“Mom was mad at me,” I said. “She’d been drinking at Jenny’s house with Jenny’s mom. We got in a fight out in their driveway. I didn’t want her to drive home. She said the wine was our little secret.”
“Mom crashed because of the torrential rain, that’s all Dad would ever say,” said Meghan, stroking mom’s face in the picture.
She wasn’t looking at me. To her, mom had been fun, an extra playmate. To me, she’d been a liability, unpredictable. Not wonderful traits for a parent. I’d protected my sister, making her school lunches and reading her bedtime stories.
“She did. But because she was distracted, yelling at me.” My voice sounded flat, but inside, my emotions churned.
“I’m sure that’s not true,” Meghan said as she set the photo down on her old desk.
“She smacked my face when I wouldn’t get in the car, furious that I questioned if she could still drive. She scared me and made me swear I wouldn’t tell about the wine. Said Dad would be mad I’d let her drink so much. That made sense to ten-year-old logic.” Of course, I know better now, but it was too late. I’d grown up believing this accident was also my fault.
I’d never told this entire story.
“I was crying. She told me to stop blubbering, but I couldn’t. It made her angry. She drove too fast because she was mad. I begged for her to pull over. I wanted out. She scared me. I didn’t know where I’d go or how I’d get home, but I didn’t want to be in the car.” My voice sounded as though it came from a distance as I remembered the water spraying up from the wheels, the bright lights over the highway flashing by, and glaring reflections on the road. The frantic swishing of the wipers as the tires hit the deeper pools of water. The motion as the car skidded from side to side.
“She hit a massive puddle pooled on the highway. We hydroplaned and spun around a hundred and eighty degrees. As we came to a rest, we hit the median and damaged my door. We stopped, facing the wrong way, but unharmed. I was relieved we weren’t hurt, but she screamed at me. Said it was my fault. Asked how we would explain it to Dad. That’s when the dump truck hit our car.” If I closed my eyes, I could still hear the metal as it crunched and my high-pitched scream as I’d covered my face and head.
“Dad said she had a disease,” said Meghan in a small voice. “When I was sixteen, I heard him defending Mom over the phone, talking with Grandma. I tried to talk to him about it, but he wouldn’t. When I was older, I guessed she had mental health issues, which is why I went into psychiatric nursing. I didn’t know she was an alcoholic. Last year, I was afraid you didn’t know what was real and what was imagination, like what I remembered about mom. I misinterpreted her problem, too.”
“Dad doesn’t want to admit that she was an alcoholic,” I said. “He doesn’t want to hear or say anything negative about Mom. He loved her anyway.”
“Is that why you stopped talking about your feelings? Why you tried to be perfect?”
“I tried to be perfect so Mom wouldn’t get mad. Sometimes I forgot and fought with her when she’d been drinking. That time, I thought I got her killed. I wanted to tell Dad it was my fault, but I couldn’t bear to have him hate me. I was just a kid.”
“Why didn’t you tell him later?”
Meghan’s voice was soft. She reached out and took my hand.
“He wouldn’t talk about it. He didn’t want to know. He wanted to believe it was just an accident. So, I swallowed my words. It was easier to avoid it. I pretended to believe his version.”
“That’s where it started,” she said. “Why you don’t talk when you’re upset?”
“I’m trying to change.” It didn’t feel natural, but now I forced myself to share. Christopher’s ability to read minds helped. It gave us a place to start conversations. It helped that he understood so much and accepted me without looking at me like I was broken.
“I wish I’d asked before,” she said. “And I’m sorry I said you were like Mom. That wasn’t fair. You would never hurt the rest of us with your actions.”
“I wouldn’t have told you before,” I said. “I’ve dealt with a lot of emotional baggage the last several months. Christopher helped.” I stood up, intending to go back downstairs.
“Can I change the subject and ask you for a favor?” She remained on the edge of her old bed and looked up at me.
I nodded.
“I know you don’t like a lot of attention or fuss, but would you be my maid of honor?”
“I thought you were trying to decide between your two best friends?” Tears pricked behind my eyes.
“I only have one sister, so it shouldn’t be a choice. The job’s yours if you want it.”
“Will you be mine too? We’re keeping the ceremony small, but I want you to be included.” Meghan and I hadn’t always been close, but she’d been there all my life. Maybe, for once, we were on the right path to repair things between us.
“Deal.” She paused and stared out the window.
I waited to see what she was thinking.
She cocked her head to the side. “Are you ever going to explain the time travel? Was it real?”
“It was real. But I can’t explain it. My therapist takes credit. It’s her magic, not mine. I get to live five years of my life over again and fix some of my biggest mistakes.”
