A Book of American Martyrs(16)
THE LOST DAUGHTER
In January 1998 it happened. Though I saw the other vehicle turning out onto the highway I could not brake my vehicle in time.
In a lightly falling snow it happened. And the highway beginning to glaze over with a thin glittering film of ice.
This too was a turn in my soul. Jesus, forgive me!
Some distance ahead saw the pickup continuing out onto the highway through the stop sign. At the County Line Road this was, just outside town. Where I would drive sometimes, to the county landfill. It is not a much-used road and so there is no traffic light only just a stop sign. In a lightly falling snow the pickup was not so visible as it would have been in bright sunshine for the chassis was of no-color like stone worn smooth.
When you are driving on the state highway north of Muskegee Falls the speed limit is fifty-five miles an hour. There are few traffic lights.
So suddenly this happened, the pickup in the farthest-right lane.
Always there is a refusal to see what your eyes are seeing, when it is a terrible sight. When another has dared to behave so willfully and in violation of the law. For this was what’s called a rolling stop and it is in violation of the law.
Returning home from a morning of Saturday chores, and less than a mile from home. And in my distracted state—(for there is much to think about when your workhours have been cut back by one-third and in a family of five children of whom one has been diagnosed with a neurological condition)—seeming to hesitate for just a moment, a fraction of a moment, thinking—No. You are not going to push out onto the highway. Not in front of me.
It is not like me, to think in such a way. Except sometimes behind the wheel of my vehicle when others seek to cut me off or take advantage. And even then, when turning at a light, a left-turn for instance, it is (usually) my custom to allow the driver in the opposite lane to turn first, out of friendliness; for a young minister who was much admired, in Toledo, had behaved in such a way, in imitation of Jesus, and had made an impression upon me. Also it is rare for me to speed on any road, for “anger management” has taught me to master such aggressiveness, as it is called, on the road as elsewhere.
Turning the other cheek as Jesus bade us is just good sound advice, we were told. The person who is hurt by anger, is you.
But it seemed, the pickup at County Line Road had scarcely slowed its speed before continuing out into the busy highway. Whoever was at the wheel of the vehicle could see how traffic in the farthest-right lane was speeding toward him and could gauge (it is to be supposed) that there was (probably) not sufficient time for him to turn onto the highway and increase his speed to prevent a collision, yet boldly he proceeded just the same.
He would be a young man, I guessed. A teenager.
Possibly a man of my age. But not a woman, and not an elderly man.
From somewhere close by came a terrible sound of a horn, or horns. And even as my foot leapt to the brake, to press down hard, it was too late to avoid a collision with the vehicle directly in front of me, that was traveling at a speed more or less identical to my own, but now was being braked by its driver, to avoid hitting the pickup in the lane ahead; and without thinking, for there was no time to think, I turned the wheel of my vehicle sharply to the left, and pressed down the brake pedal even as the tires were skidding on the ice-film. Within seconds there was a three-vehicle collision even as—(as we would afterward learn)—the pickup continued on the highway, in the right lane, speeding away without (it seemed) a backward glance; and the guilty driver never apprehended.
In a soft-falling snow this happened. Out of a sky of banked clouds like soiled snow. And my voice raised in disbelief, and in fury—No! God damn you NO.
But there came at once the impact, the front of my vehicle slamming against the rear of the vehicle in front of me, at some speed below fifty miles an hour, but not much below; and the two vehicles skidding, spinning like bumper cars at a carnival; and almost immediately a third vehicle, unseen by me until then, a station wagon driven by a young woman with her elderly mother in the passenger’s seat was struck by our skidding vehicles, and swerved also onto the median, and came to a thunderous crash against the guardrail.
No time to think—I am in a crash. I will die.
No time to pray—Jesus help me! God help me!
So swiftly this happened, my vehicle had skidded into the others, and the vehicle like the others would be totaled, metal crumpled like an accordion; and there came the terrible impact, and then—silence like the silence after a thunderclap, that has rent the sky.
Then, cries of surprise, fear, pain . . .
In the confusion it seemed that my vehicle had exploded, this was the air bag striking my chest and upper arms, and releasing too some sort of acid, that would badly burn my face. And it seemed at this point that I lost consciousness, for my head had been whipped forward, as if it might be flung off my neck, and a sour taste arose in my mouth, of bile. And then, I was no longer behind the wheel but had been flung outside onto the pavement. It would be told to me that I had unbuckled the seat belt but I would not recall this. I would recall crawling on hands and knees on the freezing pavement, and trying to crawl in broken glass, or in something shattered like Plexiglas, and my mouth was filled with blood, and a pressure on my chest would not allow me to breathe.
Out of the confusion came cries and shouts, and footsteps near my head, and soon then a deafening siren, and I knew myself being lifted but had no idea where I would be taken. I could not see and yet, a jangle of blinding lights flooded my eyes, and I could not breathe, and yet my lungs were being made to breathe a freezing-cold air that pierced my chest.