The Unraveling

by Vi Keeland

We just went through hell together, several rooms apart. You in one room. His wife and child in another.

How am I supposed to talk to him about the crushing guilt I feel or how much I miss my husband while simultaneously wishing I’d never met him?

“His name is Gabriel Wright. He’s the husband of the woman that was killed, the father of the child killed.”

You knew the Wright family before the accident?” “No. We’d never met.” “Then how do you know how Mr. Wright proposed?”

“If you’ve never met, how did you know who Mr. Wright was when you ran into him yesterday?” “I’ve seen him before. The night of the accident, I was in the hall at the hospital when the doctor told him his wife and child had died. He crumpled to the floor, sobbing. The memory of his face isn’t something I could ever forget. Though last night when I followed him home, I also checked the names on the mailboxes inside the lobby of his building just to be sure. It was him.”

I think you’re playing with fire by becoming emotionally invested in the happiness of the survivor of your husband’s victims.” “Gabriel Wright is not only one of my husband’s victims.” Dr. Alexander’s brows puckered. “Who is he, then?” “He’s the husband of my victims, too.”

Too much thinking, too much stressing, causes potentially toxic by-products to build up in the prefrontal cortex.

Regret is like an anchor that wraps around the heart and weighs it down, keeping it from sailing free.

“Rebecca Jordan was the witness who saw your husband’s car hit the Wrights.”

But as it turns out, she won’t be able to make it, so I’ll be going alone.”