“Uh-huh,” I said, looking out the window. I decided, as we drove up the dark, winding streets of Harry’s neighborhood, that if Nick asked me again, after we got to the airport, I was going to tell him that it’s mostly luck.
And that you have to be willing to deny your heritage, to commodify your body, to lie to good people, to sacrifice who you love in the name of what people will think, and to choose the false version of yourself time and time again, until you forget who you started out as or why you started doing it to begin with.
But just as we pulled around the corner onto Harry’s narrow private road, every thought I’d ever had before that moment was erased from my mind.
Instead, I was leaning forward, shocked still.
In front of us was a car. Bent around a fallen tree.
The sedan looked as if it had run head-on into the trunk, knocking the tree down on top of it.
“Uh, Ms. Hugo . . .” Nick said.
“I see it,” I told him, not wanting him to confirm that it was really in front of us, that it wasn’t merely an optical illusion.
He pulled over to the side of the road. I heard the scrape of branches on the driver’s side of the car as we parked. I froze with my hand on the door handle. Nick jumped out and ran over.
I opened my door and put my feet on the ground. Nick stood to the side, trying to see if he could get one of the doors of the crashed car open. But I walked right to the front, by the tree. I looked in through the windshield.
And I saw what I had both feared and yet not truly believed possible.
Harry was slumped over the steering wheel.
I looked over and saw a younger man in the passenger’s seat.
Everyone sort of assumes that when faced with life-and-death situations, you w
ill panic. But almost everyone who’s actually experienced something like that will tell you that panic is a luxury you cannot afford.
In the moment, you act without thinking, doing all you can with the information you have.
It’s when it’s over that you scream. And cry. And wonder how you got through it. Because most likely, in the case of real trauma, your brain isn’t great at making memories. It’s almost as if the camera is on but no one’s recording. So afterward, you go to review the tape, and it’s all but blank.
Here is what I remember.
I remember Nick breaking open Harry’s car door.
I remember helping to pull Harry out.
I remember thinking that we shouldn’t move Harry because we could paralyze him.
But I also remember thinking that I couldn’t possibly stand by and allow Harry to stay there, slumped on the wheel like that.
I remember holding Harry in my arms as he bled.
I remember the deep gash in his eyebrow, the way the blood coated half his face in thick rust red.
I remember seeing the cut from where the seat belt had sliced the lower side of his neck.
I remember two of his teeth being in his lap.
I remember rocking him back and forth.
I remember saying, “Stay with me, Harry. Stay with me. Stay true blue.”
I remember the other man on the road next to me. I remember Nick telling me he was dead. I remember thinking that no one who looked like that could be alive.
I remember Harry’s right eye opening. I remember the way it inflated me with hope, the way the white of his eye looked so bright against the deep red of the blood. I remember how his breath and even his skin smelled like bourbon.