Sirens. Hands pulling me away.
And someone saying: The mother was driving.
I tried to speak. Tried to say it wasn’t her. But I blacked out.
Living With Strangers
I woke up in a hospital bed. The man beside me—Thomas—was my father. Older than I remembered. A stranger with my eyes.
Two weeks later, I’m in his kitchen. Julia, his wife, places a bowl of oatmeal in front of me. She hums and adds hemp seeds like it’s a normal day. Like my mother isn’t dead.
I want diner waffles. Not health food. I want midnight runs to Sam’s with my mom. Not this house with its beige walls and a baby I don’t know.
I push the food away.
Courtroom Cold
What do you wear to watch the man who killed your mother go on trial?
I wear black. The same blouse I wore to her funeral. The same trembling fingers to button it.
Calloway—his name—doesn’t even look at me. He was drunk. He’d already lost his license. He should never have been driving.
The lawyer asks what happened that night. I tell them we were driving home. Then the headlights came.
But then the defense lawyer asks:
“Who was driving, Maeve?”
I freeze.
My voice shakes.
“My mother,” I say.
But something inside me shifts.
A memory rises.
The keys. The wheel. My hands.
It wasn’t her.
The Truth Comes Back
That night, it floods in.
She handed me the keys.
Tired, Maeve. You drive.
I was behind the wheel. I didn’t see him. I didn’t stop him. And now, my mom is gone.
I tell my father. I expect him to scream. Instead, he pulls me into his arms.
“It wasn’t your fault,” he says.
I want to believe him. God, I do.
Later, I hear him tell Julia.
“She was driving,” he says.
And then:
“I look at her, and… she’s a stranger to me.”
I curl against the wall, feeling like I’ve lost both of them.
The Letter
I find my mother’s letter buried in an old trunk.
Thomas,
She’s brilliant. Stubborn. So alive. Maybe if you try, she’ll let you in…
She wrote it a year before she died. She wasn’t sure if he was ready to be my father.
Maybe I’m not sure either.
But maybe there’s still time.
A Start, Not an Ending
Calloway takes a plea. Less prison time, but he admits guilt. It doesn’t feel like justice. Not really.
But I stand in front of my mother’s portrait and whisper:
I love you. I miss you. I’m sorry.
And I feel, for the first time, that she hears me.
Waffles and Healing
The next morning, Julia makes waffles. Real ones. Butter and syrup and everything.
“I caved,” she says. “Don’t tell the other vegans.”
For the first time in weeks, I smile.
And later, my dad and I sit on the porch. I ask him:
“Did I disappoint you?”
“Never,” he says. “I was just… shocked. And scared. I’ve only ever been your father from the sidelines.”
We talk. We cry a little.
And when I go back inside, I hold Duncan for the first time. His tiny fingers wrap around mine like he’s known me all along.
Maybe this house can become a home.
Maybe I’m not lost anymore.