Say You're sorry

50

They let me ride in the ambulance with Piper. Although she is unconscious, her vital signs are stronger. They can put her on dialysis and clean her blood. She’ll recover. She’ll see in the New Year and meet her new baby sister.

Seated on a side bench, my knees touching the stretcher, I sway through every corner of the journey to hospital. I can see a face reflected in the chrome, but it doesn’t look like me. My body is shaking. I don’t know if it’s the Parkinson’s or the cold or something more elemental. I killed a man. I took a life.

Piper’s eyes flutter open, wide with shock at first. She recognizes me. Relaxes.

“Hello,” I say, holding her hand.

She can’t answer because of the oxygen mask.

“You’re safe. We’re going to the hospital.”

Her fingers squeeze mine.

Her other hand reaches for her mask. The paramedic wants her to keep it on. Piper insists. She mouths the word. I lean closer and hear her whisper.

“Tash?”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “Tash didn’t make it home. She died in the blizzard, but she helped us find you.”

Piper squeezes her eyes shut and a tiny marble-like tear rolls down her cheek and stops at the edge of the mask.

This was always going to be the hardest news and it will hurt her more than anyone imagines-a survivor’s guilt and a sense that the world has moved on without her. There is nobody left who understands what she’s been through.