Chapter 4 - WHAT DOLORES SAW FROM THE PASSENGER SEAT
Dolores came to the hospital four days later with an attorney.
Her birthday was the following morning.
She wore a cream coat and the pearl earrings Henry had bought her after telling me we could not afford Emily’s summer camp. Without her carefully styled hair and bright lipstick, she looked older than seventy-four.
She did not ask to see my injuries.
She sat in the visitor chair and looked at my casts.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Rachel remained beside my bed. Dad stood near the door. Mom had taken Emily to lunch so she would not be present.
“Were you driving?” I asked.
Dolores shook her head.
“Henry was.”
The answer did not shock me as much as the fact that I had already believed it.
Dolores had asked him to drive her to a medical appointment in Joliet because her eyesight had worsened. Afterward, they stopped for lunch. Henry drank two bourbons. Dolores told him to let her drive, but he said he was fine.
On the way home, his phone alerted him that I had left the tax firm.
“He knew about the interview?” I asked.
“He’d been checking your location all morning.”
Dolores said Henry became furious. He called me ungrateful and accused me of planning to take Emily and half the house. He drove toward the grocery store because he believed I would stop there before walking home.
“He said he only wanted to talk to you,” she said.
“Then why didn’t he stop?”
Dolores pressed her lips together.
“He saw you before we reached the crosswalk.”
My father shifted near the door.
Rachel asked, “How far away?”
“Far enough.”
Dolores had told Henry to slow down. Instead, he moved into the curb lane and lowered the passenger window.
“He wanted to frighten you,” she said. “He said you needed to remember who paid for your life.”
The car’s engine rose as it approached.
Henry called my name.
I turned.
Then Dolores grabbed the wheel.
The Buick struck me on the passenger side of the hood. My body hit the windshield before falling into the crosswalk.
“Did he brake?” I asked.
“After.”
Dolores began crying.
Henry stopped two blocks away. He took my phone from the street after the collision because it had landed near the curb. He saw that emergency services had already been called, then drove away.
At Dolores’s house, he cleaned the inside of the Buick and told her they would both go to prison if she spoke. He reminded her that her worsening eyesight could be used to show she should not live alone.
“He said he’d put me in a facility and sell my house,” she whispered.
“So you reported the car stolen.”
“Yes.”
“And stayed silent while I was here for three weeks.”
She nodded.
Her fear explained her betrayal.
It did not excuse it.
Rachel asked why she had finally changed her story.
Dolores looked at the bruise left by Henry’s hand.
“He called last night and said you were still refusing to sign the loan papers. He told me he might have to bring you home and make you understand.”
My father opened the door.
The interview was over.
Before Dolores left, she placed her car keys on the medical tray.
“I know you won’t forgive me.”
I looked at the woman who had watched her son drive away while I bled in a crosswalk.
“Forgiveness isn’t the first thing you owe me.”
Her attorney guided her into the hall.
Rachel waited until the door closed.
“The vehicle data will tell us whether he accelerated.”
Dad looked at me.
“What happens if it does?”
May you like
I thought about Emily, our house and the man who had spent years teaching me that survival depended on keeping him calm.
“I stop protecting her from the truth about her father.”
