JUSTICE

By the time I reached home, the time was ten minutes past eleven. But I saw the car parked in front of my house and knew that Stephen, Sarah's brother, had come to see me. 

I parked the car and got out, and then Stephen came out of his car too. I walked to him, and he came and embraced me.

"I am so sorry," he said, and then he cleaned the tears from his eyes.

I was crying too. 

"I shouldn't have left her alone," I said. "It was my fault. I shouldn't have left her."

Stephen pulled back from me. He cleaned more tears from his face.

"Is that what you think this is?" he asked. "Are you blaming yourself for Sarah's death? Are you the one who drove the car that knocked and killed her?"

I took a deep breath. "But if I was there with her…if I had gone with her, Sarah would be alive. It was all my fault; I shouldn't have let her go alone. I should have gone with her."

"Nonsense. You had work, and she needed to collect her gown. What could you have done? Would you have asked her to go to the office with you and then later take her to the shop for the wedding gown? It wasn't your fault. It was her time, and there was nothing anyone could have done."

I cleaned more tears. 

"We just have to take heart," Stephen said. "But don't blame yourself. It wasn't your fault, neither was it Sarah's fault. It was nobody's fault."

"Why? Why did this happen to me, Stephen? What am I going to do? I don't want to live again. There is nothing in this world for me again."

Stephen was shaking his head from left to right. "Don't say that; we are all going to miss her, but life must go on. Paul, life must go on. Sarah would want you to live on and not to remain in perpetual mourning. She was so full of life, and that's the way she would want us to live after her."

I removed the keys from my pocket. "Please come inside. It's cold out here."

"Let me lock the car," he said and walked back to the car.

We entered the house, and a flood of memories knocked me so strong that I began to cry again. 

"It's going to be alright, Paul," Stephen said and placed his hand on my shoulder. "Just be strong. She would want us to be strong."

I dropped my bag on the settee and sat opposite it. The settee was Sarah's favorite, and she would make me sit there while she lay on it, placing her head on my lap, and we will either watch TV or talk into the night. She will eventually sleep on my lap, and I had to wake her to go inside.

I could see her lying there now in my mind's eyes, and the thought of sleeping in the house seemed like going to sleep in the graveyard. I thought about leaving the house, going to a hotel or going to my mom's place to pass the night.

"Are you going to be okay?" Stephen asked, jolting me out of my thoughts.

"I don't know," I said. "I am thinking about going to a hotel or going to my mom's place."

"I would suggest you go to your mom's or come and stay in my place. You shouldn't be alone tonight."

"I will be alright," I said. "But there is something I want to talk to you about even though I don't know if this is the appropriate time to talk about it."

"What is it?"

"It's the driver. He was drunk when he knocked Sarah. I was in the police station. They didn't come out to tell me that, but one of them did. He followed me to the car and told me that there was a cover up. That the driver was drunk, but he bribed the police officer investigating the case, and he changed the report."

"Are you serious?"

"Yeah. That's what happened. It's a cover up and no one would be able to punish the driver for killing Sarah."

"Do you want him to be punished?" 

I looked at Stephen. "Of course, I want him to be punished if he had committed a crime. No drunk should be allowed to drive on our highways or streets. That's how they go about killing innocent people and causing their loved ones pains."

Stephen nodded. "You are right," he said.

"If he was drunk, then he should be locked up," I said. "It's no longer a case of an accident, but a case of murder. He should also be killed; I don't care if he was coming from London or if he is a doctor. None of those things matter. If he was drunk while driving, he should be killed too."

Stephen stared at me.

"Why are you not saying anything?" I asked. "Don't you believe what I am telling you?"

Stephen sighed. "I know you are in pain, Paul. But this is not the time to talk about this issue. Let's deal with Sarah's lost first, and then we can come back to this issue."

"You don't think he should be punished, do you?" I asked.

"It's not in our place to say whether he should be punished or not. If we take up the case, the court would be the one to decide. None of us has the right to say what should be done to another person, or who deserved what." He looked at me, the way a mother would look at a child addicted to drugs. "But like I said, today is not the right time to talk about these things. Let's sleep over it and then after the burial, we can talk about it."

I got up from my chair. "Sarah must receive justice," I said and turned to him. "But you don't seem to want that. This is your sister we are talking about, for God's sake!"

Stephen looked at the floor. When he looked up again, his eyes were filled with tears.

He got up.

"I will go now," he said. "If you want, you can come with me or go to your mom's place. But please don't stay here alone."

He walked to the door and turned. "No matter how we get justice for Sarah, it would never bring her back."

"I don't care, Steve," I said. "I would do all I can to see that she gets justice. Nothing in this world would stop me from making that doctor pay for his crime. Nothing would stop me!"

Stephen opened the door and walked out of the house, leaving me alone in the quietness of the house, knowing that Sarah's ghost was going to hunt me all night long.