Chapter Text
"MOM!"
"LOOK OUT!"
I looked back at the road. A car was aiming right for us. I had swerved into their lane. Or maybe the other car was in my lane. It happened too fast for me to be sure. I panicked and jerked the wheel too hard. I avoided the other car, but our own car went right off the road.
We were sliding downhill over uneven terrain. It was only a couple seconds, but it felt like longer. And then it all stopped too suddenly. The side of the car smashed against a tree trunk. The back door crumpled like tinfoil.
I was stunned — literally. So was Jeff in the passenger seat. It took too many precious seconds for us to become alert again. I looked over my shoulder towards the backseat. "Oh, my God. William."
The window was cracked and bloody where William's head had smashed against it. There was blood smeared over his face, dribbling down onto his chest and seatbelt.
"William? William!" Jeff shouted.
But William wasn't wincing in pain. His eyes were closed, his expression blank. His body was completely motionless except for the blood dripping off his chin.
I called out, "William, can you hear me, baby?" I looked to Jeff. "Call Nine-One-One."
He already had his phone out. "I'm trying."
"I don't think he's breathing!" I looked back towards the road. A police car drove by. "Jeff, look!"
"I'll flag him down." Jeff rushed out the passenger door.
Throughout all this William still hadn't regained consciousness.
"William?!" I couldn't reach him from the driver's seat. I struggled to open my door, but the metal was warped. "No, no, no, no, no, no!" I gave up on my door and started crawling out of the car through the passenger side. "I'm coming, hold on!"
It took so much longer than I wanted to get out of the car. It took entirely too long to get the back door open. I felt sluggish and stupid, like everything was in slow motion.
But maybe it was okay. Maybe William had already woken up inside the car. Maybe he was having a miraculous recovery. Once I saw him again, he would be scared and injured, but alive.
I opened the door, crawled inside, and finally reached my son. "Hey! Hey! Are you all right?!"
He wasn't all right.
There was no miracle. No magical recovery. His eyes were closed and he wasn't breathing.
"William! William, please wake up!"
I shook his shoulder. Then I pressed my hand onto his neck. No pulse. The blood seeping out of his head had already slowed. He was already cold.
"No . . . No!!"
His body fell over, flopping onto the seat like an empty suit. Beneath the blood, his face looked almost peaceful. He was resting in peace.
William was dead.
He was staying dead.
I woke up with a start. Gasping and turning, my hands scrambled over the covers on impulse. I wasn't in a car or in the woods. I was in the dark, in my bed.
Someone lying beside me was stirring. "Wuh — What's it?" It was Jeff, my husband.
My memories and common sense rebooted as I got more awake. It was a dream. That accident happened over a year ago. But in real life, William survived. He was alive and asleep in his room right now.
Jeff rolled over. "Rebecca? What's wrong?"
I lay my head back against my pillow. "Nothing," I said. "Just a nightmare."
A pause in the darkness. Then he asked, "Was it about the accident again?"
I rolled away from him. "I don't wanna talk about it," I mumbled. "Let's go back to sleep."
"Are you sure?"
"I don't want to talk about it," I repeated.
A shorter pause. Then, "Okay."
I felt him settle on the mattress again. Then silence. We both went back to sleep.
.
To be clear, I didn't want to talk about it then.
I went to see my therapist the next day. (I already scheduled this session ages ago. The timing of the nightmare was just coincidence.)
I'd been going to therapy on and off for years. Jeff used to joke about that. I'm a psychologist, so why don't I just analyze myself, he would ask. To which I usually replied, "You're a surgeon. Would you take out your own appendix?" Jeff understood, he was just being silly.
(He stopped joking about it after the accident.)
"Hello again, Rebecca." My current psychiatrist was Dr. Samson. He was a big man. Tall and muscular. He looked more physically intimidating than you might expect from someone whose job was to put people at ease, but his gentle voice made up for that.
I got right to it. "I had that nightmare again last night."
"Which one, exactly?"
"William dying in the crash."
I had several variations of the same recurring nightmare. Either William died (most common), or it was Jeff who died instead, or both of them, or all three of us. Sometimes I had nightmares where it was just me trapped in a car speeding out of control. But they were all built around the same premise.
"It's been a while, hasn't it?" Dr. Samson said.
"I keep thinking I'm over it, and then the nightmares always come back." With a sigh, I rolled my head back and sank deep in my chair. "The crash was a year and a half ago. I hoped I'd have better progress than this."
"Rebecca. You've been in my chair. You've had this exact conversation with your own patients. You know it can take several years to fully process a traumatic event. It's not a failing."
"You know what they say: Doctors make the worst patients."
A brief lull in the conversation. And then he asked, "How has William been doing? I understand that he has all his memory back now."
"Yeah, that's what he says. He remembers pretty much everything now."
He must have noticed something in my tone. ". . . But?"
I paused. I considered not saying anything.
But I told him, "I don't have a rational reason for thinking this. But sometimes, when he talks about the past, I could swear he was faking it. It almost sounds like he's reading off of a cheat sheet to try and fool us. But I know that's irrational. He remembers details that Jeff and I never told him so how else . . . I don't know. I can't explain it. It's just a feeling I get."
"It's not that irrational. He could have filled in some of the gaps by re-reading his old diaries."
"Maybe, but I didn't think William ever kept a diary. Of course, I never snooped around his room looking for one, so who knows?"
I leaned forward. "But the amnesia's not the only problem. William's been acting depressed lately. I've asked him about it, and he says he's fine. But he still seems depressed. Jeff thinks it's just regular teenage angst. And maybe it is, maybe I'm overreacting. I can't tell if it's serious or not." I rolled my eyes. "I should be able to tell. It's in my job description. But . . ."
"You're too close to be objective," Dr. Samson said.
"Exactly! With my patients, I deal with psychoses. Mental disorders. Things I can diagnose. Things I can prescribe treatment for. What happened to William is different. And his doctors were no help at all. Their answer to everything was 'we don't know'. 'We're not sure what caused the amnesia.' 'We're not sure how long it'll last.' 'It's probably shock.' 'We can't find any brain damage.' 'His head injury healed like magic.' One of them actually used those words, 'like magic'. Can you believe that?"
I took a breath, slightly winded from my mini-rant. Then I said, "I mean, I get it. I'm a doctor too. The answers are never handed to us on a plate. But — But — It's so frustrating being on this side! I want to do something productive. Instead, I spent over a year twiddling my thumbs, waiting for my son to recover from something I caused."
Dr. Samson was quiet for a few moments, letting everything I said sink in. He asked me, "Would you like my opinion?"
"Please."
He gently said, "You blame yourself for the accident. You've said that before. And we've talked about Survivor's Guilt before. He was injured and you weren't. William is better now, but you're still on the lookout for anything wrong, and you feel pressured to fix it as fast as possible. Now I could be wrong, but is it possible that these feelings are some kind of . . . 'penance'?"
"You mean am I only helping him to clear my own conscience?"
"Is that possible?"
I didn't get offended or defensive. I thought it over and eventually responded with, "Okay, maybe. Call it penance. When I say the crash was my fault, that's not just Survivor's Guilt. I wasn't watching the road. That's a fact. My reckless driving got my son hurt. So of course I feel a responsibility to undo the damage."
I continued with, "But my desire for him to get better is sincere. I remember that first day after he came home from the hospital. He was so . . . scared . . . And stressed and confused. It broke my heart. I'd want to help him no matter whose fault it was. And even after all this time, I still don't think he completely recovered."
I sighed. "I wish I could do something to fix him. Not just make him 'better', but actually 'be fixed'. I wish I could just . . . wave a magic wand and fix everything."