They both seemed completely ruined. I couldn’t find it in me to feel compassion, but the familiar voice of reason was arguing with me again: drug addiction is an illness, a chronic illness of the central nervous system.
I wailed, because I didn’t want to hear this only feasible defence in my mind. They are sick, but how much suffering has their sickness caused others? I started coughing violently and they both flinched.
What kind of existence was this?
What am I even doing here? I thought, unnerved. When I had been on my way here, ready to take away their life just like they took mine, it hadn’t seemed totally right, but it was justifiable. But how will I hurt them by being the person who infects them? They would have died either way. I’m only tormenting myself here!
It seemed like death would bring them relief. And me too.
I couldn’t stay there any longer. I ran outside, hoping I could run away from everything I’d seen. Sitting in my car parked a block away, it took some time to recover from the experience.
I felt like going home and locking the door. To hell with the rest of it. But I had one more place to go. If seeing my parents again was painful and shocking, then what’s coming will be much worse. But I couldn’t leave him out. For her.
I set off to the second location. It took almost half an hour to get there, therefore I had some time to pull myself together. By the time I was stepping onto a porch of the white house with blue window frames, I appeared totally calm.
Conveniently, I put a hand over my mouth and sneezed just before knocking on the door.
It was answered by a stocky guy with a pleasant expression. There was no shine in his eyes even though it was already late in the afternoon. Strange, I thought to myself sarcastically.
“Raymond Davis?”
“Hm.” He nodded half-heartedly and looked me up and down. “Who’s asking?”
“My name’s Mark.” I extended my hand. He shook it after a short pause and scratched his chin right after. There we go, I thought and imagined all those germs spreading across his face. “I won’t keep you long and don’t worry, I’m not selling anything.”
He laughed. “Are you moving in next door?” He pointed to a house on his right and I only just noticed a large “For Sale” sign in the middle of the lawn.
I could have used that pretence of being a new neighbour. But I didn’t want that. My plan was somewhat different.
“No, I’m here for something else… There was an accident on the corner of Stone Road and Main Street, I’m looking for witnesses.” The intersection I mentioned was just two streets down from Raymond’s house. “It happened in the evening. A pedestrian was walking across the street, some driver hit them and then drove away…”
“That’s awful,” he said, taken aback. “When did it happen? I haven’t heard anything.”
“Sixteenth of March.”
“Well, that’s quite a few weeks ago…” He shrugged. “I’m not sure you’ll get anywhere. You should have asked around straight away.”
I kept my eyes fixed on him, and after a moment of silence, added: “The year was 2004.”
His whole body went rigid and fear crept into his eyes. His hand, still resting on the door handle, balled up into a fist. Was he thinking of slamming the door to my face?
There was no doubt that he’d figured out who I was talking about.
“I… I…” he stammered.
“The lady you hit was my Grandma,” I said sharply. I coughed again, not even bothering to cover my mouth. “The only person who ever loved me, who looked after me and made me feel safe. And you took her away from me.”
He swallowed and his forehead covered with sweat. “Please…”
“You left her lying there like an old rag. You could have driven her to a hospital, they might have saved her life. But you drove away.”
He was completely still, except for his ragged breathing. He just stared.
“You cared more about saving yourself from any consequences than saving someone’s life!”
He shook his head so wildly it made his balding hair flap around.
“Were you drinking that evening, before you sat behind the wheel?”
He swallowed again and looked at me, pleading. He looked down to see my boot, stuck firmly in the door frame. He was very aware of the fact that he couldn’t close the door anymore. He couldn’t put up even this last possible barrier between us.
“Were you drinking?” I screamed at him. The rage I’d suppressed for nearly twenty years rose to the surface. A few drops of my saliva flew from my mouth and landed on his face.
“Nobody will believe you,” he said dubiously. “Not after all this time.”
I laughed ironically. “I don’t care if anyone believes me. Who would I tell, anyway? I’m not going to the police, no punishment is adequate to what you’ve done. What you took from me.”
He took a deep breath, and when he spoke, his voice shook: “So what are you doing here?”
“I want you to look me in the eye and tell me you’re sorry. That you wish you’d acted differently.”
Just then a car drove into his wide driveway, and parked next to mine.
“Please,” he wheezed again. “My daughter can’t know about this. She’d be devastated!”
She’d be devastated if someone took away her illusions about her perfect father, while someone took away my loved one?
I didn’t move an inch and waited. I took care to lean against the door to make my position absolutely clear.
“I’m sorry,” he blurted out and out of the corner of his eye watched the young girl behind a wheel turn off the engine and look at us quizzically. “I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I was drunk, I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t even remember anything until
