This...this was a surprise—it felt like an eternity since there was motion that dragged her around, but it seemed like it was over.
But that smell...the smell still lingered around her. It was if she was dipped in disinfecting chemicals and left out to dry, leaving her forced to inhale that musty odor as it clung to her skin.
And was that...beeping?
It was almost hard to tell for certain, but it wasn't impossible to recall such a sound before. It had come in small bursts, flashes of awareness that broke through the veil of murky unconsciousness. Through those flashes came other sounds; squeaky wheels spinning, overlapping frantic voices jumbled together, sirens wailing…
Ugh.
Even though an indescribable amount of time had passed between now and that last flash, the heaviness swimming in her head was nearly as crushing as ever. It didn't...hurt, per se, but it was almost as if a building had fallen on her head and kept it pinned down beneath the rubble.
Her left side suffered the same heavy fate, namely around where her arm should be. Unlike her head, though, there was pain. She could remember there being pain before, but instead of tearing through her like she were wet tissue paper and igniting her nerves with blazing fire, now there was merely a dull ache that throbbed in unison with her beating heart.
Still, there was a warmth over her right hand. She couldn't describe it as anything other than a little pleasant, even familiar.
The most she could venture to do, despite the effort remaining a taxing strain, was slowly lifting up her eyelids. The peeks of light that sliced through her half-open slits stung, but she fought against it. Despite a few seconds passing, her world was still a smeary blur.
Along with her eyes, her ears began to come alive and take everything in. Yes...yes, there was that odd beeping again; it rung from the leftward corner, away from her line of sight. Next came the smattering of conversation, only it was muffled and distant instead of looming over her head like it had been before.
When her eyes finally adjusted to the light, the pieces began falling into place. It was much easier to take everything in, considering that her bed as affixed in the Fowler's position; pink curtains that enveloped her bed area and a ceiling with stripped lighting fixtures surrounded. A look to her left revealed why her arm felt heavy. It was molded in a thick white cast that was kept in place with a blue slung, leaving her forefinger free to be clamped in what looked like a...pulse oximeter.
There was also something sticking in the pit of her right arm, the fixture stamped down by a sticky, tacky substance. Her guess, given where she thought she was, was that it was an IV drip.
By now, the beeping was no longer a mystery, though she wondered if the noisy heart monitor was responsible for stirring her awake. Or maybe it was the slightly itchy, light blue garbs she was adorned in and woolly blue blanket that was draped over her.. Better still, it could've been the fact that the warm sensation on her right hand suddenly squeezed softly around her. It had startled her a bit, but when her eyes drifted to her right…
Her heart paced up a bit, the sudden spike registering immediately on the heart monitor. Sitting by her bedside was someone... whom she wasn't expecting. When their eyes met, hers stayed wide and surprised while his misted up immediately from tears. That hand left hers when he suddenly got up and, as quickly but gingerly as she could, reached out and hugged her.
Amid his loud sobbing, her soft voice spoke the loudest. "Dad?"
For reasons she couldn't quite understand, that only made him cry harder. When a cold, stray tear rolled down his neck and singed the crook of her neck, she shivered. And through that icy contact came a jolt to her brain that racked her head with dizzying, horrifying memories—surges of the recent past that led her to where she was now.
The violent crashing.
Her body flailing forward.
Her head smashing against the steering wheel.
The windshield's glass sprinkling out in an explosive burst and carving her exposed skin before she passed out.
The cold ground chilling her back.
Her breaths torturing her ribs.
Her bone jabbing through her skin.
Her panicked screams choked back by her blood.
At the last one, a painful lump grew in her throat as she held back her tears. By the looks of things, her father had suffered enough; Lori wouldn't make it worse on him by looking even more vulnerable.
Not after everything that she had done to him.
Holding it together proved more difficult than she thought—especially with how Dad's tender whispers of affection nearly splintered her heart down the center—but she managed to make it through by the time he had finished weeping. The pressure of crippling dread pressed even further into chest with the knowledge that now that it was all over, now that her father was done coddling her like the helpless child that she was (at least for now), he'd want answers.
He'd want to know why she ended up this way, and he wouldn't be satisfied with any spared details. That, of course, would only result in him taking back all of those tears of remorse once he realized that she failed him because she couldn't go ten seconds with being such a screw-up. Hell, forget just her father—she failed everyone. She couldn't even manage a trip to the grocery store without messing up, and it was all because she couldn't bother to put her family first and ignore her pain to make it happen.
A fresh pang of cutting revulsion jammed into her throat, nearly sucking in all the air in the room with her silent gasp. It was already apparent to her that she probably totaled the family van, but her selfishness had brought out another steep price that she was too stupid to consider until now—what about the other person? What if they had gotten as hurt as her or…or worse? She couldn't imagine that she'd be able to look in the mirror ever again, let alone live comfortably with the blood of an innocent person (with the possibilities of other unaccounted causalities) forever etched in her skin and in her memories. How on Earth could she ever—
'You, you, you—always about you. You've probably hurt a family outside of your own, possibly with several deaths, and all you can think about is how it'll affect you.'
The thought made her outwardly flinch and bare her teeth in self-disgust, something that Dad must've taken notice of.
"Lori?"
She hesitated to meet his eyes at first, but she relented when she realized that she really didn't have any other plausible choice in the matter. She felt her stomach squirm with anxious tension when he followed up his question by asking, "Uh...you feelin' alright?"
Her first instinct was to go back to her old bag of tricks with her fake smile and insistence that she was fine. But as much success as she had had with it before, she knew she couldn't fall back on such a tactic without immediately being called out on it. How could she get away with such a statement when she probably looked like the perfect portrait of pitiable helplessness?
Lori managed to shift her head left and right with a shake, though the soft torque made the muscles in her neck throb. "No."
Dad sighed. "Yeah. I guess I can imagine why."
Lori's heart sank. She seriously hoped that his understanding of her pain was merely surface level—she didn't need her good-for-nothing woes picked up on and fretted about.
Wanting to shift his focus to other matters—as well as piece together all the details of her incident that she wasn't privy to—she asked, "What happened to me?"
She immediately regretted her curiosity when it appeared that, judging by the way he looked to the side and lowered his head, her question had driven him to reflect on a past that he wasn't too keen on revisiting so soon. However, he finally managed to muster up his voice before she could convince him not to.
"Yesterday, you were in a car accident," Dad said, his voice lingering between his normal voice and a whisper. "Afterwards, you were whisked away to Royal Woods General for emergency surgery on your arm."
He breathed heavily into his nose before he continued.
"It was an open reduction and internal fixation on your ulna. They had to put you under general anesthesia while they screwed the bone back in place with steel rods. I wanted to come by yesterday, but the staff said that they needed to observe you right here, in the recovery room. Besides the arm, all you got were a few bruised ribs and a few minor scrapes. It's a miracle that nothing else happened to you."
Lori bit back the urge to disagree, at least with words—last time she checked, miracles were to be celebrated. There clearly wasn't anything about her blunder worth cheering.
"Dr. Taber, the man behind your operation, said that you'll be ready to leave in about a week. Until then, you'll have to stay here and get visits from me and the others."
His last statement tugged at her interest, though she approached the matter with a nervous hilt in her voice. "Where's everyone else?"
Lori couldn't imagine exactly how her siblings would react to her current state, but she was certain that they'd be less merciful than Dad. It was bad enough that she failed to be a good example for them. The thought of the disappointment and scorn on their faces, as they cast their disapproval on her for being such a failure, sent a sickening shiver up her spine that nearly made her retch.
Thankfully, Dad gave her an answer that quelled her fears—or at least, kept them at bay for the moment.
"The kids are at school, and your mother's at work," Dad said. "She wanted to call the day off to come visit, just like I did, but Feinstein needed her more than Sergei needed me. And speaking of your siblings, along with your mother, they'll drop by to see you tomorrow. Rita and I both decided that it'd be best if they let the incident settle with them for about a day before they gave you a visit."
Her state of comfort waned when she mentally approached the inevitable, something that she had been trying to keep out of her mind up until now—the fate of the other driver was an itch she knew she had to scratch eventually, even if it most likely spelled disaster.
"What happened to the..." Lori steadied her quick, shallow breathing as she swallowed. "...t-the other driver?"
The weariness on her father's face melted away in an instant as he gave her a reassuring smile.
"Oh, she's fine. You don't have to worry about anything. It's unfortunate that you wound up hurt, but I can assure you that she came out of the accident with hardly a scratch on her."
However, that beam of radiance—the certainty that she hadn't messed up on a scale grander than she could've ever imagined—dampened underneath the shift of Dad's emotions. His smile settled into a frown, setting Lori's heart at unease all over again.
"But speaking of the van, I'm afraid that I've got some bad news," he said. "It's in pretty bad shape. It'll take a few weeks to repair all the damage. That means we'll have to have our neighbors and friends help us out, in the meantime. As a matter of fact, Harold was the one who gave me a lift here. He and Howard even helped the kids get to school.
Unfortunately, Harold has to go to work soon, so he has to come pick me up in about an hour. I could stay longer if I wanted to, given I just take the bus, but I have to get back home so I can look after Lily—I'm glad Mr. Grouse is helping me out in the meantime, but I'd rather not be gone longer than I promised."
The guilt of weighing others down because of her incompetence, however, paled in comparison to the rivulets of woe that trickled into her gut and made her heart skip a beat.
"And well, adding to the fact that your injuries need to be healed up before you can get back on your feet, I'm afraid that means that the family vacation's gonna be canceled. I'm sorry, Lori. We'll just have to do something else for spring break inst—"
The fact that Dad had stopped, possibly to regard her current expression, barely registered in Lori's mind. She was too heartbroken and shocked to take note of her father's concern to pay him any heed, even after he called out to her.
"Lori?"
She jolted from Dad's touch on her right hand, though it failed to comfort her as it did before. Then, in a sudden burst, shame crushed her like a giant boulder. Her breathing became heavy again, and she could feel the birthing streams of tears stinging her ducts.
Dad squeezed her hand tighter. "Lori, it's okay. It's just a dumb ol' vacation. What matters is that you're okay."
His comfort, as beautiful and encouraging as it should've been, slapped her across the face with biting reproach. It taunted her, reminding her that her family was worse off because of her and would continue to be so as long as she was around to drag them into the vicious cycle of her witlessness.
No one was safe. Everyone she loved would have to bare the burden of a victim, all while propping her up with glib, meaningless words spoken in love to keep her head above water. Suddenly, her reluctance to hide everything seemed so...selfish—criminally selfish, even.
She deluded herself into thinking that she was helping them out, but all she did was keep them in the dark of her ugly side. And what was worse, she hadn't spared that truth to Bobby yet was willing to enable future tragedies in her family by "suffering in silence". Her so-called penance was laughable at best and downright disgusting at worst.
'Just like you.'
Bubbling anger ran over her like molten lava, much like her cheeks ere run over by a thin stream of tears. Despite her self-hatred, she managed to keep her tone from wavering too from emotion.
"No," Lori said firmly. "No, it's not okay. Nothing about this is okay. Don't you get it? Look how badly I messed up for everyone."
"But, Lor−"
"No. I don't want to hear it. I can't ignore the truth, Dad, and I'm sick of leaving you all in the dark just so I can get by another day without you and Mom doing the right thing and getting rid of me."
She couldn't quite make out Dad's horror-stricken face, but the visual was enough to make her shudder. Still, she maintained enough composure not to be overwhelmed and turn into a bawling mess.
In the breadth of second, Dad's shock formed into concern that was laced with authoritative sternness.
"What? Why would we ever want to get rid of you?" he asked. "What on Earth would make you ever think we'd want that?"
His somewhat accusatory tone made Lori shrink back a little, but she refused to take anything she said back.
"Because I've been nothing but a headache to my family since the day I was born," she said firmly. "I wasn't good enough to do one simply task. Because of that, I put myself in a position where I'm basically forcing you and Mom to cover for a car accident and my hospital bills.
All that money you scrounged up to spend on our vacation, which I literally destroyed, is being wasted on me. Oh, and let's not forget that until the van's fixed, other people have to dedicate some of their precious time into taking care of us."
Her father seemed to try and cut her off—no doubt an attempt to lighten the burden of her crimes to make her feel better—but she cut him off before he could.
"And that's just the stuff that I did yesterday. Need I remind you that it's thanks to me, your time at the DHCC, my younger siblings' night with their babysitter, and Carol Pingrey's babysitting experience was ruined because of me?"
"Lori, c'mon, that's−"
"You know who would've been able to manage what you asked of me yesterday? Leni. Guess why she couldn't do that? Because yours truly was petty enough to make sure she wouldn't get her driver's license. And let's not forget that I take the responsibilities that you give me for my own benefit, just because I'm not special enough to stand on my own sense of pride. What do I have to show for all my time on Earth besides a mile-long rap sheet of screw-ups and heinous actions?
Meanwhile, my siblings give you a reason to be proud parents. They're all wonderful and amazing. I wouldn't blame you if you were relieved that I was the exception and not the standard."
By now, Dad was undoubtedly dumbfounded, stunned into silence—his hand laid still on Lori's while he wore an utterly confused and unsettled look on his face. In her mind, Lori was finally starting to get through to him and all he could do was listen as she bore her wounded soul to him. It was liberating but terrifying all the same—Dad was bound to lose his patience, after stomaching all he could stand, and leave her in the hospital to contemplate her evil deeds while she rotted.
'But it's what you deserve. Don't you ever forget that.'
And Lori pushed on, knowing that once he did just that, he'd have ten perfectly good kids to go home to.
"I should be grateful that you've cared for me for so long, despite bringing misery on your heads all the time," Lori continued, tears no longer flowing. "But the way I show my appreciation is unforgivable. Whether it's dragging my siblings into the mud by putting my sense of self-worth over their happiness or being so useless that I'm unreliable for the most effortless jobs, all I do is prove that the biggest accident out of any of this is me—it was an accident that you had to get a such a disappointment like me before you had ten better children."
And that's when a sordid, but perfectly fair, thought crossed her mind. It wouldn't be just for her siblings to to be anything but disgusted if such a notion sprouted in their heads, but it suited her like a glove.
That didn't, however, stop her body from trembling and her stomach from being pelted by nauseating pangs.
"You know what? It would've...i-it would've been better if I had died in that car wreck. Even if you had to get to Grand Rapids without the van, at least I wouldn't be holding you down like this."
Lori had bought Dad' silence for pensive contemplation up until this point—even if she was able to believe that he finally understood how far gone and hopeless she was, there was no way that he was going to think that she was better off dead.
And lo and behold, he expressed such a thought when he suddenly burst into tears and wrapped her up in a hug once more. This time, instead of mumbling about how much he loved and cherished her, his cries were interspersed with apologies.
"I'm...I'm s-sorry, Lori," he muttered. "I-I'm so sorry."
Throughout the duration, Lori said nothing as she sat in stony silence. The thing that was paramount, however, was that despite being embraced by a father's love, she felt nothing.
A FEW HOURS LATER…
For the first time in twenty-four hours, Lincoln felt an emotion other than sadness or guilt. Standing outside of Lori and Leni's bedroom, the immense misgiving in his chest added a hundred pounds of weight—his knees shook, the bones in his legs felt like squirming jelly, his breathing was labored, and his heart thrummed painfully in an erratic cycle.
On a normal day, approaching Leni Loud was the easiest thing anyone could do. Even if someone had wronged her, she was usually open to forgiveness pretty easily.
But last time Lincoln checked, he hadn't made things easy.
As he contemplated about the possibility of cutting his losses and heading to his room, he still felt remorse for how he had been behaving lately and couldn't imagine that Leni would be open to letting him back in her good graces. Leni's words had stung, but the fact that she stormed away in disgust hurt him even more. He had sickened her so much that she didn't think that he was worth her time anymore.
But it didn't take long until he realized that, despite how his feelings felt raw and bleeding from her verbal lashing, she was one hundred percent right. He couldn't deny that he and Carol had been wronged, but what he did to Lori was far worse. Just like Leni had said, Lori had never condemned Lincoln like he had done to her.
He treated her with contempt, allowing himself to harbor long-lasting hatred.
He disregarded her pain, even to the point where he said that it didn't matter.
He acted as if she wasn't even family, like she was some kind of hardened, unrepentant criminal.
And yet, she probably vied for his affection, probably with some way to make it up to him. At the moment of his epiphany, he could do nothing but lay in his bed, paralyzed by guilt and shame as he wept bitterly into his pillow. After his tears were spent, he resigned himself to doing three things at breakneck speed; give Lori the biggest little brother hug in the world, give her the forgiveness that she desperately needed, and beg for forgiveness of his own.
But before he could even make it halfway out of his room, he had heard his mother bawling dramatically from downstairs. When he decided to check out on the commotion, he was quickly joined by a few of his sisters—Luna, Lola, Lana, Lisa, and Leni—as they rushed down the stairs to see what had been happening.
They had found Mom on the couch, sobbing in her hands and babbling unintelligibly. Dad was by her side with an arm around her shoulder, looking almost as broken up as she was. When he had noticed that they arrived, his next words nearly made him stagger backwards, as if he was punched in the gut:
"Royal Woods General just called us. Lori's there right now. She was in a car accident."
His tears had already been wasted early, so all he could do was stare at his father in disbelief as his breath hitched in a gasp. His sisters, on the other hand, were rendered to mournful sobbing on the spot. Though all of their heartbreaking wails were equally as heartbreaking, he had felt for Leni the most. She was wound up in so much grief because of her concern for Lori and his nasty treatment of her.
And now...now she was in the hospital, as banged up and broken as his mind allowed him to think that she was. After that bombshell was dropped, he hardly touched his food at dinner and went to bed early. Though Lori's well-being kept him up long throughout the night, his relationship with Leni troubled him, too. He had done so much to possibly lose one sister because of his reprehensible behavior—he couldn't bear the thought of losing another one.
He had gone through the motions today at school, drifting about aimlessly as he went from class to class with Lori and Leni on his mind. Despite his streak of misfortune, he had been able to make amends with Clyde as they rode to school. That came with the price of telling Clyde what had happened to Lori, though he was pleased that he was happy to hear that his best friend would be trying to reconcile his damaged bond with her as soon as he was able to.
But the biggest hurdle to leap over was here in the present, frozen in place as he tried to muster up the courage to knock on the door and hope that Leni was willing to invite him in. He didn't need to be an ace sleuth to know that Leni—who was clearly walking around with the most sadness saddled on her back—would, at best, be too secluded in her misery to want to talk to him.
At the worst? She would still be as disgusted as ever. She probably would've rubbed salt in the wound of his punctured conscience by asking him if he had gotten what he wanted out of Lori's accident. Even worse, she probably resented him. After all, it wasn't as if he left her with any other choi—
Lincoln shook his head, clearing away those horrible thoughts. No. Leni wouldn't hate him. Resenting a sibling was a mistake that he had to own up to—it wouldn't be fair to assess Leni under that standard, especially after she had chewed him out yesterday.
That revelation gave him the surge of confidence to brush past his fears and rap on her door with a few timid knocks.
"Its open," he heard Leni say almost immediately.
Lincoln didn't know whether to count himself lucky or blessed. On one hand, not only did Leni not sound...well, as dejected as she had been yesterday, but she was willing to let him in right away. On the other hand, she didn't know that it was him. He knew that she wouldn't hate him, but the chance of her sending him away made him flinch in equal measure. Still, now was as best of a chance that he was going to get to make things right.
With that, he opened the door and turned to close it behind him once he entered the room. Expecting her to be somewhat surly once she realized who her visitor was, he was taken off his stride when he found Leni on her bed, sitting on its edge and looking at him with warm eyes and a half-hearted smile. Despite her friendly disposition, Lincoln could tell that she had been crying recently—crumpled-up tissues littered the floor around her bed and her eyes were puffy and red.
What was even more obvious, was her unspoken invitation to approach her and speak his mind. Still, he found himself pinned in place, as if large nails pierced through his feet and affixed him into the carpet.
The prolonged silence finally got Leni to act. Standing up, she got strolled over to Lincoln, stopping once she was right in front of him. Then, in a gesture that Lincoln found downright odd, she stretched out her arms towards him.
"C'mere," she said softly.
Lincoln blinked as he felt a lump form in his throat. "Huh?"
"You look like you could use a hug."
Without even having to think, Lincoln moved in and hugged Leni as tightly as he could. When he felt her arms gently secure him place as his face was buried in her midriff, his emotions overwhelmed him and brought him to tears.
"Ssssshhhhh," Leni cooed as she stroked his hair. "Everything's okay, Lincoln."
Her words wrought more tears, though Lincoln couldn't help but feel somewhat relieved—he had no idea what Leni was referring to (their relationship or Lori's well-being), but her amenity was therapeutic.
He spent the next few minutes weeping as loud and long as he could until he had had his fill. He pulled his face away to look up at Leni, who looked like she was on the verge of shedding tears herself.
"Leni, I'm...I'm sorry," Lincoln said, fighting through his sore, throbbing gullet as it panged with each syllable. "About everything. You were right about Lori, you were right about the way I treated he−"
He coughed when the strain on his throat caught up with him, forcing him to take a short break from his speech.
"A-and I just want you to know," he continued, "that I didn't want to see Lori get hurt. I know you probably don't have the best opinion of me, but please...please believe me when I tell you that I'm not happy about what happened to her."
Leni nodded. "I know."
Lincoln took a deep breath and smiled. "Thank you. Thank you so much."
And he truly meant every word of it, so much so that now he wanted to make sure that he could return the favor in making Leni's next few days a little easier on herself.
"Hey, Leni?"
"Yeah?"
"Mind if I crash with you until Lori gets out of the hospital? I figured you'd want some company until then."
She didn't beam as much as he would've liked, but he still took in her genuine smile all the same.
"Sure," Leni said. "I'd like that a lot."
All things considered, Lincoln should've been satisfied. Heck, he should've been over the moon. He had assurance that he still had Leni's love and though he couldn't predict the future, he had reason to believe that Lori was going to come out of this alive—after all, his parents had the chance to let him and his sisters in on a possibly fatal outcome when they told them about Lori's surgery and expected recovery before they all went to school.
But still, a nagging concern was presently festering in a dark corner of his mind. He could feel it being nourished with every passing glance he gave it, but he couldn't help but approach the million dollar question:
What was he going to do when he visited Lori?
Lynn Sr. knew that this was all his fault.
He could've shifted the blame to the cruel hand of fate putting his precious daughter in such critical condition, but he knew that he'd be a cowardly fool to think that he didn't have a part in doubling—no, tripling—the chances of misfortune coming into play with his negligence.
He knew that Lori was in pain, but those cutting, self-loathing words couldn't have possibly come about just from one car accident. No, she had been carrying those destructive, horribly untrue thoughts for a while. It was in the middle of her self-castigation that everything clicked into place for him and he knew, he just knew, that not only was this his fault…
...he could've stopped this. He was wise enough to know that Lori needed counseling, but foolish enough to give her the choice whether to indulge on such a request or not. Twice, he had been told misgivings about Lori's demeanor and he batted away those concerns with callous indifference.
And for what? Because he gave his daughter too much credit? Because he wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt and see her for a responsible young woman who was capable of making good choices, despite all signs pointing to an underlying problem that desperately needed fixing?
No. No, it was more than just imbuing her with a sense of independence that was far from reasonable. Unlike Leni and Rita, he was flat out blind. He had the opportunity to see any signs of distress when he went up to the attic to check up on her, yet he saw nothing. If he had, he wouldn't have brewed up such a volatile cocktail of imminent catastrophe and handed it over to Lori, someone who was clearly not the soundest of mind, to drink.
And so, with a heavy heart and the failure of a good father weighing him down, he had returned home with a conscience that was riddled with gaping, bloody stripes from his self-flagellation.
There wasn't a chance in the world that he could've felt otherwise, even if he was certain that Rita—who was presently sitting next to him in the empty dining room—would try to tell him that he shouldn't be so hard on himself.
He found himself in this position at his wife's request. When she came back home from work, she wanted to know how Lori was holding up. Though his daughter's words sliced fresh cuts into his soul with each meditation, Lynn Sr. accepted that he'd have no choice but to recall the visit with every gruesome detail. Thus, he had told her that she'd let her know everything after the kids had gone upstairs after dinner.
With a heavy sigh, Lynn Sr. looked his wife in the eye and winced at her beautiful grin—that lovely expression would change soon enough.
By the time he was finished, Lynn Sr. almost regretted being so straightforward. Rita's reaction was much...much worse than he thought was possible.
The most heartbreaking outcome he conjured up would be her being driven to tears, much like what had happened immediately after receiving that call from RWG. Instead of that, however, came something far worse than sadness that had the slimmest chance of being reconciled…
Fear. She wore it like a second skin, paling out the vibrant color in her face as her pupils dilated and her breath came out ragged. When her hand absentmindedly came up to her chest, as if to quell her tortured heart, Lynn Sr. sprang up from his chair, walked over to his wife, and held her shoulders in a reflexive gesture of comfort. It only managed to get her to look up at him, though her panicked stare never diminished in magnitude.
"I...I-I think I know what's happening with our daughter," Rita said.
The nervous tension spread through to him like wildfire, though Lynn Sr. felt that he must've felt twice as much pressure for not being in the know—even if he had the tiniest inkling about where she was leading him towards.
"You do?" he answered back in a feeble whisper.
Rita nodded. "My aunt suffered from the same thing, and it sounds like Lori's going through what she did."
Those wisps of lacerating guilt back to lash him all over again, but that paled to the agonizing sorrow that grieved him deeply when Rita said, "I don't want to believe that it's true, but I think there's a great chance that Lori's clinically depressed."