She swallowed hard, and Gabe saw her throat work with the effort of controlling her emotion. His heart ached, already knowing where this story was going but unable to stop the pain of hearing it from her lips.
“One night we were going home after work,” Jane said, her voice dropping lower. “I had been working late, and being six months along, I didn’t feel comfortable driving. There was something wrong with my blood pressure. I’d often black out without warning. So Darren came to fetch me from the Lockheed Martin offices.”
Jane picked up her coffee cup, wrapped both hands around it as if drawing warmth and strength from it, but she did not drink. Just held it.
“We were nearly at our turn-off on the highway,” she continued. “It was dark. Late. Maybe nine-thirty or ten at night. Traffic was light, which was unusual for that stretch of road. And then this car came racing up behind us.”
Gabe could picture it. The dark highway, the sparse traffic, the sudden danger approaching from behind.
“The driver was weaving through traffic,” Jane said, her voice taking on a flat, emotionless quality that Gabe recognized. The tone people used when recounting trauma, when the only way to get through the story was to disconnect from the feeling of it. “Speeding. Reckless. They pulled up beside us in the lane meant for oncoming traffic, trying to pass ona blind curve.”
Jane’s hands tightened around the coffee mug.
“There was a semi truck coming the other direction,” she said. “The driver of the car saw it too late. They swerved back into our lane and clipped our front bumper. Darren tried to correct, but we were going too fast. The car spun. I remember the world tilting, the sound of metal screaming, the feeling of being thrown against my seatbelt.”
Tears were forming in Jane’s eyes now, but she kept talking, as if once started, she could not stop until the whole story was out.
“We hit the guard rail,” Jane said. “The car flipped. I don’t know how many times. When it finally stopped, we were upside down in the ditch on the side of the road. I was trapped. The roof had caved in on my side, and I couldn’t move. Couldn’t feel my legs.”
Gabe felt his own throat tighten, his chest constricting with the pain of imagining what Jane had gone through.
“But I was conscious,” Jane said, her voice breaking now. “Semi-conscious, maybe. Everything hurt. Everything. But I could see Darren in the driver’s seat beside me, and I knew. I knew he was gone. There was blood, and the way he was positioned, the way his head?—”
Jane stopped, unable to continue that particular thought. She drew in a shaky breath.
“But I refused to believe it,” she said. “I kept talking to him. Kept telling him to hold on, that help was coming, that everything would be okay. And I was clutching my belly, trying to feel forTaylor’s movement, trying not to panic because I couldn’t feel her kicking.”
Tears were streaming down Jane’s face now, but she did not seem to notice or care.
“I told myself she was just sleeping,” Jane whispered. “That she was fine. That we were all going to be fine. I kept talking to Darren, kept talking to Taylor, kept forcing myself to stay conscious even though everything in me wanted to just let go. To just slip away into the darkness.”
“But you didn’t,” Gabe said softly, his own eyes burning with unshed tears.
“But I didn’t,” Jane agreed. “Not right away. I stayed conscious for... I don’t know how long. Minutes? Hours? Time didn’t make sense. I heard sirens eventually. Heard voices. Felt people trying to get to us, trying to cut through the metal. And I kept talking, kept trying to stay awake. But eventually, the pain and the blood loss... I couldn’t hold on anymore. I blacked out.”
Jane set down her coffee cup and wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand.
“When I woke up, I was in the hospital,” she said. “In intensive care. I couldn’t move. There were tubes and machines and pain everywhere. But the first thing I saw was my father and my grandmother, and the looks on their faces told me everything before anyone said a word.”
Gabe reached across the table and took Jane’s hand, holding itgently. She gripped back hard, as if he were the only thing anchoring her to the present.
“Darren was gone,” Jane said flatly. “He had died on impact. The doctors said he didn’t suffer, didn’t feel anything. One moment he was there, and the next he wasn’t. And Taylor...” Her voice broke completely. “Taylor was gone, too. The trauma from the accident, the way I was positioned in the car, the time it took to get us out... she didn’t make it. They had to do an emergency C-section at the hospital, but she was already gone.”
“Jane,” Gabe said, his voice rough with emotion. “I’m so sorry.”
Jane nodded, tears flowing freely now. “My back was broken. Three vertebrae were fractured, and one was crushed. The doctors said I might never walk again. That even if I did, it would take months, maybe years of physical therapy. And I remember lying there in that hospital bed, unable to move, knowing that Darren was gone and Taylor was gone and our whole future was just... erased. And I didn’t want to recover. I wanted to give up. To stop fighting and let go.”
She looked at Gabe with red-rimmed eyes full of remembered pain.
“But my father wouldn’t let me,” Jane said. “Neither would my grandmother or Uncle Logan. They pushed me. Every single day, they pushed me. Through the surgeries and the pain and the physical therapy that felt like torture. Through the days when I screamed at them to leave me alone, to let me quit. They wouldn’t. They just kept showing up, kept encouraging me,kept forcing me to do one more exercise, take one more step, try one more time.”
Jane wiped at her eyes again, her voice steadier now.
“A year later, I could finally walk again,” she said. “Not perfectly. I still have pain sometimes, especially when I overdo it or stay in one position too long. But I could walk. I could function. And the first thing I did was pack up everything in West Palm Beach. I sold the house, left the job, boxed up the nursery we had set up for Taylor, and came here.”
“To help your grandmother,” Gabe said, remembering what his mother had told him.
“She had a health scare,” Jane confirmed. “It turned out to be nothing serious, but it gave me an excuse to leave. To escape all those memories and start over somewhere new. Somewhere that didn’t have Darren’s ghost around every corner and Taylor’s empty nursery waiting in the spare bedroom.”
