Page 32 of Goodbye Days

“Okay.”

“And in the meantime, Carver lives under this cloud,” my dad says.

“Pretty much,” Mr. Krantz says. “It’s a shit show, no doubt.”

“Is there any good news?” my mom asks.

Mr. Krantz reclines and clasps his hands behind his head, sucking at a tooth. “Carver wasn’t in that car.”

We wrap up our meeting and leave. Dad walks on my right side, Mom on my left. I’m hanging my head. “I’m sorry, Mom and Dad.”

My dad puts his arm around me. “You have nothing to apologize for. You did not intentionally hurt anyone.”

“Accidents happen,” my mom says. “Even terrible ones.”

“This must be costing a ton,” I say.

“Don’t worry about that,” my dad says.

“How much will this cost?”

“It doesn’t matter,” my mom says.

“It matters to me.”

“You have enough to worry about,” my dad says, removing his arm from my shoulder and rubbing the back of my head.

I was just curious, but now I need to know. “I got us into this mess. I think I’m entitled to know.”

My dad dodges my eyes. “Look. Keep your mind on school, get good grades, stay on top of scholarship applications. That’s how you can help.”

I stop walking. My parents make it a few steps farther before turning back to me. “How much?” I ask quietly. With my face, I try to tell them I’m not taking another step until I get an answer.

My dad looks at my mom. She gives him an ambivalent “if you must” nod. He wipes his hand down his face. “When all is said and done, hundred, hundred fifty is what they told me.”

Something bright and hot detonates in my mind. “Thousand?!”

“That’s if it goes to trial and we lose and need to appeal,” my mom says.

I close my eyes, dizzied. “But still.”

“We’ll borrow against the house if we need to,” my dad says.

“We could lose our house?!”

“Let’s cross one bridge at a time here,” my dad says.

“Don’t think that way,” my mom says. “We need to think positively.”

How’s this: I am positively fucked.

I flop on my bed and text Jesmyn. Well, that sucked gray, smelly rhino ass.

After a few minutes, she texts me a frowny face followed by Big hugs. Want to talk about it?

Basically, they could charge me with negligent murder.

Seriously????? Shit.