Maya rubbed her face with both hands.
“I keep wondering what Lena would do if our places were switched.”
“She would probably want you safe,” I told her.
Maya nodded, but she did not look convinced.
That evening I drove to the hospital, not to ask Lena for another statement, but to visit the young woman whose life had changed on that dark road.
Lena Ortiz had moved from intensive care into a rehabilitation ward overlooking the hospital parking garage.
Her left arm rested in a sling, and the brace around her lower leg rose nearly to her knee.
Her mother Sofia sat beside her bed with a notebook full of medication times and therapy appointments.
I had met Sofia only twice before the collision.
Now our lives seemed connected by a single sound we would remember for years.
Lena smiled when she saw me.
“Maya okay?” she asked.
“She’s worried about you.”
“Tell her I’m learning to walk like a baby giraffe.”
Her humor made Sofia laugh, although she wiped her eyes a moment later.
I gave Lena a small packet of letters from students at the library program.
She read the first two and placed the others on the tray table.
“I hate that everybody looks guilty when they come in here,” she said.
Sofia adjusted the blanket near her daughter’s feet.
“They feel bad because they care about you.”
Lena shook her head.
“Maya didn’t hit me.”
The words landed harder than I expected.
I told her Maya had been blaming herself for not reacting fast enough.
“Then tell her to stop,” Lena said.
“If anyone should have seen the truck, it was me.”
I pulled up a chair and stayed for half an hour.
We talked about school, physical therapy, the price of hospital parking, and the small pleasures Lena missed most.
She wanted coffee from the bakery near campus.
She wanted to ride a bicycle again, although her therapist had told her not to rush.
She wanted strangers to stop calling her brave when she was merely tired.
Before I left, Sofia walked with me toward the elevator.
She asked whether the police had found anything.
I told her I had supplied a recording and that detectives were reviewing it.
She touched my wrist.
“I don’t want another family hurt over this,” she said.
“But I need someone to tell the truth.”
I promised only that I would keep cooperating.
