Car (please God) Conclusion

She asked me which avenue she should persue: Insurance or writing Jim a check. I asked her what her deductible was. She didn’t know. We assumed $500. She completely understood, in the moment, the financial implications of filing a claim to save $100, and having her rates increase for an unknown number of years, likely costing more than $100. I told her which checkbook to write the check from. She told me she was going to take care of this immediately, and if Jim called me, to tell him things were handled and to hang up on him. We ended our call.

I called Jim next. He was indeed pissed. I coached him that mom’s responses were the disease talking, not his old friend. She truly doesn’t remember that she hit Karen’s car a few days ago. She’s not trying to BS him. While he understood this, he’s been taken advantage of by mom enough since dad died that he just can’t, right now, separate intellect from emotion. I told him mom was on her way over with a check. He growled that he didn’t want to see her and that Karen would deal with mom. 

Before I was able to get back to Jim, he did call mom’s insurance agent, and expressed his opinion of mom’s driving as well as telling her about the accident. He also told me he was thinking about calling the sheriff. I said he needed to do what he felt was right.

At noon I left my phones in the house and ventured into the garden for 4 hours. Eight hours later, there is no communication from anyone. I don’t know whether to feel relieved or agitated.