The Sweet Hereafter

rs and the old pai

the only truly valuable thing that I owned now happened to be Daddy’s worst secret, and I meant to hold on to it.

I did not remember the accident, maybe, but I definitely knew what had happened. I could read the newspapers, and of course I had asked people, and eventually people had told me, although they had not wanted to. Everyone had come to the hospital to visit

They would have thought me cowardly if I had stayed home instead.

“Yes,” he said, and for the first time since before the accident, he looked me straight in the face. “We know the truth, Nichole. You and I.”

“But everyone will blame her now, won’t they?”

“Most will, yes. Those that don’t know the truth will blame Dolores. People have got to have somebody to blame, Nichole.”

Right now, Sam, the thing you got to worry about is why she lied. A kid who’d do that to her own father is not normal, Sam.

But Daddy knew why I had lied. He knew who was normal and who wasn’t.

Yes, I understand. Dolores was driving too fast, and it scared me.”

“Mrs. Driscoll was driving too fast? What made you think that, Nichole?”

“The speedometer. And it was downhill there.”

“You could see the speedometer?”

“Yes. I looked, because it was snowing so hard.

Billy said in a suddenly dead voice, “the town has gone completely crazy. I used to like this town, I used to really care about what happened here, but now … now I think I’ll sell my house and the garage and move the fuck away.”

Because the truth was that it was an accident, that’s all, and no one was to blame. “I won’t lie,” I told him.