• Leslie Wilber •
• Originally published January 11, 2009 at 4:40 p.m., updated January 11, 2009 at 4:40 p.m.

The cuts, the bruises and the broken bones healed quickly.

Four days after the car wreck, Heather Gonzales left the hospital. Eight months later, Heather has a tiny scar over her left eye and discoloration on the back of a hand.

The pain that still stings 16-year-old Heather is losing her mother in that crash.

May 29 was the day before Annie Hernandez's 42nd birthday and one of the last days of Heather's freshman year at St. Joseph's High School.

They were on their way to the school, when another driver crossed the center line of U.S. Highway 77, west of the U.S. Highway 87 exit.

That driver, Joe Monjaraz, 20, of Victoria, was transported to DeTar Hospital Navarro by helicopter.

Monjaraz was released from the hospital about a week after the wreck. He was out of town and unavailable to comment for this story. No one was ticketed in the wreck.

After Hernandez took Heather to school, she always visited her mother to share coffee or breakfast before heading to the Victoria Advocate, where she had worked since 1985.

"That day, we waited for her," said Hernandez's father, Pete Hernandez. Before any phone calls came, they knew something was wrong.

When Randall Gonzales watched his battered daughter lying in the hospital bed that day, her face unrecognizable from cuts, bruises and a broken nose, he knew he had to tell her Hernandez died.

Gonzales and Hernandez weren't married, but they had been a couple since they met working at Church's Chicken as teenagers. Heather is their only child.

"I knew she was telling me, 'Mom didn't make it' with her eyes," Gonzales said. "When I told her, she just said, 'That's what I needed to know.' "

Heather was conscious for a moment in the car, hanging from her seatbelt, surrounded by blood and broken glass.

"I had figured it out," Heather said.

That drive to school had been a tradition, a time when Heather and Hernandez bonded.

Sometimes, they plotted pranks to play on Gonzales when they got home. They chatted intimately, and Hernandez learned about her daughter's fears and hopes.

"One time, we were driving, I told her if she ever died, I would die," Heather said. "She said be sad. But not forever. Move on."

Heather's not sure how she would have survived the aftermath of the crash without those words.

"She was preparing Heather," said Pete Hernandez. He, his wife and Gonzales have marveled at the ways Annie Hernandez got her daughter ready for life without her.

When her mother died, Pete Hernandez told Heather she needed to become more mature and take on more tasks. He's noticed a difference.

Heather learned the need for hard work and a desire for independence from her mother, she said.

"She loved my dad, but she was independent," she said. "I want to be able to take care of myself."

Still, she's relied on family to help her through the months since her mother's death.

When she doesn't go to work after school, Heather heads to her grandparents' house.

Her mother still has a presence there: Her pictures hang on the walls and her phone number is listed on the refrigerator.

Gonzales and Heather aren't ready to keep such prominent displays of Hernandez in their home, he said. But Heather isn't trying to erase the crash, either.

About two years ago, Hernandez let Heather wear a ring Gonzales gave her when they were teenagers.

Heather has rarely removed it since. She wore it the day of the wreck, and it's a little misshapen.

She won't fix it.

Nor does she plan to get rid of the almost-invisible scar above her eyebrow. It's part of her.

"I like it," she said.

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