What if we hadn’t argued…
What if I hadn’t distracted him?
What if we had taken another road?
What if we had reached that intersection ten seconds later?
Maybe Mark would still be alive.
That was why I began avoiding Susan after the funeral.
I thought that every time she looked at me, she would see the man who had walked away alive from the car in which her son had died.
Susan looked at me.
“And now I’m going to tell you the thing I never told you.”
She asked Lisa to take her phone from her purse.
Lisa hesitated but did as she was asked.
Susan said,
“There’s a recording on it. Under Mark’s name.”
I froze.
“What recording?”
“One of his last voice messages.”
Susan had kept it for five years.
Lisa pressed play.
At first, all I heard was Mark laughing.
I recognized it immediately.
Then came his voice.
He had sent the message to his mother that same evening, shortly before leaving the birthday party.
Mark told her that I was going through a difficult time.
That after my mother died, I had withdrawn into myself.
Then his voice became serious.
“Mom, Jake is like a brother to me. If he ever starts thinking he’s alone, remind him that he isn’t.”
The recording ended.
I couldn’t move.
Susan spoke softly.
“Do you know why I never played that for you?”
I shook my head.
“Because after the funeral, you ran away from me. I could see you from across the street. For years. And I kept waiting for the day you would finally knock on my door.”
My eyes filled with tears.
“Did you hate me?”
“No. I was angry with you.”
I swallowed hard.
“For what?”
“Because I lost my son in that accident, and then you decided I had to lose you too.”
That sentence broke something inside me.
I lowered my head.
Susan took my hand.
“Mark’s death was not your fault. The police told me that the very night it happened. I never blamed you. You were the one who sentenced yourself.”
Tom and Lisa were no longer talking about the house.
One of the officers closed his notebook.
“I don’t see any indication of coercion or exploitation here.”
The officers left.
Tom stopped at the door.
“Susan, we were just worried about you.”
