She nodded. "You're right." He added, "And please don't ask me to say the accident wasn't connected to the fuel problem. I can't say it was connected yet, either. I can only tell the investigators what I wrote and what I saw."
Vanessa's eyes filled, not with easy tears but with exhaustion and a newly unwelcome awareness of how much she had failed to notice. "I won't ask you to lie," she said.
Eli shifted, trying to get comfortable. "Then we have somewhere to start." Vanessa left the bag at the nurses' desk for anyone who needed it and returned to her son. For the first time in years, she did not call Ron for instructions on what to do next.
The morning after the accident, Eli woke to sunlight filtered through a hospital blind and the sound of a nurse adjusting a monitor. His arm was sore, his throat felt scraped raw, and the first thing he did was look for his phone. There were eleven missed calls: three from Mara Bell, two from Helen, one from a number he did not recognize, and five from former coworkers at Ward Industrial Vehicles. The last call was from Ron Keller.
Eli did not return it. He called Helen first and asked whether Sophie had slept. Helen said she had, though she had insisted on leaving the hallway light on and had carried his photograph from the kitchen into the guest room. "She'll want to see you," Helen said. "And you don't need to perform being fine for her. Children know when you're exhausted."
"I know," Eli replied, though he wasn't certain he did. He had spent two years trying to keep the hard parts of adulthood from landing too heavily on his daughter. He was beginning to understand that hiding every difficulty could make a child feel less secure, not more. Sophie needed reassurance that adults could be frightened and still act responsibly, hurt and still recover, mistaken and still tell the truth.
At ten fifteen, Mara arrived carrying a clean shirt, Eli's old work jacket, and a plastic container of oatmeal. She took one look at his bandages and said, "I told you to avoid the interstate. That wasn't permission to find a burning truck on the frontage road." Eli smiled despite his sore face.
She set the food down and looked more closely at him. "Are you all right? I mean really."
"I'm sore," he admitted. "And I have no idea how we're going to pay for all this." Mara sat in the visitor's chair.
"The medical bills can be handled one at a time. The shop can manage without you this week. What I need to know is whether you want me telling people about the connection to the factory." Eli glanced at the door.
"Tell them I worked there and that I submitted a warning. Don't tell them we know what caused the crash. We don't."
Mara nodded. "Good. Because there's already a rumor at the parts counter that you set something up to embarrass Ward." Eli stared at her.