I tried to interrupt, but Lily kept talking. When she finished, the line was quiet for quite a while. Then Karen said, “Is he still there?”
“Maybe. Mom, Dad apparently told him it was an accident.”
“Don’t.” Her voice sounded exactly as it had on my phone hours earlier. “Your father didn’t get the chance to live his life. Why does the man who killed him get to tell us how to feel?”
“He wasn’t telling us that.”
“Your grandmother has been telling me for eighteen years.”
The call ended. I stared at the screen. Lily kept looking at hers. She’d heard her mother angry before, but I’d never seen her so unsure which question to ask first.
She turned to me. “Grandma, what does she mean?”
I tried to explain how grief made people say things they didn’t mean. Lily didn’t accept that.
“What did you say to her?”
I remembered every holiday when I’d asked Karen not to be bitter. Every birthday when I’d said Michael wouldn’t want us to hold a grudge.
“I thought I was helping.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
I looked away.
Karen arrived that afternoon, still carrying her suitcase. She hugged Lily, checked her temperature with the back of her hand, then turned to me.
“Where is he?”
“Karen, please.”
“I want to speak to him.”
I asked a nurse to pass along her request. Daniel came fifteen minutes later, with the surgeon who would take over Lily’s care.
Karen stood. “Are you Daniel?”
He froze. “Yes.”
“I’m Michael’s wife. You told my mother-in-law something earlier today.”
Daniel lowered his eyes. “I told her what Michael said at the crash.”
“Did you think telling her would make this easier for you?”
“No.”
“You got a second chance, while Michael didn’t, and now you’re telling us he forgave you?”
Daniel stood still. “I caused the accident. Michael died because of what I did. Becoming a doctor doesn’t undo it.”
“Then why tell her?”
“I thought she deserved to know. But I chose the wrong moment.”
Karen’s eyes filled. “Even if he said those words, it would have been much better for us all if you’d kept them to yourself.”
He nodded. “You’re right. I’m sorry.” He asked his colleague to finish the visit and left.
Nobody spoke until Lily pushed herself higher against her pillows. “Mom, I understand why you’re angry.”
Karen wiped her face. “Do you?”
“I think so. But I wanted to thank the doctor who helped me. I didn’t know any of this.”
“You don’t owe him anything,” Karen said.
“I know.” Then Lily turned to me. “And Grandma, you don’t get to decide what Mom owes him either.”
“I never said she did.”
Lily looked suddenly tired. “You said Dad wouldn’t want her to be angry. You said it at Christmas. You said it when I asked why Mom stopped coming to the anniversary gatherings. I thought you didn’t want to remember Dad.”
Karen sat down. “She told you that?”
Lily nodded.
Karen began to cry. “No, baby. Never.”
I thought of Karen’s words in the kitchen and realized the cake had never been the problem. I sat beside her.
“I’m sorry. I made my choice in court, and then I spent years acting as though you had to make the same one. I didn’t know what Michael wanted. I only knew what I wanted for myself.”
Karen stared at the floor. “You kept saying Michael would want peace.”
She didn’t forgive me that afternoon. But she let me stay.
I wanted to ask whether that meant she’d forgiven me. I didn’t. The question would have made her responsible for easing my guilt all over again.
A few days later, when my granddaughter was home from the hospital, Karen brought out an old photograph of Michael holding Lily as a baby.
“He was more nervous holding you than he was on our wedding day,” she said.
Lily smiled. “Was he a good dad? There’s so much I can’t remember.”
“He was wonderful, honey,” Karen said. “Is there anything you’d like to know?”
We spent the day reminiscing, keeping Michael’s memory alive.
