Survivor Song(38)

Natalie sighs as though annoyed with her own ramblings, picks up her phone, presses buttons, and says, “Hi, did you miss me? Ah, fuck this.” She hits more buttons and slams the phone down into her lap. She says, “This sucks. This all sucks. Fuck.” She pauses and then asks, “This might sound totally random, but do you know what movie I hated that everyone else loved?”

“No.”

“City of Men. No wait, Children of Men. I always mess up the title. The one where the world was fucked because no one could have babies anymore but Clive Owen finds one preggo, blah, blah, blah. I mean, fine, I guess it’s a well-made movie, but women as incubators to repopulate and save the world is bullshit, you know?”

Trying to elicit a smile from Natalie, or even better, a subject change, Ramola says, “I like Clive Owen. He was wonderful in Gosford Park.”

Natalie ignores her. “Paul loved it, of course, and would randomly text me pics and GIFs from the movie. He thought he was so funny. Which, he kinda was. When we decided to try getting pregnant I told Paul there would be no Children of Men bullshit for us. If the world was falling apart—more so than it already was—he had to promise I was more important than the kid. I had to live. If anyone needed saving, or whatever, it was me first. He thought I was joking. I mean, I was, but I also wasn’t.”

“I take it you both promised that your relationship would remain as important—”

“Ha-ha! No, just me. I made him pinky-swear I would always be most important, and if it came down to it, he’d save me first. He wasn’t happy about it, but he did it—” Her voice cracks, tears are close but she doesn’t give in.

Ramola stares ahead. The winding road narrows further; the forest closing in on them.

“He wanted me to swear back that I’d save him.” Natalie coughs, the sputtering noises transforming into weary, heartbreaking laughter. “I wouldn’t do it. I rubbed it in his face. I told him there was nothing I could do, once I was a mom the kid would always come first, isn’t that what everyone says? Oh, he got so pissed and tried to take back his pinky-swear, but you can’t take it back. Those are the rules. You can’t take anything back.” Natalie pauses. The pause becomes three deep breaths. “And here I am; the fucking incubator.”

“No, Natalie—”

“Paul and I tried to save each other today. We both tried. We fought hard. We really did. But we failed.”

“That’s enough! No more! I can’t imagine what you went through and I know you’re suffering and frightened—”

“Don’t. Don’t say it.”

Ramola has to say it, even if she knows deep down it isn’t true. “But you are going to live, and so is your child. We’re going to arrive at the new clinic in less than ten minutes and they’re going to help and take care of you.”

Natalie says, “Wow. I can’t believe you yelled at me.”

“Well, I’m sorry, but you deserved it.”

“No, I love it. But you’re either a liar or, as we know to be true, a terrible jinx.”

Ramola clucks her tongue and waves a dismissive hand, oddly aware the I-give-up gesture is one her mum frequently employs.

Natalie says, “Gosford Park is meh, by the way. A movie about rich British assholes.”

“Now you’re being a prat.”

“The characters aren’t rich British assholes?”

“They are; however, that’s the point of the movie, isn’t it. Are there any other films you’d like to besmirch?”

“Where do I begin—oh, hey, you see that? What are they doing?”

Ahead, on a short stretch of straightaway, is a side street on the left. Two people wearing bike helmets, bulky backpacks, and dark hooded sweatshirts ride BMX bikes, pedaling furiously toward Bay Road. They cut the corner, darting between a giant fir tree and an undulating stone wall. They dump their bikes and packs, and they crouch behind the stones.

Ramola slows as the ambulance pulls even with the side street, eyes only for the huddled bike riders.

Natalie yells, and a large white blur smashes into the ambulance’s rear. Their back end slides right, as though hydroplaning, and Ramola initially turns into it. The ambulance rumbles along the brush-filled shoulder, which slows them down and allows her to wrest some control. She cuts the wheel, turns them back toward the street, and pumps the brakes. The back end remains rooted to the shoulder though, and as they come to a surprisingly smooth stop, the front grille and windshield faces across the street at an almost forty-five-degree angle.

The two women share a moment of blinking stares.

Ramola peels her hands away from the steering wheel and asks, “Are you all right?” She does so quietly, as though afraid of the answer.

Natalie says, “Yeah. I think so. Well, I’m the same as I was before. Nothing new hurts. I think I peed a little.”

A boat-sized white sedan is latched onto the ambulance like a lamprey, its crumpled nose buried into the driver’s-side rear wheel well. The car’s back wheels spin, whine, and smoke. It bullies the ambulance’s back end, pushing it over the road’s shoulder, into the brush, and pins the passenger’s-side rear bumper and tire against a rock wall. The ambulance is now turned so as to be almost perpendicular to Bay Road. The cab rocks from side to side.