Suddenly I remembered that night in a whole new way. I remembered rushing into the emergency department with Mark, my coat buttoned wrong, and finding Emma already there. She was sitting alone on a plastic bench, still in her rehearsal clothes, shaking so hard her teeth were chattering. When she saw me, she stood up and said, “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”
I had hugged her and told her she had nothing to be sorry for. I thought she was apologizing the way people do when someone is hurt. I’m sorry this happened.
She wasn’t. She was confessing. And I had been too frightened for my son to hear it.
I pressed my hand over my mouth. “Oh my God.”
“She blamed herself,” Daniel said.
And there it was.
For illustrative purposes only
Emma had come rushing to that hospital because she believed her breakup had caused the crash.
