Seventeen Minutes on Route 18 Wrecked an Eighteen-Million-Dollar Corporate Buyout

Mercer told me I should have kept driving.” Eleanor’s hands went still on the folder.

“He told me I should have kept driving because you were neither my wife nor my mother.”

Eleanor let three full seconds pass.

She adjusted her collar again, though it was already straight.

The attorney’s pen stopped on the paper.

“Say that again,” Eleanor said.

I said it again, slower.

“He told me I should have kept driving because you were neither my wife nor my mother.”