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When Maura got to UMASS, I'd go up there about once a month or so. In fact, the last weekend
I saw her was up at UMASS and we went searching to find a car; to get her a car, you know,
to go to do her nursing clinical trips and stuff like that.
And we had one picked out and we were going to go up the next weekend and get it. But
that didn't happen. It would have been safe. I wish I had bought it that weekend.
And that night in Amherst we went to the Amherst Brewpub and had supper. Whenever we went to
someplace, especially if it's a college town or something like that, if we could find a
Brewpub, we would go to it. Sunday morning Maura woke me up (she had come
back, you know, during the night) and told me she had had an accident in my car.
Well Maura was upset and it haunts me but I think she felt she let her father down.
I drove her back to the dorm. I could see she was still upset. I told her it would be
all right it was going to be covered it would be OK. And she went into the dorm and that's
the last I ever saw of her, which will haunt me forever.
Talked to my insurance. I called her back, said "we're OK; the insurance will be taken
care of so I'm not going to be out a lot of money." I said, "you're going to have to make
out accident reports -- probably in triplicate. So get the three forms from the police station
or wherever you have to get them and call me tomorrow night, eight o'clock."
The car would get fixed and my insurance would cover it. Maura's all right. So, I figured,
if this is the most trouble this kid ever causes me in twenty-one years, then I'm a
lucky guy. As to why Maura left, I don't know. In my
position as father you would think that maybe there would have been something said or -- but
I have no hint. I thought everything was OK.
I wasn't aware of any stuff like school troubles. She was on the dean's list in a very difficult
program. A nursing program. Hard to get in; hard to do well in.