Chap­ter 9: Joe’s jour­ney through recov­ery fol­low­ing the acci­dent is a con­stant bat­tle against pain, both phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al. From the moment he wakes until he final­ly tries to sleep, the lin­ger­ing pain con­sumes him. It is a con­stant reminder of the acci­dent and the anger that seems insep­a­ra­ble from his expe­ri­ence. His dreams are plagued by the sounds of sirens and hos­pi­tal machines, bring­ing the trau­ma of that night back to the fore­front every time he clos­es his eyes. Despite rely­ing on the med­ica­tion his aunt pro­vides and using alco­hol to numb his feel­ings, Joe feels trapped in a cycle of suf­fer­ing. No mat­ter how much he drinks or how many pills he takes, the grief and rage remain. His family’s efforts to help him seem futile, and Joe’s own sense of help­less­ness grows stronger. He becomes increas­ing­ly res­olute in believ­ing that the pain and anger will be a per­ma­nent part of his life, mark­ing him with the same scars that he car­ries phys­i­cal­ly and emo­tion­al­ly.

While recov­er­ing in a tiny room at a rehab cen­ter in Hal­i­fax, Joe’s fix­a­tion on blam­ing Mr. Richard­son, the dri­ver involved in the acci­dent, grows. His moth­er tries to rea­son with him, ask­ing how any­one could have noticed the shad­ow in the road on a dim­ly lit Sun­day night. Yet, Joe refus­es to let go of his anger and resent­ment, choos­ing to hold Mr. Richard­son entire­ly respon­si­ble for his cur­rent state. The weath­er out­side, often drea­ry and match­ing his mood, becomes anoth­er trig­ger, push­ing Joe fur­ther into bit­ter­ness. As months pass, the weight of his feel­ings becomes unbear­able, and he can­not see beyond the imme­di­ate pain he is expe­ri­enc­ing. This refusal to let go of his neg­a­tive emo­tions traps Joe in a cycle of suf­fer­ing, keep­ing him from find­ing peace with the sit­u­a­tion or his past.

Dur­ing his six-month stay in rehab, Joe miss­es out on fam­i­ly tra­di­tions, some­thing that exac­er­bates his sense of alien­ation and deep­ens his despair. As spring approach­es, he attempts to adjust to his new life, try­ing to get around with the aid of a cane, but his reliance on alco­hol to cope with pain only com­pli­cates his recov­ery. Mae, who can­not watch her brother’s destruc­tive spi­ral any longer, con­fronts Joe, push­ing him to acknowl­edge how his self-indul­gence is dam­ag­ing not only him­self but their moth­er as well. She makes it clear that he needs to take respon­si­bil­i­ty for his actions, par­tic­u­lar­ly regard­ing Ruthie’s death, and stop using his pain as an excuse for his behav­ior. Joe, feel­ing cor­nered, lash­es out at Mae, but her blunt words cut through his anger, forc­ing him to con­front uncom­fort­able truths about his mis­placed guilt. Her tough love helps him real­ize that his jour­ney toward heal­ing and rec­on­cil­i­a­tion must begin with tak­ing respon­si­bil­i­ty, no mat­ter how painful it may be.

Weeks after this con­fronta­tion, Joe finds him­self alone, reflect­ing on Mae’s words, and a turn­ing point comes when he pri­vate­ly apol­o­gizes to her. This small but sig­nif­i­cant act of humil­i­ty marks a shift in his per­spec­tive, push­ing him to begin active­ly engag­ing with his fam­i­ly and tak­ing on respon­si­bil­i­ties once again. Return­ing to work allows Joe to recon­nect with the world he once knew, and the mem­o­ries of the garage rein­vig­o­rate his sense of pur­pose. At the same time, he begins to form a bond with Cora, a wait­ress from a local din­er. Their rela­tion­ship offers him a sense of nor­mal­cy amidst the chaos of his emo­tion­al world. Cora’s kind­ness becomes a con­trast to Joe’s tur­bu­lent inner life, and despite his mount­ing guilt and grow­ing alco­hol depen­den­cy, he finds solace in her com­pa­ny. How­ev­er, this new con­nec­tion only inten­si­fies Joe’s inter­nal bat­tle as he strug­gles to man­age his demons. Even­tu­al­ly, the com­bi­na­tion of his drink­ing and unre­solved anger leads to a hor­rif­ic act of vio­lence, shat­ter­ing his rela­tion­ship with Cora and forc­ing him to con­front the full extent of his destruc­tive ten­den­cies. This event becomes a wake-up call for Joe, and in the after­math, he is over­whelmed by guilt and despair. His only choice seems to be to flee from the destruc­tion he caused, aban­don­ing the life he had start­ed to rebuild in the process. This chaot­ic descent into regret marks the next chap­ter of Joe’s tumul­tuous jour­ney, filled with both reflec­tion and sor­row.