Every year in early January I fell into the depths of contemplation and depression as I neared the anniversary of the accident. It was on the fifteenth anniversary, when I was thirty-two years old, that something snapped as I sat in my living room waiting for a phone call I didn’t know I was waiting for. Like an unexpected punch to the gut, I realized that Harvey had never contacted me to be sure I was okay.
After the trial, he never wrote a nice note of apology for ruining my life. He never drove down to see me to make sure that I was real and not the recurring nightmare I hoped I was to him at night. I was suddenly consumed with a rage, pure and direct.
I decided to call him. Right then. I’d show him what a nightmare was like. There was no stopping me.
As the dark outside turned darker on January 3, 1993, I got off my sofa and walked decidedly to the phone sitting on my desk. I called directory assistance to get his number in Victoria, BC, where I knew he lived. They only had his mother’s number, so I called her. Simple as that. I didn’t know if she was aware that her son had ripped away a young women’s leg, so I just left my name and number and asked her to have him contact me. I went to bed feeling relieved that I had finally figured out where to target my anger.
At work the next day, I wondered: Will he call? Does he remember my name? Does he even know what yesterday was? I was afraid I would have to embarrass myself by explaining what he’d done to me before I yelled at him for having done it. Would he call me, or ignore my message, afraid of what I might say to him? By the time I got home from work, I was a nervous wreck. As I waited for his call, I paced and smoked, smoked and paced. And then the phone rang.
“Hello?”
His slight Canadian accent responded, “Hello Colleen, this is Harvey.”
“Do you remember who I am?” I screamed, bracing myself against my desk. The sound of his voice was like a gust of strong wind, threatening to knock me over.
Through his own grave sobs, he responded, “Oh, yes.”
“Do you know what yesterday was?” I demanded, surprised that he was emotional, too, but not willing to give up my rehearsed series of questions.
“Oh, yes,” he cried. “I think of you every year. I think of you all the time.”
What was he doing, crying like that? How could I be angry at him now? How could I make my case? Soon he was saying, “I’m sorry,” over and over again on the other end of the line. This wasn’t going the way I wanted. His willingness to apologize got me off track. I wasn’t sure which way to go.
We ended the call when Harvey offered to meet with me. I put the receiver back in its cradle and sat down on the floor near the phone, my breathing shallow. What had just happened?
Meeting with the man who had changed the direction of my life felt risky and bold, but I decided I had to do it. I had waited a very long time to face this down—to face him down. We agreed to meet in Victoria. He still hadn’t traveled south on the road on which the accident had happened. He said that coming to Seattle would be too difficult for him—could I come to Canada?
Too difficult?
Because I’d gone to college near the accident site, I had traveled that road countless times. Each time I drove past the place where I’d lost my leg, the metallic taste of shock saturated my mouth. Sometimes I cried. Sometimes I continued my conversation with the person I was driving with, and pretended it was just any other piece of roadway. Sometimes I hid my feelings by lighting up another cigarette. Too difficult? He didn’t know what difficult was. But, true to character, I decided to take care of his needs more than my own and drive up to see him.
In preparation for our meeting, I spent five sessions with Lynn, preparing my list of all the reasons I was so angry. My anger at what happened had never been this consciously directed before. It was a relief to finally target my anger where it belonged: at Harvey.
My brother Matthew and his boyfriend, Kirk, accompanied me to Victoria. We stayed at the Empress Hotel on Valentine’s weekend. The irony that I would be meeting Harvey on Valentine’s Day didn’t miss me. Love is a bond that inextricably connects two hearts. Harvey and I were connected—no question about that. And so we were to experience a unique kind of love that Valentine’s Day.
We agreed to meet in the lobby of the hotel. At the appointed time, Matthew and Kirk walked with me, steadying me as we descended the ramp into the lobby.
“Do you want us to stay until you find him?” Matthew asked.
“No, I need to do this alone,” I replied. They both gave me hugs and slowly walked back up the ramp, glancing over their shoulders as they walked. I peered over mine for one last encouraging glance.
I felt as fierce as a lioness protecting her cub—and as vulnerable as the cub itself. I imagined seeing Harvey and running up to him, even though I can’t run, and hitting him repeatedly in the chest, screaming every profanity I could imagine. This fantasy of hitting and hitting and hitting him was very consoling. I couldn’t wait.
Armored by my anger, shaking from my fear, I searched the lobby for a face I didn’t really remember. A sea of people checking in for the weekend congested the room. I started feeling lightheaded as I scanned the crowd. Then I saw him: a big lug of a man, walking toward me. Oh, no. I had forgotten how big he was. He’s too big to hit, I thought.
As he got closer, I could see he was crying. Wait: I’m the one who should be crying, I thought. Aren’t I? I had it planned out in my head that I was going to yell and scream at him, hit him, and rub in his face how much the accident had impacted my life. I planned to shower shame on him, to take the mantle of pain off my shoulders and place it squarely on his where it belonged. His tears and my early training in empathy toward those who were suffering were going to make that very difficult. He walked right up to me and asked me for a hug. I didn’t want to hug him, but I didn’t know how to say no, so I hugged him.
We decided to take a walk in the hotel gardens. Even when I put a lot of effort into walking correctly, I still limp. That day, as we strolled around the gardens, I did my best walking. I certainly didn’t accentuate my limp. But I was secretly glad that he could finally see me move, impaired by what he’d done to me.
After a while we went into the bar and drank beer and smoked cigarettes—like any two people might do. He began to talk. And my resolve, my need to hurt him as he’d hurt me, dissolved with the outpouring of words I hadn’t known I needed to hear.
“I’ve always thought about you … When I see a young woman who looks like you, my day is ruined … My life was devastated because of this.”
Harvey and I talked about how the accident had altered his life. Anytime the reality of what happened hit him, anytime he saw a woman who looked like me, he became moody and mean. “I became like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: nice guy one minute and angry the next,” he sobbed. I could see the pain and guilt in his tear-filled eyes. “My wife couldn’t take it anymore. She finally divorced me.” He wiped away a tear. “I replay the accident over and over and try to see what I could have done differently,” he explained. His face contorted in anguish, expressing exactly what I felt inside but didn’t have the heart to say.
I didn’t expect this. I had thought this was going to be my show. But now, I couldn’t spill my guts and slap him with the reality of how altered my own life had become. How I question my attractiveness as a woman because I limp around on a plastic leg. How I have to mentally prepare myself for a simple walk around the neighborhood with my dog. How I feel distant from others because they don’t understand my pain. I couldn’t paint for him the picture of how my amputation had affected my daily life. The obvious pain his guilt was causing him proved to me that he had been through enough.
“I’d give you my leg if I could,” he offered.
“I don’t want your leg, Harvey,” I told him. I just needed to see his remorse. And I clearly had that.
Harvey told me that when he went to counseling, his therapist pushed the idea that what happened wasn’t his fault. It was an accident. This was a change in perspective for me: It was an accident. I had always said to myself, “I was in an accident; but it was Harvey’s fault.” I sat holding my cigarette pondering the possibility that accidents don’t have fault. They simply are. Could that be true?
Harvey and I reviewed the accident in detail. Though we had heard it all at the trial thirteen years before, we both needed to review the specific facts now. I’d never really considered that Harvey would have his own perspective.
“Our car had spun out on the snowy freeway. When we came to a stop, we were facing traffic,” I explained.
“Why were you out of the car?” he asked.
“No one was stopping to help us. I wanted to flag down some help. All the cars were driving slowly by us in the right lane; I thought for sure someone could help me stop traffic so we could turn the car around and merge back into traffic.” I paused. Here I was, retelling the story again, but this time to the other main character: Harvey. The moment felt surreal. “Why were you in the left lane going so fast?” I asked.
“I didn’t think I was going fast. When I saw you, I tried to get out of the way and merge into the right lane, but the snow buildup between the lanes caused my car to swerve. I lost control of my car and started spinning. That’s when I hit you.”
My mouth was dry from the beer, the cigarettes, and the emotion. We had said all there was to say. We couldn’t dissect it further. Though the resolution I’d hoped for didn’t feel perfectly complete, I felt as if I’d done all I could do by coming to Victoria and spending an afternoon with the man whose visage had tormented me all these years. And Harvey had given me this time. He’d done all he could do given his own pain.
He walked me back to the lobby and I hugged him again. But this time I wanted to.
I returned to the hotel room in a fog of emotions. Matthew and Kirk immediately turned off the TV and looked at me with expectant eyes. “It was good,” was all I could muster. They stood up and, with their four huge arms, protectively embraced me. I allowed myself to be enfolded in their love. My brain was full, and I could feel the stirrings of a shift in my heart.
When I realized I could see the accident from Harvey’s perspective I felt a freedom I hadn’t known before. I didn’t know it earlier, but now I could see that bitterness only hurts the one who holds it in her body. During my visit with Harvey, I didn’t utter the words “I forgive you,” but after the visit, I forgave Harvey in my heart. That was one of the most empowering things I have ever done. Nothing on the outside had changed—I still didn’t have my leg, it still hurt to walk, and I still got stares from strangers—but so much on the inside was different.