The Gift

6

The car that hit Wayne was big, and green. It had a lot of weight behind it and because it was on an otherwise empty road, reasonably late in the afternoon, it had a lot of speed behind it as well. It was in no way the driver's fault that Wayne had been hit. Even so, she was one of five people standing around the gurney that held Wayne's comatose and potentially paraplegic form. The other four people were his daughters, naturally, a male nurse and Wayne's boss. His daughter's boyfriend was notably absent. The driver's name was Sarah Callahan and despite being a local to the area and living only a few streets from the Abrams, she had never had the pleasure of meeting them. She felt awful when she discovered this, knowing that their first impression of her was 'that maniac who hit the dad with her car'.

Sarah wasn't the only one in Wayne's hospital room who felt misplaced guilt over the accident. Mary knew that if she hadn't run off with Sebastien, Wayne wouldn't've chased her and, as such, wouldn't've been hit. It made her feel worse that, thinking back to that night, she'd heard tires screeching but neither she nor Sebastien had made any attempt to investigate.

She had only found out about the accident early the following morning, when a sobbing Betty had filled her in. Seeing her face crumple into a panic of tears and shock, Sebastien moved to comfort her.

With his arms wrapped around her, he asked "What's wrong?"

"Dad's in hospital," Mary managed between the sobs that wracked her body.

"What? What happened?"

"Betty said he was hit by a car a few streets from home." She paused. "It was late this afternoon."

"Is he ok?" Sebastien asked, but Mary wasn't listening. As the events of the previous night clicked in her mind, she sank to her knees.

"Oh, God," she sobbed. "This is all my fault..."

"Hey, don't say that," Sebastien warned. "You didn't have anything to do with it."

"But I did... He was chasing me when... when it happened."

Sebastien frowned. "You didn't ask him to chase you. This isn't on you."

"Nothing would've happened if I had just listened to him."

"Or if he had any goddamn faith in you," Sebastien chided defensively.

"Wh-what?"

"Think about it. If he trusted either of us, he would've left the situation well enough alone."

Mary turned on him in an emotional rage. "Are you serious?!"

"Yeah, I am. This isn't your fault. It was his stupid idea to chase after you and look where it got him." He flung his arm out, exasperated.

Mary curled her fist into balls, seething at how her supposed "boyfriend" could be so cold and uncaring about her own father. Wiping the tears from her eyes, she pushed that line of thinking out of her head – she would deal with it later.

"Take me to the hospital," she demanded. "Now!"

At the hospital, she had peeled her helmet off and pushed it into Sebastien's hands.

"Hang on to it," he said. "I'll be waiting out here when you're done."

She stared at him for a moment with sadness in her eyes. "Don't. I need time to process this."

"Well, take as long as you need. I don't mind waiting."

Realising that he wasn't grasping the gravity of her words, she turned away and sighed. She couldn't bear to look him in the eye. "You aren't going to see me anymore." A part of her didn't believe the words coming out of her mouth. "Maybe ever."

Sebastien's face contorted into a mask of hurt, bewilderment and anger. "Mary-"

"Go home, Sebastien."

Life after Wayne's accident crawled to a halt for the entirety of the Abrams household. Their intertwined personal drama had gotten out of hand and left all of them feeling drained and broken – Wayne's body, Mary's heart and Betty's innocence. For weeks, none of them were really living –simply existing, shells of people. A week following the accident, Wayne was released from hospital in a wheelchair and told that the healing process would likely take the better part four months, depending on how his legs took to physical therapy. That day, Wayne had wheeled himself into his room and stared at the photo he kept of him and his late wife, wondering what had happened.

As the dust from the three incidents settled,one of them (and no one could quite remember who) decided that they should allcome clean with each other. And so, one tense and emotionally-charged night,Wayne, Mary and Betty all took a seat around their dining table and openedthemselves up in complete, raw honesty. Betty found this the hardest, knowingthat the calibre of her situation had the potential to change how they saw her,but it didn't. Wayne and Mary both gave her their full support. That night wasamong the hardest that the family, as a whole, had faced, but it was criticalin allowing them to continue their lives, now closer than ever. That nightallowed them to be a family once more.