rel="nofollow" href="#litres_trial_promo">Chapter 42
1
Left hand tightly grasping the steering wheel, the thumb hyperextended, like a hitchhiker. The right hand more relaxed, but placed firmly in the two o’clock position. It’s one of the only things she does the same every time, especially now. Now that she tries to do nothing like before.
But her hands are driven to rest in the familiar pose and it triggers unwanted memories. She looks in the rear view mirror, imagines the reflection of matching car seats. Keeping her left hand on the steering wheel, her right hand became an experienced proboscis which could retrieve fallen pacifiers or bottles. When they were little the objects fell accidentally. When they were twelve months old, they dropped them to get attention.
“Mommy! Tell him to get off my side!”
But there was nothing in the mirror. Only spidery black etchings of water streamed down the back window. Black on black. The road from Brownwood dropped imperceptibly away.
Stop now. Pinching her cheeks to the point of pain. Do something to force the images out of her mind. She focused on the raindrops which moved to the beat of little second hand timers, coalescing into larger drops that slid down the windshield to end up on the highway. Leslie quickly moved her hands from ten and two, to eleven and one. Focus on the car in front of her.
But it wasn’t a car at all. It was the back of a horse trailer. She hadn’t been paying attention. Gradually slowing down. Someone hauling a trailer had to go around her. It was raining hard. The windshield wipers were slashing frantically side to side and still, seeing in front of her was difficult.
Where had the past twenty miles gone? A sign up ahead, color green for locations in Texas, listed several cities along with their distances. Rising Star, Cross Plains, then Abilene, sixty-six miles. She was tired and knew she should pull over. Only another hour. She could do it. She’d done it lots of times.
She focused on the trailer. Someone once told her if she got behind something that took longer to stop than she did, it would be safer because there would be plenty of time to stop, even if they slammed on their brakes. She dropped back a little. The water on the road was deep and every once in a while she could feel her wheels hydroplane on the low parts of the highway. It made her heart skip. Why did she care? The important time to feel scared and prepared had passed three years ago. She had failed then. Her sympathetic nervous system should be numb. Should be rock solid now. But when she felt the deep water in the road and the transient loss of control, her heart sped up, her stomach tightened and she knew her pupils dilated.
She remembered that time when the kids were riding bikes in the neighborhood and Vic had an accident. They were about six or seven. They had been out riding at dusk. Victor had crossed the street without paying attention and had carelessly run into a parked car. He was not wearing his helmet and had sustained quite a bump on the head. The neighbors called EMS and Leslie was contacted by the emergency room physician. When it was certain that he was okay, she and her husband discussed the lessons to be learned. Should he be grounded from use of the bicycle? Must he always come and do a “helmet check” before going out to ride. Should there be rules regarding careless mistakes? The rules that would help him become a responsible adult. But what if he didn’t live to become an adult?
The trailer spewed up rain clouds, swirling on either side. Where was a horse trailer going in this weather, this fast? Leslie had grown up with horses and was somewhat of a hand at one time. In another life. She couldn’t recall any truck that could pull any trailer at that speed when she was growing up. Her daddy used an old diesel truck to pull their two-horse trailer. He could shift gears without pushing in the clutch.
As they drove into each curve she could see this wasn’t some old truck. In New York she never saw trucks. People just didn’t drive trucks as a rule. No space for parking, gas prices too high, politically incorrect. But when she passed from Louisiana into Texas, trucks became the rule. Big trucks, jacked up trucks, off road tires, bright colors, four doors and lots of ranching accoutrements like tool boxes, wenches, and deer guards.
From what she could see, this was a matched set. The trailer, white and polished aluminum with red and black trim. She could see wide dual fenders peeking out from in front of the trailer. The truck was white. Dad’s truck had been brown and mustard yellow. His trailer was primer red, mostly rust. They were proud of that rig, especially when there was livestock in it.
The trailer slid on the wet pavement as it took the curves and when it did she knew to get ready for the hydroplane. She was becoming more comfortable with the conditions now and settled into her space behind the trailer, not noticing that they were going seventy on a two lane highway in the middle of a thunderstorm. Leslie was mentally and physically locked in behind the trailer. They were alone, moving in tandem. Going into a turn, the capsule shaped tail-lights suddenly became bright red and the trailer slowed down. Then she could see the truck in full to the left of the trailer. Odd, because she could never see more than the fenders on any other turn. The truck had a black brush guard. Why could she see it? Then it was gone and the trailer started sliding, sliding until she was looking squarely at its broadside. It was a gooseneck trailer and she was facing the back of the truck underneath the gooseneck. She was confused. Was she just a spectator in a truck and trailer dream?
Suddenly startled, she slammed on her brakes. She forgot the rule about turning into the spin. Instinctively she turned the other way and crashed sideways into the back of the truck. The trailer was behind her, also sliding sideways. In slow motion it began to swing back behind the truck, crashing into the little Ford Taurus. Leslie began to give up. Why not? Why had she put her seat belt on? Was she screaming? Screaming like she did when she saw her husband and her children facing her in the opposite lane when they had been going her way only one second before. Screaming like when the eighteen-wheeler hit their midsized sedan sideways and it began to spin like those carnival pictures made with paint squeezed onto a piece of cardboard on a centrifuge. Screaming didn’t do a damn bit of good then. It never does. It just comes out.
As the trailer righted itself there was no room for her Taurus. It shoved her toward the shoulder and she slammed into the guard rail with her right front fender. The Taurus began to go to work to save her. The airbag deployed. For a split second she saw the truck and trailer moving away, pulling over. Now a crash into the guardrail on her left front fender was followed by one from behind. The car came to rest. She was facing the guardrail.
She was alive. She felt a sense of elation. Natural instinct. The inherent struggle to live. Now the doctor in her began to go to work, second nature, learned behavior, but after almost twenty years of combined education and practical experience it was fairly intuitive. There was pain in her left shoulder. A broken clavicle? Not uncommon when the seat belt is in place. She reached up and pressed. No crepitus, no fracture. There was pain in the right ankle. Please, no open ankle fracture. With the advent of airbags, people traded life for bad ankle fractures, but sometimes after the agony of trying to heal those fractures, one might rather have taken the airbagless route. She wiggled the ankle up and down. She couldn’t reach it because of the airbag. No crunching. Some pain and she could feel the swollen flesh starting to press up against her hiking boot. Hopefully, just a sprain.
She looked out of the window and through the cracked safety glass she saw a man running toward her. “Hey, you okay?” he yelled. She could see the trailer behind him, emergency lights flashing.
“I think so,” she mumbled to herself.
He pulled on the door and when it wouldn’t budge, ran back to his truck and returned with a crowbar. He pried the door open. She felt his hand on her shoulder. “Are you okay?”
“Yes.
