“Are you okay?” Woody asked, looking at me like a caring father.
“I guess,” I said, looking down at my hands in my lap. I didn’t want him to see the tears standing in my eyes.
“Don’t you worry about a thing,” he soothed. “Your dad has got everything under control.”
“But those people...” I started, sniffing back the tears.
“Shhh,” Woody hushed. “Like your dad said, they should’ve never been in the road. It was just an accident. It could have happened to any one and anywhere.”
“They’re dead because of me,” I said, lifting my head to look at him. “It doesn’t matter what my father says or does – what any of you do – I know it was all my fault.”
“Now, you need to stop thinking and talking like that,” Woody said. “We all have to be singing from the same hymn sheet, or...”
“Or what?” I cut over him.
“Or we’re all in the shit,” he whispered as if someone might overhear us somehow. “Do you want your dad to get into trouble? He’s risking his career for you.”
“I never asked him to, Woody,” I said, reaching for the door handle. I didn’t know how much more guilt I could take.
Before I’d the chance to open the door fully, Woody had taken hold of my arm and pulled me back into my seat. “Listen, Sydney, why do you think your father did what he did today?”
I looked at him and said nothing.
“Because you’re his little girl and he loves you,” Woody said. “He just doesn’t want to see you get into trouble for the sake of a few...”
“People,” I cut in. “They were people who died today.”
“Okay,” he sighed. “But they’re not like us.”
“So that makes it okay then?” I snapped. “We just pretend it didn’t happen?”
“No one’s pretending it didn’t happen,” he said back, his voice starting to harden with me. “But they’re dead – nothing is going to bring them back. Their lives are over – you can’t change that – none of us can. What we can change is what happens from here, from this moment on. What happened was an accident. That’s all it was. You’re gonna feel guilty for years to come – isn’t that sentence enough?”
“But I don’t like lying,” I said, looking away again towards the cliffs and the sea.
“So what do you like, Sydney?” Woody asked. “Do you want to see your dad unhappy? Do you want him to feel the shame that any decent father would feel if their daughter were sent to prison? Your father is a proud man. What do you think you going to prison will do to him? Huh? It will kill him – that’s what it will do. Isn’t it bad enough that his wife has run off with someone half his age? Don’t you think that hurts him? I don’t know about you, but I see the humiliation in his eyes every time I look at him.”
“I see it, too,” I whispered.
“So how do you think he’s gonna feel if he loses you, too?” Woody said, his voice softening now, trying to reason with me. “Who do you care more about? Those drifters or your father? They can’t suffer anymore – but your father can. Telling the truth about what happened today isn’t going to change anything except break your father’s heart. Is that what you want?”
“No,” I breathed, knowing that I had broken my father’s heart enough – but nothing like this.
There was a pause, a short silence before Woody spoke again. “If I were you, I’d go inside, run myself a nice hot bath, relax, and then get some sleep. You’re upset – shook up – that’s understandable. Things will seem different tomorrow.”
I looked at him, a kind smile on his face. “I promise this time tomorrow, things won’t seem so bad. Just leave it to me and your dad to sort this thing out.”
Without saying anything more, I opened the car door and stepped out. It had gotten colder and I folded my arms across the front of my blood-stained shirt. I made my way towards my apartment. At the door I looked back, but Woody had gone, racing back towards the road and the accident. I took my front door key from the chain on my belt, opened the door, and stepped inside. With the door closed behind me, I sunk to the floor, pulling my knees up beneath my chin. There I sat until the last of the daylight, which cut through the windows, throwing my apartment into darkness. I knew in my heart I wasn’t doing the right thing – the honest thing by those people who had died on the road. That little boy deserved more. He deserved justice. But what about my father? If I owned up to what had truly happened, then I ran the risk of ruining him and his career, too. How would I ever live with that?