Carefully, he reached for her and wrapped his arms around her to both comfort and benignly confine. “I didn’t tell them about you and my mother. I wanted them to meet you because of what you mean to me. I don’t hide my emotions very well from my sisters and when they wondered, happily wondered, by the way, why I was in such a great mood lately, they knew it had to be a very special woman. That’s why we’re here.”
As much as it felt good to be held like this by the man she now loved deeply, although it had not been said, she insisted he let her go, which he did and she faced him. “Okay, I’ll go in there after you answer my question and only if that answer is ‘no’.” He nodded his consent and assured her. “Of course, and it will be ‘yes’ if that is the truth to your question.” Pausing only a moment to frame the question as succinctly as possible and not to measure if she could believe him if he answered ‘no’, for she knew his answer would be the truth, she then asked the question.
“At some point during dinner, were you hoping that I would tell them? I’m sure you saw what it did to my resolve when I met you and I told you.” He looked away at first and she knew. When his meager ‘yes’ came out, she once more turned away and he now allowed this. But when she stopped, pivoted and declared, “I don’t think we should still see each other anymore, Daniel,” he put himself in motion after her. What was truly going on here? he wondered.
Reaching her, he simply touched her on the arm and that proved sufficient to stop her, although she refused to look at him. In as conciliatory a tone as he could affect, he remarked, “Mandy, I don’t know why you’re so angry, but you are. I know I’m why you’re upset and I am so sorry. I’ve never been able to figure out why this has been so difficult for you, but it will never come up again. I swear to you. I don’t want to lose you over this.”
Halting there, when his words didn’t appear to do further damage, he continued. “Everyone here wanted to meet you because of what you mean to me, and not to tell you how much what you did meant to all of us. I was so wrong to think I was doing the right thing by maneuvering you into doing something that clearly would be painful for you to do. Obviously, I didn’t fully realize until right now how much this bothers you. I am so sorry I didn’t do as you actually wanted and I brought it up again. But…….” When nothing came after ‘But’, she turned to him, wondering what terrible thing was going through his mind about her.
“But what?” she cautiously asked. When he hesitated further, she was certain pain was to follow whatever he might say and she hated herself for knowing it would be pain she caused him. “It just seems like there’s something you want to say but can’t.” With a trembled sigh, she asked another question. “And what is it that you think I want to say?” Once more hesitating, she braced herself from knowing what it was she felt he discovered.
—– 21 —–_____________________________________________________________________________________
“That there was maybe…something my mom said that you didn’t tell me or the other people there didn’t hear, that maybe she said something that would cause my sisters and me to think differently about one or both of my parents.” With only curiosity, she asked, “Do you think I lied about what your mother said to me?” He was quickly adamant.
“No not at all, other than when you told her you were a nurse and that gave her great comfort when you told her my father was being treated and not already……gone. I thank you again, so much, for, again, the whitest of lies, which I will always believe they were. I know my mom would have said to tell my father that she knows it wasn’t his fault. But with just the way you’ve reacted, I think there’s something else and you’re actually trying to protect me.”
“And what if you’re being very perceptive, and that what I have to tell you about that night will cause you even more pain than you’ve already known? What if I am trying to protect someone, but it isn’t you? I can guarantee you that you will never want to see me again.” He interpreted this as an overreaction on her part. He was not a ‘Kill-the-messenger’ person and he was sure she knew that.
“That’s not true. I can’t imagine whatever you could say that my mother told you that is keeping you from telling me. If it’s something she said, if you’re protecting her, you shouldn’t feel like you can’t say it unless you’re worried about how much time has passed.” This was the point of no return that was the greatest fear she had ever known in her life. But that was why points of no return existed, she thought, to face your greatest fears.
“I told you everything your mom said, as best as I could remember it. But here’s the thing. You wanted to be able to look into the eyes of the person you blame for your parents’ death and you think it’s the truck driver. What I need to tell you is……is that you are, right now. For six years, I’ve been protecting myself by not saying anything. I am why your parents died.” Daniel could not reason out why she would say such a thing.
“That doesn’t make any sense, Mandy and I hope, with all my heart that you haven’t been thinking that all these years. Their injuries were severe.” Her voice was soaked in tragic remorse. “I’m not talking about when I was talking to your mother. Do you remember the U.P.S. driver’s witness account, how he came around the bend and only saw your parents’ car in the left lane leaving the road and no other car on the road?” She saw his expression fill with the memory.
“It was only a matter of his angle that he didn’t know a car had just gone onto the off ramp to the right. I was the car on the ramp. If that driver had been a hundred feet farther down the road, around the bend a few seconds sooner, he would have seen my car in the left lane cut in front of your parents’ car in the right lane. Your father lost control of his car when I did that.”
As he began to piece together what she was saying with what he knew followed, with great guilt, she told her story as Daniel was too stunned to stop her. “It began to rain harder and I was getting nervous. My exit was coming up and I was ahead of your parents a little. I thought if I slowed down, I’d miss the exit, so I sped up. I thought I had enough space. I signaled and I cut in front of their car and then I got on the exit.” She was beyond distraught now, her tears bursting in audible sobs.
—– 22 —–_____________________________________________________________________________________
“I caught it out of the corner of my eye that your father had swerved into the left lane to avoid me. Only he didn’t stay in the lane. I saw how the car was leaving the road just before it went down the culvert. That was when the U.P.S. guy came around the bend to see what he saw. I came down the exit and as I went to merge, I looked back down the road and I saw your parents’ car had come down onto the road and I saw them get struck by the dump truck.” Halting there, that image once more preyed upon her in her mind as her burst of tears merged with her voice.
“Daniel, I know it doesn’t matter, but I never gave any thought to keep driving. I turned around after I got off and I drove back as if I was coming from the other direction the entire time. Everyone wanted to help but no one was, and I don’t know, I just somehow, I just needed to get to your mother, to comfort her in any way I could. It was all I could do. I am so sorry.” What else could she say? What comfort could she provide for either of them? He said nothing, his shock too prevalent. She tamed and stopped her tears, leaving a stunned-to-silence Daniel to manage to only watch her leave when he said nothing after a brutal, few moments.
Calling back to him once to her car, as words still completely escaped Daniel, she choked out her words. “When you call the police, I’ll cooperate totally so you and your sisters don’t have to relive any of it. You can sue me for everything. I won’t fight you or your sisters.” She quickly got in her car and started it. Completely shocked still, it took him a moment to process that she was leaving and he was too late to stop her.
After a few minutes of harshly meshing this new knowledge with what he already knew, he walked back into the restaurant, shaken and unsure of what to say. His sisters and his brothers-in-law read his expression. It was obvious that Mandy wasn’t coming in. “What happened? Where did she go, Daniel?” Dee asked.
As indirectly as possible without causing anyone to become suspicious, Daniel replied, “I should have respected her wishes and not brought her here to meet you guys. I should never have wanted her to tell you who she was, actually.” The other four exchanged puzzle looks. “That doesn’t make any sense, Daniel. We know she’s important to you,” Aaron, Dee’s husband said.
Daniel tried to recover from his ill-chosen words. “No. No, it doesn’t make sense, does it? It’s just……she was here, you know, in the parking lot and I told her how you were all here to meet her. I guess I just rushed it. She wasn’t ready to meet my family. I’m absolutely sure we broke up.”
Jill knew her brother was withholding something, but it never entered the realm of reflecting horribly on Mandy beyond Mandy being dramatic. Jill was familiar with that ‘art form’ from her sister, Dee, and Jill pressed her brother. “Daniel, what did she say? I mean, you’ll get through this, you’re still going to see her, aren’t you? We’ve all seen how much you’ve changed since you met her. This can be fixed. Right? So, you rushed it a little. I think when she realizes that it just shows that you really care about her and that….” Daniel then quieted the table when he abruptly interjected, despite what he had just learned. “Actually, I’m in love with her. About two minutes in, trying to hire her as my new accountant, I knew.”
—– 23 —–____________________________________________________________________________________
As Daniel took a sip of his wine, knowing what he now knew and aware of what Mandy wasn’t aware of, his voice matched the futility of his words as one concern he had threatened to override any other perspective. “I don’t think I can think of it as not being over with what she said. I don’t think it can be fixed. Actually, I’ll have a hard time trying, even.”
They continued on with dinner without a morsel of the festive anticipation the night was believed to have nor the romantic nature a week after February 14th carried. How Daniel wished he had said something before Mandy left. He was certain, though, that she could not divulge what she had and withstand what she heard he had promised to do when once face to face with the person he blamed for his parents’ death.
Centermost in her mind must have been how he wanted to stare into the eyes of the person responsible for his parents’ death and make that person feel an anguish that would never leave him. Or her, it would now seem to Mandy. Daniel was certain this was what she was thinking. And despite what he now knew, it barely broke even with him knowing what Mandy didn’t know.
As the meal neared its subdued end, Daniel, who had kept out of the conversations taking place that only served to reduce the silence, finally spoke. “I wanted to tell you this before, since I met Mandy in the middle of December, but she asked me not to and there’s no point in not telling you now.” His sisters more than his brothers-in-law knew Daniel was talking to Dee and Jill. Struggling to say what he had wanted to say for two months as a source of comfort, he now would have it always be laced with regret for himself.
“It was Mandy…….Mandy who talked to mom right after the accident. She was the one who helped Mom.” His sisters looked at each other, a mismatch of emotions finding each conflicted by the contrary nature of those emotions. “Daniel, you’ve known for two months? How could you not tell us?” Dee demanded. Jill, still certain that there was much more about Mandy not wanting to meet them, cautioned restraint.
“Dee, let him say what he needs to say.” Dee was adamant. “Jill, he’s known for two months. We looked for her for over a year back then. We have a right to know what Mom said.” Daniel was at least able to give his sisters the truth of their mother’s final words. “There’s….nothing else that got said. We heard everything that Mom said from what the police collected. I’m sure of it. Everything the police told us the other witnesses heard, that’s what it was completely.”
Dee reigned in her first reaction, which was reflected in her eased voice. “Okay, then why the need to not tell us? I’m assuming she knew we were looking for her. Did she tell you why she never came forward or why she didn’t want us to know when you found out?” Appreciating the relaxed tone, he explained as far as he could without adding in what he learned tonight.
“She wanted to tell you guys herself, when she was ready. When I surprised her about you guys being here, she explained why she couldn’t come forward, which I will respect her privacy right now and not tell you what it is. I’m sorry for that and I hope that you now knowing it was her hasn’t made it worse for you and Jill.” Dee needed one thing clarified.
—– 24 —–_____________________________________________________________________________________
“So, you’re convinced there was nothing else said by Mom?” “Yes. She told mom she was a nurse, just a reflex really on her part, because she did go to nursing school. She thought it was good for mom to hear that because she knew that Dad……was already gone.” Jill merged into the conversation. “That’s why we couldn’t find her. She wasn’t really a nurse.” Not hearing any judgment in Jill’s voice was what Daniel found helpful in Jill’s words.
Aaron summarized, “So, telling Catherine that she was a nurse and that Ron was alright and how that all helped your mom……in those last minutes, to me it doesn’t change anything that she did that night. Whatever her reason was for not wanting us to find her, I trust Daniel to keep her reason to himself because what little comfort any of us were able to hold onto was knowing that Catherine wasn’t scared right up until she lost consciousness. Whatever Mandy’s reason was for not wanting us to learn who she was certainly doesn’t change what she did for your mom.” Daniel despised not being convinced of this as another cause for Mandy’s actions had emerged once he heard what Mandy told him in the parking lot.
Jill and Dee could agree on this. With neither knowing what Mandy knew and believed about that night, it eliminated forever for Mandy what she did for Catherine as selfless. The meal ended without further discussion, which was pointless anyway if Daniel never saw Mandy again. But he knew he would. On Monday, he’d go to see his lawyer and Mandy’s role in the death of his parents would be included in that conversation.
…..
After meeting with his lawyer on Monday morning, Daniel was confident in how to proceed regarding Mandy. She did not respond to his calls or texts for all of Sunday. Going to her apartment was not an option, so he was left with no communicating with her before he saw his lawyer. With the documents that he received from his lawyer, documents that laid out a wrongful death lawsuit that Mr. DiBartolomeo saw as an absolute win in a court room, Daniel went to Mandy’s office. There was no reason he needed a process server to handle what he intended Mandy to see today.
Once in the office, he would be able to gauge what Mandy had told her employees if his greeting from Emily the receptionist was a cold one. It wasn’t, but it did imply something had been said by Mandy in how to deal with Daniel if he showed up. Emily was professional and unsure why she was expected to be courteous and nothing beyond that to Daniel Laughlin.
“Good afternoon, Daniel,” came within a strictly professional boundary from Emily. “Hello, Emily. Is Mandy available?” “Um…. no. I am to tell you that she is on a conference call and to give you this.” Handed an envelope, he opened it and found a business card of the law firm that handled legal matters for Mandy and her firm, along with a hand-written note.
Daniel, I hope you can understand that it would be best to handle things through my attorneys and I hope you understand I felt it is best for you, not for me. The thought of me reminding you of that horrible night makes me hate myself. If you plan on having me arrested, please know that I will surrender myself accompanied by my attorney. All I ask is that I not be led away in handcuffs from my place of business. Mandy. He wondered if there was anything that she could be arrested for to have her think he’d have that done.
—– 25 —–____________________________________________________________________________________
Emily watched the cryptic expression fill Daniel’s face as he read. Then she saw his gaze drift off, as if he was trying to figure out how to proceed and all his choices were ugly ones. “Daniel, I don’t know what happened, but whatever it is, you two are great together. You really are. I have never seen her so happy. If it matters, she hasn’t said a single derogatory thing about you. She just kept telling me she screwed up. Those things happen and…..” “Emily, I don’t really think talking about it is a good thing with the way Mandy handled certain things. I suppose I didn’t really expect her to see me. I just dropped this off for her.”
He handed the manila envelope clearly marked as legal documents to Emily and turned with barely a goodbye. Emily wondered what could be in the envelope specifically but knew it was not likely to be an antidote to whatever it was that Mandy ‘screwed up’. Going to Mandy’s office, Emily knocked and entered and found Mandy very ‘un-Mandy like’, just staring out the large window of her office. “Daniel just dropped this off,” Emily said as she placed the envelope on Mandy’s desk in front of Mandy. Mandy looked at the writing and legal office return address and evenly replied, “Well, that was fast.”
…..
Later that night, when she saw Daniel, Mandy stopped short and then walked slower as she approached. She wondered how long he’d been waiting outside her apartment building. Despite how things stood between them, she had grasped tightly to the hope that she had not lost him. How ridiculous that hope now seemed with seeing him. The guilt she had carried since that night six years ago, a guilt that viciously rejuvenated itself when she met Daniel, had subsided to what seemed like less than it was before she met him. She realized this was due to the kind of person Daniel was, someone influenced so much by the parents he lost that fateful night, a tragedy that was Mandy’s fault.
She expected his rage, knowing she deserved it. When he softly said, “Hello,” she felt the calm before the storm. “Hello, Daniel. I’m was not trying to avoid you today. I just think we should have our lawyers present when we are near each other. Um, it didn’t take you and your sisters long to reach a decision, but I’m glad of that, actually. Like I said, take everything I have. I deserve it.” She saw how his expression seemed sympathetic, which might indicate how poorly this was going to go for her. What it was actually, was uncertainty on his part.
“I wish you called me back. I meant it when I texted you that you should forgive yourself. Why didn’t you call me?” She had seen through that ploy quite easily. “Because I didn’t believe you about forgiving myself. How could I? I know the truth. I was there, I was to blame. I still am. When I pretended it didn’t matter that you blamed the truck driver because I knew the truth, it made my guilt even worse. Don’t you understand?” His uncertainty only grew. “When you looked at what I gave you….” She cut him off.
“Look, I couldn’t bring myself to open the envelope you dropped off because whatever was inside would tell me how much I’ve hurt you, how much you hate me. It’s going straight to my lawyers. If that seems cowardly of me, well you now know I am a coward and it shouldn’t surprise you.” He was surprised, but only by her having not read it. He did not see her as a coward.
—– 26 —–_____________________________________________________________________________________
“You……you didn’t read it?” She heard the shock in his voice and believed she had cheated him out of the satisfaction of her knowing how much the Laughlin family was suing her for. It seemed beneath him to be disappointed. “What difference does it make, Daniel? I said take it all, everything I have. Take my freedom. Then let this nightmare end for both of us.”
Breaking down, it startled her how he came and held her. It only made her cry worse, knowing how this wonderful man could console her despite her guilt and that she had lost him. Gently, he asked, “Mandy, where’s the envelope? Is it in your brief case?” “Yes,” her choked reply came.
“You know what, I’m actually glad you haven’t read it yet because I need to know something before you read about the lawsuit that’s in the envelope.” Well, no surprise there, Mandy thought. “Can we please go to your apartment and let me ask my question? And then just read it so you understand what’s going on and we can move past this.” ‘Move past’, she realized, was a polite way of saying ‘sue you into absolute zero’.
It needed to be read at some point, she realized, so she did as he requested and buzzed her code into the keypad. She hurried up the stairs and had put some distance between them, so it was a few seconds before he followed her into the apartment. Not seeing any duty as a hostess necessary, she calmly asked, “What’s your question?” He took a deep breath, her answer to truly give him, finally, the last piece of that horrible night that he did not yet possess in thinking the night was finally complete. It was a piece that didn’t exist until she told him how she had been on the expressway and cut off his parents.
“You told me you never hesitated to turn around when you got off the exit ramp, that you returned right away and you were the one that realized someone needed to be with my mother.” It wasn’t a question. It was something he often did, stating he had a question and then not asking it. She would miss that about him, among the hundreds of things she would miss. She replied, “Yes. She was conscious and she seemed so scared and no one else had gone to her, so I did and………” The prescient awareness of what the question that had yet to come would be then hit her hard and she was crushed by understanding what he needed to know.
He watched her begin to tear up once more. Aware of what he implied, her reaction to understanding his implication wasn’t truly an answer, something he still required. Slowly, and unforgivingly painfully, she said, “At no point, Daniel, was my purpose for talking to your mother to find out if she’d say anything about what happened on the expressway. I didn’t go to your mom to see if she could identify my car. I went to your mom only to comfort her. I panicked when the police finally got there, when your parents…were gone. If the only thing you ever believe about me is this, then please let it be this.”
He looked at her and more than wanting to believe her, he did. “Okay. Thank you for answering that. I absolutely do believe you and it makes all the difference to me,” he replied softly. Her understanding of this was that he could not accuse her of having a less-than a noble reason for helping his mother. For Mandy herself, it was the only thing she wasn’t guilty of. She opened her brief case and took out the envelope. When she did this, he slowly took it from her and opened it for her.
—– 27 —–_____________________________________________________________________________________
She wondered if he took pleasure in being the one to finally force her to face her cowardly act. When she looked at him, she saw a man she had spent two wonderful months getting to know and have feelings grow into love for him. Now to know herself to be denied the source of those feelings, she accepted that however painful this was to be, she was being spared by him whatever could be spared.
Clearing her eyes, she began to read what bleakness her life was to become. As she read and tried to comprehend, he remarked, “I told my sisters that you were the one with our mom that night. I didn’t, however, tell them a word about what you told me about you being on the expressway when my parents were on it.”
Hearing this, combined with what she was reading within the document, had her too confused to fully gather in the severity of the lawsuit. It was indeed a lawsuit that sought millions of dollars, much more money than she had. “I don’t understand this,” she admitted as she then verbalized something that was missing. “I’m….I’m not named in this.”
He watched her scan the document once more and her understanding that it wasn’t an oversight was slow to insist itself when she saw the words ‘Plaintiff’ and ‘Defendant’. With her breathing deepening, she saw ‘The estate of Ronald N. Laughlin and Catherine M. Laughlin’ under Plaintiff v…..” She looked at it again, and then at Daniel.
“I don’t understand,” she repeated, her voice unsteady, but from an influx of curiosity, not dread, as she read the name under Defendant, ‘The General Motors Company’, and specifically, an executive that signed off on something that cost lives, the person Daniel wanted to look in the eyes one day and instill a never-ending sense of guilt.
“When I texted you that you should forgive yourself, Mandy, that was the truth. I wanted to tell you it wasn’t your fault, but I needed to know that you stopped to help my Mom and not protect yourself. It means so much to me to know that part of it. So, my father lost control of the vehicle because of a mechanical defect that General Motors and Saturn knew would lead to cars shutting off and the driver unable to control the vehicle. Even if you cut them off, which may or may not be true and I think I can convince you that you didn’t, it wasn’t why my father lost control of the car.” She was unconvinced.
“Again, I meant it when I said you weren’t to blame. Mandy, my dad was a great driver, way too courteous. If you signaled you were changing lanes like that, he would have guessed you were trying to get to the exit. He would have slowed down to let you in. I guarantee you that. Even if you did cut him off, even in the rain, it wasn’t enough to cause him to drive off the road. I bet he beeped at you, didn’t he?” This left her puzzled
“Yes. It was….how did you….” He talked over her and said, “And how did he beep at you?” Shocked to have Daniel aware of this and having always remembered the sound of Ronald Laughlin beeping at her, she replied, “Actually it wasn’t one long beep. It was three fast beeps.” “And someone that has time to hit the horn three fast times doesn’t sound like someone that lost control. It was what he always did to let another driver know to be more careful.”
—– 28 —–____________________________________________________________________________________
She watched him pull a small piece of paper from his pants pocket. The shock of what he had written down melted some of her heartache because the paper held what Daniel anticipated to be Mandy’s answer. Daniel had written ‘3 quick beeps’. How well he knew his father!
“Mandy, it was a manufacturing defect that showed itself when he turned the wheel to switch lanes like he wanted to, not because he was forced to. The computer shows that. There was no ABS activity, like he was panic braking. There is a pin in the ignition lock cylinder that shears off or pops out because it’s too short when the steering wheel is being turned. They knew this and still built the cars. There’s about 80 lawsuits going on right now involving these Cobalts and Ions.”
Her blank expression, which was contrary to what was happening in her mind, made him unsure if his explanation distressed her or helped her. “I should have been more forceful in telling you that was the case, but after you told me that you were on the expressway, I couldn’t separate that from wondering if you only comforted my mother to keep her from saying anything about the accident to someone else, which didn’t matter because a few people heard everything. But it matters to me, a great deal, everything actually, that you were only trying to help my mom and not protect yourself. And that comes as no surprise.”
She went to the couch and sat, the turn of events not yet fully engraving their impact on her thoughts. Knowing that the guilt she harbored all this time had entrenched itself in her mind and heart and likely to her soul, it was a burden that couldn’t be undone simply. “Mandy, I’m so sorry that you’ve had this
eating away at you all this time. I probably made it a lot worse with how I told you I wanted to look into the eyes of the person responsible. If you weren’t the kind of person you are, which meant you couldn’t accept that you believed I was blaming the truck driver, the truth might never have come out and not because you were protecting yourself, but because you didn’t want to cause me pain.”
She declined to feel his undeserved empathy. It was painful to accept such an undeserved gift. “How else should I have felt? Two people died because of me and I let everyone think I was someone that gave comfort to your mom. It makes it so much easier that you believe me that I was only thinking about your mother. Still…I don’t doubt that it takes quite a bit of force on the steering wheel to cause the car to do that and I did put your father in that position. If you and your sisters forgave me, it would make it worse.”
How much of a relief it should have been for her to know her actions were not the cause, yet she refused to accept her acquittal. Had her guilt so twisted her thoughts to have her believe that forgiveness, which wasn’t actually coming from him nor his sisters because it wasn’t necessary, was an adverse thing?
“Fine. I’m not here to forgive you, if that helps. I’ll just blackmail you again.” His gentle humor, which she clearly took it as, did not, in fact, help. “So, you have decided what you are going to do. Please…could you tell me so I know how to prepare? I played a role and deserve some sort of punishment.” He had no desire to force her to accept that her role played no part in the accident.
—– 29 —–_____________________________________________________________________________________
She would argue her truth despite the truth she had held on to for all this time was no longer valid. Daniel understood that she needed to reach absolving herself on her own terms. He imagined her guilt had so imbedded itself in her that to learn it to have been unnecessary was like admitting she had been wrong to feel this way for six years. To know such a burden of the heart was not true caused its own pain. That was difficult to admit, however much a good thing it resulted in.
Once more, to make sure it was real, she read the document and did not see her name. Looking at Daniel, knowing he was not here to take his pound of flesh, six years of remorse began a slow, unsteady departure. What would normally be only pained tears pooled in her eyes, as she shed these in relief in some regard. “You really don’t think it was my fault?” Shaking his head, a soft ‘No’ came from him, adding, “The accident was always going to happen.” He pulled her up to him and embraced this beautiful, caring woman who had suffered, in some ways, worse than Daniel and his sisters.
As she softly wept, he said, “As far as what my sisters and I agreed on, we all agree we should never have ambushed you like that in the restaurant and I am officially apologizing to you for me being led astray by my evil sisters.” Hearing her chuckle, he remarked, “I don’t think we should ever tell them about you being on that part of the expressway.” Surprised to hear this, she stepped back and he carefully dabbed away the dampness from her face and eyes. “Why not?”
He was happy to respond, hoping she was far enough down the path of self-absolution. “Well, first realize that you’re thinking about this as if you still caused the accident, which isn’t true and I will never allow you to believe that again. I knew it wasn’t true when you told me the other night and I should have done a better job getting you to understand that when you did tell me.”
“I will always regret it, but again, the way I immediately wondered if you talking to my mom was not to comfort her just sort of paralyzed me. So, the question is, actually, ‘why’ would we tell them, not ‘why not’. As far as the lawsuit goes, it doesn’t matter if a car was in the lane ahead of him when my father turned the wheel. The defect shows itself when simply changing lanes.”
The cruel, lasting heartache continued to dissipate for her. For all these years, did she not deserve that heartache, in part, for not having the courage to tell the police what her version of the events were the night of the accident? If that was true, then she now deserved to feel her penance was paid. The person by far best suited, and not just in the singular way he knew the truth, would help her put this behind her.
“I thought that when you said you wanted to look the person in the eye that caused what happened to your parents, I did think you meant the guy driving the dump truck. I don’t know, it was the way you said your opinion of him would never change, and I finally realized the truth had to be told. I couldn’t have you angry at him.”
“Actually, part of what is difficult to let go of is what the accident did to him. Like I said, my opinion of him was ‘rock solid’, as in he was rock solid. I’m sorry I seemed to connect the two things. Truth is, he didn’t have a scratch on him, but internally, it really had been terrible for him. We had both wakes together, obviously, and he showed up, him and his wife. Took a lot of courage for him to do that, but we made sure he knew we didn’t blame him.”
—– 30 —–_____________________________________________________________________________________
“My ‘opinion of him’ is that when we found out about the faulty ignition switch, he was one of the few people we told so he could know how unavoidable what happened to him was. By the way, you can’t mention the lawsuit to anyone, yet, not even my sisters. I’m not supposed to tell anyone.” And in the way he teased things that she looked forward to, he casually remarked, “And then there’s the other issue.”
Curiously, and without a speck of dread, she bit. “Other issue, huh? I’m thinking no lawyers involved in this issue.” “None. So…..here’s the thing, Mandy. My sisters think we broke up, which I suppose is accurate. Since they want to still thank you for what you did for our Mom, it might be sort of awkward if we’re not back together. Your thoughts?” “Hmmm. Well, let’s think. I don’t know, but off the top of my head, just throwing it out there, we could……pretend to make up?”
“Huh. Wow, that is something that I didn’t even see as a Plan B. I mean, my sisters are above average intelligence, and by that, I mean, they’re both a lot smarter than me. They’d know if we were faking it.” A ‘distraught’ Mandy replied, “Really? Well, that’s a buzzkill. So, I guess, I mean, we could actually make up for real. Too far-fetched?” “No, not at all. I’ve always believed the farther something needed to be fetched, the better the fetching.” Her laugh at his abstract reasoning was encouraging for both of them.
Despite what occurred in the restaurant parking lot two nights before, he had, indeed, managed to ‘move them past’ the revealed secret that tortured Mandy for so long. “So, what did your sisters say when you told them it was me that night and how did you explain why I didn’t come into the restaurant beyond being ambushed?” Intently looking at her, she knew his response wouldn’t be of a humorous manner.
“Well, I told them that I rushed you, which kept me from telling them that I was trying to manipulate you and they hoped things could be fixed between us because they knew how much you meant to me. I clarified for them that I was in love with you and I wasn’t sure if things could be fixed.” Receiving the expected visual reaction from her, she uncharacteristically had difficulty with her words.
“What? You said……what did you…what did you tell your sisters?” “I told them I didn’t think things could be fixed between us and…..” Chuckling in happy disbelief, she urgently interrupted. “No, no, no. Before that. You know what I’m talking about, jerk.” “Oh, the ‘I love you’ part. Yeah, just sort of came out. Technically, you’re the fifth person who I told that I love you, so I have come a long way on my numbers by knowing that. And to clarify my clarification, I told them it happened about two minutes after I met you. It would have been love at first sight, but my eyes were still adjusting to the indoor lighting.” A buoyant smile emerged for Mandy knowing that this point in her existence would never be forgotten as Daniel continued to clarify.
“When we met, when I said I waited six years to find you after the accident, I was speaking as a son if that number is accurate. We should have taken into account that I had no working knowledge of numbers at that moment. The truth is, with the much better grasp of numbers I now have, the actual length of time I’ve waited to find you is…..33 years, as in my whole life.”
—– 31 —–_____________________________________________________________________________________
Finally, in her life, she was able to say those words that always eluded her because there had never been any man who she wanted to say them to. “I’m going to go across the hall to my neighbors. Wife and husband and two kids. Total of four people that I am going to tell I love you before I tell you, although the baby is only six months old, so I doubt she’ll understand.” A thought occurred to her.
“Actually, they might not be home, so…..I would now love to tell you that I am in love with you, too, and I am so happy I failed to chase you away. I think loving you happened for me soon after I told you I was the one who talked to your mom. I felt different, meeting you, and the deal was sealed for me when you said…..S.L.A.P. I’m a pushover for acronyms. To me, they’re more romantic than flowers.”
Knowing she was only partially kidding, this was the moment they had told each they loved the other, done so in as quirky a way as they always were to each other and would continue to be. The kiss they then shared took on a different meaning, for it was not simply a physical act of affection. For both of them, it was a beginning that they had yet to have because of what had yet to be learned about all the aspects of the night of the accident.
With it all now known, they could have that beginning. As they separated from the kiss but not each other, with a wry grin, Mandy said, “There’s this issue….” as she echoed the actual ‘non-issue’ sentiment when Daniel used the word. “Well,” a falsely subdued Daniel began, “I guess you should just tell me.” “Okay. Here goes. The issue I’m having is that we both seem to have way too many clothes on.”
“I thought it was just me,” a ‘relieved’ Daniel said, adding, “Any suggestions? My brain is on math shutdown mode with all the number things I’ve been doing lately and I’ve got a long way to go. Figuring out it’s been 33 years I’ve been looking for you is my first time into double digits. I divided 9 by 3 the other day and I got ‘red’ as the answer, which sadly is the closest I’ve come to being right regarding division.”
Giggling with such a free feeling in her heart, Mandy replied, “Actually, I have a solution, but it’s sort of something I have to show you,” she replied as she took him by the hand and led him to her bedroom. “Say,” he said in upbeat curiosity as he trailed behind her, “Are you ever going to just toss me over your shoulder like you promised?”
—– 32 —–_____________________________________________________________________________________
It was 3 A.M. when Mandy awoke, careful to not wake Daniel sleeping in the bed next to her. His phone was set for a 6 am wakeup so he could get home to shower and change before he went to work. Looking at him, she knew it would never grow old waking up next to him. It was unusual for Mandy to awaken once she fell asleep, but it was unusual what she was feeling, although far more amazing and preferable to what she had always felt when waking the past six years. Going to her kitchen, she drew a glass of water from the faucet.
She believed she would never be free of the grief that had attached itself so vehemently to her that night and her guilt told her it was justified. But now that grief could halt being an affliction to her and be a wound that would heal, something she once believed was not possible. Have at it, Time! Heal away! Had that healing not already begun? Had her guilt that fueled the grief not been displaced finally by the complete truth of that night and no longer only by her incorrect portion of it?
This grief had been an unwanted, unshakeable companion to her for six years. The chance to free herself of it had been provided to her by the very person she believed she had cheated out of his right to have the truth of the night his parents died. Her long-held truth, which caused her the grief, was not actually the part she played in the tragic events of that night six years ago and her torment had been the cost of her failure to come forward.
She turned on her laptop and went to something she had read a thousand times the past six years as self-governed punishment, the Internet newspaper article regarding the death of Daniel’s parents. She now could learn about the lives of Daniel’s parents from him and escape their deaths. Looking at the article this time, she did not read it. She deleted it.
—– 33 —–_____________________________________________________________________________________
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