Maybe because the alternative was admitting there were things about my own daughter I didn’t want to see.
Now, lying in that hospital bed, I wondered if I’d misunderstood that argument completely.
“Walter,” I whispered, “did Aunt Lisa say anything else?”
He hesitated.
“What?”
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There were things I didn’t want to see.
“There was something weird.”
My stomach tightened. “Tell me.”
“She asked me about your glasses.”
“My glasses?”
“Before the accident.”
There was something weird.
“When?”
“The morning when it happened.”
And just like that, another memory came rushing back.
***
I remembered Lisa standing in my kitchen. “Mom, what are you doing?”
“I’m late, and I can’t find my driving glasses.”
She asked me about your glasses.
“Use the old pair.”
“They’re too weak.”
She’d rolled her eyes. “Just wear your old pair. You can see fine in those.”
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I remembered hesitating.
Then I remembered taking them.
I can’t find my driving glasses.
After that, I remembered only a blurry road sign, a horn, and metal.
For the first time, I wondered whether the worst mistake I’d made that morning had actually been mine.
***
The crash dissolved, and I was back in the hospital room.
“Walter, what did she ask you?”
I remembered only a blurry road sign, a horn, and metal.
He frowned, concentrating. “She said, ‘Does your grandma always drive in those old glasses?'”
“When?”
“A few days before the accident.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t know it mattered.”
