got over her crying, then I might be all right.
She didn’t get over it, and I was in deep trouble, although not immediately.
I took a roundabout, easy way home to give her plenty of time. It didn’t work. As soon as I stopped at the gate, she climbed out, opened it, and ran off as best she could, towards the house.
It took some time to park the jeep and then remove all evidence of the accident. I was still hoping to make out that she’d got upset over nothing. It was half an hour later when I arrived at the house and entered through the front door so that I could slip into my room unnoticed. After closing the door, I lay on my bed, and straight away I heard the sound of weeping from Stephanie’s room. Her mother must have been in there with her, for every now and again there were soothing sounds.
I still felt funny from the bang on the head, and it wasn’t long before I’d drifted into sleep.
A couple of hours later, I was woken by a soft knocking on my door.
‘Jake? Are you OK?’ It was Vicky.
‘Yeah,’ I replied, ‘I’m all right.’
‘May I come in?’
She sounded sympathetic—maybe I was going to get away with it. ‘Yes, come in.’
As the door opened, I slid my body up until I was sitting.
She closed the door and looked at me, concern beginning to show on her face. ‘You’ve hurt yourself.’
I put my hand up to my forehead and found I had a lump as big as a lemon. ‘It’s nothing,’ I said.
‘Let me be the judge of that.’ She sat on the edge of the bed in order to examine the bump. Then she laid her hand on my neck as if taking my temperature. Next she studied my eyes, and finally she took my pulse. It was strange having a woman touching my body. I couldn’t remember it ever happening before.
‘You’ll live,’ she said with a half-smile. ‘You might have a touch of concussion, but you should be OK in a couple of days.’
I nodded. ‘How’s Stephanie?’
It was a moment before Vicky answered. ‘She’s not hurt. Just extremely disturbed.’ Another pause. ‘I don’t know what happened this afternoon, but I gather screaming around dangerously in a motor vehicle was part of it.’
I kept absolutely still, not wanting to show any sign of agreeing with her.
After a time, she continued. ‘There’s something you need to know about our family, Jake. Something that might help you to understand Steph.’
I relaxed a little. Maybe there wasn’t going to be any telling-off.
‘Just on eighteen months ago, Steph and her father, Mike, drove to Feilding for a swimming competition. Back then,Steph was a very good swimmer. She was one of the top swimmers in her age group for the whole of New Zealand.’
Vicky stared at the wall for a while, before sighing and continuing. ‘It was dark by the time they headed back home. The road between Feilding and Palmerston North is mostly straight and cars travel very fast along it. Mike was travelling over the speed limit, but not a lot. He probably would have travelled more slowly if he’d known there was a teenager driving towards him at close to a hundred and twenty kilometres per hour. The boy was only fourteen, and he’d stolen his father’s car, picked up some mates, and taken off on a crazy joyride.’
She stopped, and for some time the only sound in the room was her breathing deeply as she tried to control her emotions. I was beginning to struggle with mine as well.
‘Mike was killed instantly,’ she continued in a broken voice. ‘The only one killed. The boys in the other car were hardly hurt at all. Our car flipped and landed on a fence post, crushing Steph’s legs and pelvis. She almost died.’
Again, silence: the magnitude of what I’d done was beginning to sink in.
‘It was very tough for the first couple of months, especially when Steph realized that she’d never swim again. She had a total of six operations. She wanted to give up—she just wanted to die. That really shocked me. After talking to her doctor, I