A Curve in the Road(6)

I blush with embarrassment because I have no idea what’s inside this box. The previous night, Zack borrowed my car to go to a basketball game with some friends. This morning, there were empty water bottles, his stinky sneakers, and a few McDonald’s bags with wrappers on the floor of the back seat. I anticipate that’s what I’ll find inside.

Carrie sets the box on the edge of the bed so that I can rummage through it.

Right away, I find my brown leather purse with my wallet, still miraculously containing all my credit cards and personal identification.

“Thank goodness.” I pull my purse out of the box. “It would have been a major pain to have to replace all of this.”

Immediately, I feel a stab of regret for caring about such trivial inconveniences when I could have died in that accident tonight. I should be grateful.

A little less greedily, I hunt for my cell phone in the usual zippered pocket where I keep it in my purse, but it’s not there. Then I remember that I set it on the passenger seat before pulling out of my mother’s driveway, so I may have to search the accident site in the morning. Who knows where it might have ended up.

I continue to rummage through the box and find Winston’s leash but only one of Zack’s sneakers. At least it’s part of an old, worn-out pair, so he probably won’t care.

Again, what am I thinking? He’ll be overjoyed just to hear I’m alive. He won’t care about sneakers, old or otherwise. And I don’t care about the mess he left in my car. Not today.

In the bottom left corner of the box, I find my cell phone.

Okay, I can be happy about this. It’s my connection to Alan and Zack. I check my text messages, but there are none.

Facebook Messenger. Nothing there either.

Wrestling with my frustration, I pick up the blue plastic lid that belonged to the Tupperware container. There’s no sign of the chicken and vegetables.

In that moment, my mother pulls out her own cell phone and begins to make a call. “I’m trying Alan again,” she says.

“Thank you.”

I continue rifling through the box and find my phone charger, a bunch of junk from the back seat, and the green canvas case from the glove box that contains my vehicle permit and insurance documents. I’m definitely going to need those.

Suddenly I hear music. It’s the familiar, dramatic theme from Star Wars, and I feel an instinctive thrill of joy and relief because I recognize it as Alan’s ringtone.

He must be here at last!

Then I realize that the music is coming from inside the cardboard box on my lap. With a pounding heart, I dig through the rest of the contents, searching for the phone that’s playing his song. I find it at the bottom, under some tattered papers. I pick it up and stare at it in confusion. Did he leave his phone in my car? Is that why he hasn’t been answering?

But no, he didn’t. We spoke earlier in the day, and he hasn’t been in my car since. Everything in this box was picked up from the accident site. They found things on the road.

As I hold it aloft, a wave of panic washes over me, because if Alan’s phone didn’t come from my car, it must have come from the other one involved in the accident.

I turn to look at my mother. She’s distracted, sitting in the chair beside me, waiting for my husband to answer his phone—the very phone that is ringing in my hand. Here and now.





CHAPTER FOUR

In a flash of movement, without a word to my mother, I leap off the bed and onto the hard floor. Nearly collapsing on buckling knees, I hobble toward the trauma room. I reach the open door and stare.

The driver who nearly killed me tonight is lying intubated and comatose on a bed, fighting to stay alive. He is scarred, bloody, and almost unrecognizable. There is only one nurse at his side—the one who took me for my x-ray. Her name is June.

With a sickening pool of dread forming in my belly, I limp into the room. The smell of alcohol halts me on the spot.

Nurse June sees me approach. She hurries toward me to usher me out. “I’m sorry. You can’t be in here.”

“But . . . I think that’s my husband.” I point at the man on the bed.

Nurse June frowns at me. I can see in her eyes that she’s very concerned as she begins to lead me out of the room. “No, Dr. MacIntyre. This is the driver who collided with you on the highway. Do you remember what happened? Do you know where you are right now?”

I understand that she thinks I’m confused, possibly delusional, and I wish more than anything that I was. But I recognize Alan’s shoes and his plaid shirt in a heap on the table. They must have cut them off him when the paramedics brought him in.

My eyes flood with tears, and my heart squeezes in agony as I fight to slip from her grasp. As I approach the bed, I can’t believe what I’m seeing. This isn’t real. It feels like a nightmare, but I know it isn’t, because I’m awake.

Nurse June tries to take hold of my arm, but I pull away from her. “No. This is my husband. I’m telling you . . . his name is Alan Sedgewick. He’s forty-six years old, and his birthday is August tenth. He’s a doctor.”

June’s eyebrows pull together in a frown as she realizes I may not be suffering from a psychotic episode after all—that what I’m saying is the truth.

“I kept my own name when we got married,” I explain, feeling dazed and nauseated as I lay my hand on Alan’s bare arm.