Accident

She was fifteen years old and alone. The first gulp of the dark liquid scorched her throat and burned all the way down. Her eyes burned, and she fought the urge to vomit. The second gulp went down a little easier. By the third, the warmth inside began to surface toward her skin. As it settled like a warm blanket around her, she knew she had found a way to keep her secret, at least one day at a time. By the time she finished the bottle, she was no longer ripping long strands of red hair from her head.

Susan Jennings awoke from the dream, shaking off the old memory that had haunted her for twenty years. She squinted at the harsh fluorescent lights above her. Where was she? Metal rails flanked either side of her. On the sterile green wall directly across from her, a large round clock with a white face and black hands hung next to a chalk board with the date, April 3, 1982, written in bold, neat handwriting. Her husband, Thomas, sat slumped in a straight-backed chair, his dark head cradled in his hands. “What happened?” she whispered.

He jerked up when he heard her voice. Shadowy circles surrounded his deep brown eyes. His rumpled shirt suggested he had slept in the chair. Tears brimmed in his eyes. His words were jagged and raw as he recapped what happened in halting phrases. He looked in a state of shock.

“You missed the sign, the stop sign, Susan. The other car couldn’t stop. Your car . . . the whole passenger side crushed . . . the other car rolled.”

He sucked in his breath and wrung his hands, a nervous habit. He fingered the tube which pushed oxygen through the cannula in her nose. He squeezed the tube, blocking off the air. A lock of his jet-black hair fell over his forehead.

His words brought back flickers of recollection to her, the children laughing in the back seat, a white sedan approaching from the right... crawling from the ditch… her late model station wagon crushed almost beyond recognition… the sedan rocking on its hood.