“The part that hit him.”I shake my head.“If I’d just shown up when he asked me to, I would’ve caught it.I know engines.I would’ve caught it, and none of the rest of it would’ve happened.The pain meds, the morning he didn’t wake up.None of it.”
I push back from the table and stand, not because I want to leave but because I don’t know what to do with my hands, with the familiar weight of it sitting so openly in the room between us for the first time.
After Dad died, I left for Europe one month later.I couldn’t get out of here fast enough, and I needed to step up, fix the financial mess we’d found ourselves in.
“I know what the ruling said.”I move to the window, the dark yard beyond the glass.“Accidental.”I release a disbelieving huff.“But I failed him.”
“Mads.”Katie’s on her feet, arms crossed tight over her chest like she’s holding herself together.“You can’t still think you’re to blame for what happened to Dad.”
I don’t look at her.She can’t possibly understand the guilt and grief and the countless times I’ve tortured myself with the what ifs.
“No.”Her voice firms.“You were a teenager, under a lot of pressure.You were in a highly competitive training program, and you knew what Dad had sacrificed to make that possible.”
For a beat, my heart stops, and I wonder if she knows all of it—the near insurmountable debt Dad left behind, the risky investments he’d undertaken, all so I had a shot at racing on the world stage.
She continues, more than likely unaware.“It was the summer, and you wanted to be with your friends.That’s what kids do?—”
Mom nods along, a lowmm-hmmpunctuating every few words like a hymn she knows by heart.
“But he asked for my help.”My hand curls into a fist against the table.
“Honey.”Mom stands behind me, her hands settling warm and steady on my shoulders.“Do not carry guilt for this.Your father didn’t blame you.”
“How do you know?”The words rush out rough.“He wouldn’t talk to me about it.When I tried to apologize—” I stop, unable to push past it.
The memory surfaces the way it always does—uninvited, sharp-edged.The antiseptic smell of the hospital room, and my father’s face turned toward the wall.
The way he saidget outin a voice I didn’t recognize, flat and final, like I was a stranger who had wandered into the wrong room.I’ve replayed that moment endlessly, and it still lands the same way every time.I fucking failed him, and he blamed me.
“Because he told me.”Her hands tighten.“He was in so much pain when you tried to apologize.He didn’t want you to see him like that.Some of it may have been pride, but he was protecting you, Mads.That’s what he was doing.”
I shake my head, unwilling to accept it.I’ve worked hard to find peace with what happened to Erica and understand, rationally, she’s the only one who can save herself.I’ve turned that truth over enough times that it’s started to feel like something I can live with.
But my dad is different.My dad I can’t logic my way out of.
“Listen to me.”Mom now faces me.“If your father needed two people for that job, he wouldn’t have gone into the garage alone.”Her voice is soft, but it lands with the quiet certainty of someone who’s carried this a long time and made peace with it.“It was mechanical failure.It had nothing to do with you.”Her eyes glisten.“Do you know what he told me?”
I shake my head, my throat too tight for words.
“He was grateful you weren’t there.”A tear slips free, and she doesn’t wipe it away.“He said if it hadn’t been him… if you’d been there—” Her voice cracks, and a lone tear slips from the corner of her eye.“It could’ve been you struck by that part; it could’ve killed you.”
Katie makes a sound—half sob, half something wordless—and then she’s at our sides, arms thrown wide, pulling us both in.Mom reaches up, and I bow my head.
And the three of us just hold on.
I stand on the porch for a moment, hands in my pockets, letting the cold night air settle around me.Something feels different, though lighter isn’t quite the right word.
The grief is still there, the guilt still has its edges, but my part in my father’s accident sits differently now.It’s a weight I’ve been carrying in the wrong position for years, and someone finally showed me how to shift it.
Mom’s words move through me on a loop.He was grateful you weren’t there.I’ve spent so long holding the shape of our conversation in the hospital room, my father’s face turned to the wall, and the harsh finality ofget outthat I never stopped to consider he might have been protecting me then, too.
I’m not ready to call it peace or self-forgiveness, but it’s something.A start.
I slide my hand in my jacket pocket and reach for my truck keys before I’ve made a conscious decision to go anywhere.
The center of town is quiet for a Monday night.Romeo’s glows warm on the corner, garlic and woodsmoke drifting out onto the sidewalk, and I spot her before she sees me.
Grace is outside, hands slipping into her pockets, talking to a woman with a sleek black bob.Lara Crandall.I stop walking for half a second, surprised to see those two together.