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.
I remember how startling the realization was—once I knew Harry might live, I knew what had to be done.
It wasn’t his car.
No one knew he was here.
I had to get him to the hospital, and I had to make sure no one found out he’d been driving. I couldn’t let him go to jail. What if they tried him for vehicular manslaughter?
I couldn’t let my daughter find out her father had been driving drunk and killed someone. Had killed his lover. Had killed the man who he said was showing him he could love again.
I enlisted Nick to help me get Harry into our car. I made him help me put the other man back into the totaled sedan, this time in the driver’s seat.
And then I quickly grabbed a scarf from my bag and wiped the steering wheel clean, wiped the blood, wiped the seat belt. I erased all traces of Harry.
And then we took Harry to the hospital.
There, bloodstained and crying, I called the police from a pay phone and reported the accident.
When I hung up the phone, I turned and saw Nick, sitting in the waiting room, blood on his chest, his arms, even some on his neck.
I walked over to him. He stood up.
“You should go home,” I said.
He nodded, still in shock.
“Can you get yourself home? Do you want me to call you a ride?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“I’ll call you a cab, then.” I grabbed my purse. I pulled out two twenties from my wallet. “This should be enough to get you there.”
“OK,” he said.
“You’re going to go home, and you’re going to forget everything that happened. Everything you saw.”
“What did we do?” he said. “How did we . . . How could we . . .”
“You’re going to call me,” I said. “I’ll get a room at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Call me there tomorrow. First thing in the morning. You’re not going to talk to anyone else between now and then. Do you hear me?”
“Yes.”
“Not your mother or your friends or even the cabdriver. Do you have a girlfriend?”
He shook his head.
“A roommate?”
He nodded.
“You tell them that you found a man on the street and you brought him to the hospital, OK? That’s all you tell them, and you only tell them if they ask.”
“OK.”
He nodded. I called him a cab and waited with him until it arrived. I put him in the backseat.
“What are you going to do first thing tomorrow?” I asked him through the rolled-down window.
“I’m going to call you.”
“Good,” I said. “If you can’t sleep, think. Think about what you need. What you need from me as a thank-you for what you did.”
He nodded, and the cab zoomed off.
People were staring at me. Evelyn Hugo in a pantsuit covered in blood. I was afraid paparazzi would be there any minute.
I went inside. I talked my way into borrowing some scrubs and being given a private room to wait in. I threw my clothes away.
When a man from the hospital staff asked me for a statement about what happened to Harry, I said, “How much will it take for you to leave me alone?” I was relieved when the dollar figure he came up with was less than what I had in my purse.
Just after midnight, a doctor came into the room and told me that Harry’s femoral artery had been severed. He had lost too much blood.
For a brief moment, I wondered if I should go get my old clothes, if I could give some of his blood back to him, if it worked like that.
But I was distracted by the next words out of the doctor’s mouth.
“He will not make it.”
I started gasping for air as I realized that Harry, my Harry, was going to die.