chapter twenty-five

JOSIE

For several days following my conversation with Nolan, I try to delude myself, a skill I’ve honed over the years. I keep telling myself that my actions were just one piece of a giant, tragic puzzle, and that a hundred little things had to happen for Daniel to die. A thousand. If you back up far enough, tens of thousands.

Take, for example, Scott Donahue, the driver of the Denali that hit Daniel. I have never laid eyes on the man, but somehow I know his part of the story. I know that on the night of the accident, he was headed to Walgreens to buy cough medicine for his three-year-old son. So right there alone, I can see that Mr. Donahue and his wife had to meet, marry, and conceive that particular child, who would then get sick that very week in December (perhaps picking up a virus at one of those bouncy venues that Meredith despises); that the Donahues had to be out of children’s cough medicine (maybe they both forgot to pick it up earlier that day); and that Mr. Donahue had to go out precisely when he did (perhaps he stalled a few minutes to watch news coverage of the shoe bomber, the big story that broke that day). And on and on and on.

Yet no matter how I slice it, or what other factors may have been at play on that fateful night (and in the weeks, months, and years leading up to it), the inescapable, bottom-line, stone-cold truth remains: Daniel would be alive today had I not gotten drunk—no, wasted—on the night of December 22, 2001.

Obviously, there is nothing I can do about the past except live with it, but my agonizing dilemma becomes what to do moving forward. Do I make a joint decision with Nolan to tell Meredith what really happened that night? Do I confess to Meredith on my own, regardless of what he decides? Do I tell my family the truth simply because they deserve to know every detail of Daniel’s final hours—or will telling them only burden them with more heartache? I think about the repercussions of a confession and worry that my father might blame himself for my excessive drinking. I can certainly see my mother feeling that way. I can also see her lamenting that she hadn’t been stricter during my teenaged years. Most of all, I know beyond a doubt that a confession will only further poison my relationship with Meredith, perhaps end it altogether, and that it might also be the death knell for her marriage. I know my sister, and I just can’t imagine her forgiving either one of us for keeping such an enormous secret.

After several torturous days and restless nights, I decide to talk to the one person I can always trust. So I knock on Gabe’s door late one evening, finally catching him alone, without Leslie.

“Yeah?” he calls out, sounding exhausted.

I open the door a crack and peer into his darkened room. “Sorry. Were you asleep?”

“Nah,” he says, rolling from his back onto his side to look at me. “I just got in bed….You okay?”

“Yeah…yeah….I just wanted to talk….”

“Well, come on in,” he says.

I hesitate one beat, then take a deep breath, climb onto his bed, and talk as quickly as I can, before I can change my mind, spilling my whole disjointed, raw confession.

“Well, you always thought this might be the case….” he says after I’m finished, his tone sympathetic yet matter-of-fact.

“Yeah,” I say, nodding as I hug my knees. “But I also always hoped I was wrong.”

“I know,” he murmurs.

“It sucks,” I say.

“Yeah…but aren’t you just a little relieved to know?” he asks. “Now you don’t have to wonder anymore?”

I nod, impressed with his usual insightfulness. “Yeah. I guess. Maybe a little…I probably should have talked to Nolan a long time ago.”

“He should have talked to you, too,” Gabe says, loyally shifting the blame. “And I really can’t believe he never told Meredith….Wow.”

“Well, I kept a secret from her, too.”

“Yeah, but you aren’t married to her.”

I nod.

“Besides,” Gabe continues. “Nolan knew the truth. You only suspected it….”

“I guess,” I say, having considered all of these angles as I searched for ways to absolve myself, or at least mitigate my culpability. “But we’re still both to blame for what happened.”

Gabe props himself up, cradling his head in his left hand. “Nobody is to blame, Josie. It’s not like someone was drunk driving here….It was an accident…an accident nobody could have foreseen.”

“Still,” I say.

“Still what?” he says, his brow furrowed.

“I still played a role in it…and I still have to tell my family. They deserve to know the truth….” I stare into Gabe’s eyes, hoping he’ll talk me out of it, tell me there’s no point—or at least no upside. “Don’t you agree?” I ask, holding my breath.

He hesitates, then slowly nods. “Yeah…I think you’re probably right….But I think you need to tell them for your sake more than theirs…so that you can move on—”

“But I have moved on,” I say, cutting him off, thinking that is a large part of my guilt—the fact that I moved on with my life so effortlessly, never visiting my brother’s grave until last week, barely even mentioning him to friends or family.

Gabe shakes his head. “No. You haven’t, Josie. You haven’t moved on at all. You carry this with you everywhere.”

I stare at him, knowing that he’s right, and wondering how he can tell.

“And look what it’s done to you,” he finishes softly.

“What’s it done to me?” I ask, lowering my eyes, afraid of his reply, his always brutal honesty.

“Well, for one,” he says, “you didn’t tell your boyfriend why I was in your bed that night.”

“So?” I say, bristling at the mention of Will.

“So? You would rather have had him think you cheated on him than know the truth about the night your brother died. What does that tell you?”

“Are you saying I should have told Will? That I could be married to him if I’d told him the truth about why you were in my bed? About everything?” It is a thought that has occurred to me countless times over the years, and even more in the last few days.

“No,” Gabe replies, adamant. “That’s not what I’m saying at all….I think if Will had been right for you, he would have believed you when you told him nothing happened with us….”

“Yes. But it did look pretty bad,” I say, wondering why I’m still defending Will after all these years.

Gabe shakes his head, his voice becoming louder, passionate. “So what? So it looked bad? Nothing happened.”

“Well, jeez, Gabe. I know that….I tried to tell him that many, many times,” I say, getting sickening flashbacks to our final few escalating fights and the lonely, empty aftermath, when it slowly began to dawn on me that he wasn’t coming back. Ever.

“You could have done a much better job of convincing him, and you know it. If he had been your soul mate,” Gabe says, using a term I’ve never heard him use before, “you would have confided in him…or he would have taken your word and trusted you. You would have trusted him enough to tell him everything….Instead, you let him think the worst about you….So he did.”

“Killing my brother is worse than cheating on Will.”

Gabe cringes, dropping his head back to his pillow. “You didn’t kill your brother, Jo. Don’t ever say that again.”

“Well, it feels like I did….Do you know how many times Daniel gave me lectures about drinking? About how I needed to be more careful because of our dad? Jesus, Gabe, just a couple days before, he talked to me about it…and I brushed him off.”

“You were a college kid, Josie. Lots of college kids drink too much.”

“He never did,” I say. “Meredith doesn’t, either.”

“Well, you’re not them,” he says. “And you’re not your father. You’re you. Did you have too much to drink that night? Absolutely. Did you drink too much the other night when you made out with Pete at Johnny’s?” He smiles, clearly trying to cheer me up.

“We didn’t make out,” I say, quibbling with his verb, but he raises his hand and continues.

“The point is, I don’t think you’ve ever had a drinking problem. Maybe an attitude and behavior problem,” he says, smiling again. “But not a drinking problem.”

“Well, my behavior, along with my drinking, resulted in my brother’s death,” I insist. “Whether directly or indirectly, it did. And…”

“And what?”

“And I deserved to lose Will because of it,” I finish decisively, truly believing this.

“As your punishment?” Gabe asks.

“Yes,” I say. “As my punishment.”

Gabe shakes his head. “I disagree. I strongly disagree….You and Will broke up because he wasn’t right for you, Josie….That was clear….Hell, that was clear to me long before you broke up….You were never yourself around him….You were…a fake Josie…and you haven’t loved anyone since Will because you won’t let yourself.”

“That’s not true,” I say, thinking of all the guys I’ve gone out with, and slept with, and tried to love, and tried to make love me.

“It is true. And you need to stop punishing yourself.” Gabe stares up at me with a mixture of pity and love, before reaching out to gently touch my arm. The gesture, along with the feel of his skin on mine, instantly floods my eyes with tears.

“Aww, Jo. Don’t cry,” he says. “C’mere.”

“Where?” I say, desperately needing a hug, even from one of the world’s most awkward huggers.

“Right here,” he says, patting his chest twice before pulling me down beside him, wrapping both arms around me.

“I’m so sad,” I say, as it occurs to me that we are lying together exactly the way Will found us all those years ago—and that nothing has really changed since that night.

“I know,” Gabe says, his breath warm in my hair. “But you need to forgive yourself. It’s time, Jo.”

“But what if my family doesn’t forgive me?”

“They will.”

“But what if they don’t?” I say, thinking specifically of my sister.

“Well, then…I’ll be your family.”

“You mean my baby daddy?” I ask, smiling, only partly kidding.

“Yeah, that, too,” he says with a little laugh.

“Are you really serious about that?” I ask. “Would you really do that for me?”

“Of course I would, Josie….I’d do anything for you,” he says.

I try to thank him, and tell him that I feel the same, but can’t get out the words, too overwhelmed with gratitude. Besides, I know he doesn’t expect a reply, that he’s simply stating a fact I already know. Instead, I close my eyes and let myself drift off in his arms, doing my best to memorize the moment I will one day tell my son or daughter about….That was the moment I made my decision. The moment I picked your father. The moment I knew.