Page 86 of Goodbye Days

I chew on the inside of my lip. “I talked with the cops the other day about the accident. Well. I sat in a room with cops while they asked questions that my attorney said I wouldn’t answer.”

“I’m not used to praising my clients for refusing to talk, but good job.”

“Why good job?”

“Do you remember what we discussed last visit? How we seek causality where there may be none?”

“You don’t think I should accept blame for this right now.”

“What I think doesn’t matter. What matters is what you think. I’m trying to help you do your best thinking. Before you take a step that could have drastic consequences, I want to make sure you’ve considered other perspectives.”

“I’m scared.”

“Of what?”

“Going to jail.”

“I can imagine.” His brow furrows.

I slump in my chair. “Would it sound weird if I told you that I’m also scared of not going to jail?”

“Do you know why you’re afraid of that?”

“Not completely.”

“Is it partly because you feel it would rob you of an opportunity to atone if you weren’t imprisoned?”

“Maybe.”

Dr. Mendez says nothing, but his expression tells me that I should keep running down this path.

“Speaking of atoning,” I say, “I’m doing another goodbye day. With Eli’s parents.”

“You said the experience with Blake’s grandmother was valuable.”

“It was.”

“Having lived with that experience for a little while now, do you have any new reflections on it?”

I stare at the bookshelf behind Dr. Mendez, as if a book’s spine holds the answer to his question. “It…made me wish even more that I’d appreciated the time I had with them more while I had it.”

“That’s a very normal regret to have. You don’t want to live like you’re constantly in the shadow of death, but unless you do that, there’ll almost always be things that went unsaid or unappreciated fully. If you found the goodbye-day experience to be more therapeutic than not, I say go for it with Eli’s parents.”

“Yeah.”

He gives me the look that precedes when he’s about to reach inside my head. “But you have qualms.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because Eli’s family is way different from Blake’s grandma.”

“How so?”

“Like…philosophically, I guess. Their world is a lot more complicated. They’re both way educated. With Blake’s grandma, there’s God and heaven and hell and that’s it. Eli’s parents—I doubt they believe they’ll ever see Eli again the way Blake’s grandma has faith she’s going to see Blake again. They’re definitely not churchgoers. Also, Eli has a twin. Adair. She blames me.”

“Mmmm.”