I stared at that message for probably ten straight minutes trying to remember what accident he meant.
The problem was I did remember an accident.
Just not one in February.
I remembered black ice on Route 9 coming home from work during one of those freezing rain storms. My truck sliding halfway into the median. Airbag smoke everywhere. A state trooper asking me basic questions while I sat there embarrassed because I couldn’t stop shaking.
But in my head that happened maybe six or seven weeks ago.
Apparently it happened almost a year ago.
I checked the date on the police report in the cloud backup because I genuinely thought maybe somebody uploaded the wrong file.
Last January.
Not this year.
I ended up sitting in my parked truck outside work at 5:30 in the morning going through hundreds of photos trying to prove to myself everybody was exaggerating something.
But the seasons kept changing in the background.
My son taller. Different dog collar. Holidays I barely remembered happening.
There were even photos of me at physical therapy.
I have absolutely no memory of physical therapy.
The weirdest part was how normal everybody acted in the messages. Nobody sounded evil or secretive. Mostly tired.
My wife reminding my brother which bills had already been paid.
My brother asking if I’d eaten lunch after “the confusion episode at Walgreens again.”
One text from my wife said:
“Don’t argue with him about dates. It upsets him for days afterward.”
Around lunch I finally called my brother and asked him directly what was going on.
Long silence.
Then he asked where I was before answering anything.
I told him work.
He said okay good.
Not “good” like relieved exactly. More like he was buying time.
Then he said, “Gary, when you came home Friday… that was the first time you drove anywhere alone since the neurologist cleared you in November.”
I laughed automatically because it sounded ridiculous.
Then I realized my wife had been the one driving every single place lately.