A Curve in the Road

by Julianne MacLean

  Still holding my hand, Troy calls out to the cop who stands at the base of the embankment, talking on his phone. “Hey, Bob! Can you check on Abbie’s dog? He’s a golden retriever, and he was thrown from the vehicle. His name is Winston, and he probably hasn’t gone far.”

  With every passing second, I grow increasingly worried, because Winston is very attached to me and extremely protective. If he ran off, he must have been terrified or in shock.

  The cop trudges up the hill, and I try to be brave while Troy tells me he’s going to cover me with a tarp.

  “They’re going to use the Jaws of Life to cut the car apart and lift the dash upward to free your legs,” he explains. “This tarp will shield you from bits of flying glass and metal.”

  I agree because I want more than anything to remain calm, but I’m terrified, and he knows it.

  “I’ll be right here the whole time,” Troy says as he covers me, then moves out of the team’s way.

  The noise of the cutter is deafening. All I hear is the roar of machines, the crunching of metal, the shattering of glass. I’m afraid it’s all going to collapse on top of me, but the feel of Troy’s hand squeezing my shoulder and the sound of his voice in my ear, explaining everything along the way, helps me stay grounded.

  “They’re making a series of relief cuts in the frame,” he explains. “I know it’s loud . . .”

  My stomach turns over as I recall the horror of the crash and the rapid, tumbling descent.

  This was my second brush with death. The first occurred seventeen years ago when I gave birth to Zack and nearly bled out in the delivery room. Since then, I’d always considered myself fortunate to be alive. Now I’m starting to wonder if the grim reaper has a mark out on me.

  “Okay . . . ,” Troy says when the cutter shuts off, “you’re doing great, Abbie. Now they’re going to use a spreader to lift the dash, which should ease the pressure on your legs. Just hang in there. We’re almost done.”

  I try not to think about the potential damage to my legs. It’s not easy to assume everything will be fine. I’m a surgeon. I know there are certain things that simply can’t be fixed.

  Instead, I focus my thoughts on Alan and pray that he’s gotten the message by now, and I think of Zack at the rink. He has no idea that his mother is trapped in a car at the bottom of a ravine.

  The spreader begins to slowly lift the dash, and I feel a weight come off my legs. Suddenly, my thighs ache with a bone-deep pain, but at least I can wiggle my toes. A good sign.

  As soon as there’s an opportunity, I reach down to run my hands over my knees and calves. My jeans are ripped, and there are a few surface abrasions, but I’m able to unbend my legs at the knee joints.

  Another good sign.

  Troy removes the tarp, but I barely have time to look down and get a visual on my legs before a brace is fastened around my neck and I’m being lifted out of the vehicle and onto a backboard laid on a gurney. All of this is carried out by two paramedics, one male and one female, who must have scrambled down the slope with their equipment while the firefighters were cutting my vehicle apart.

  “I’m a doctor,” I tell them. “What are your names?”

  “I’m Carrie, and this is Bubba.”

  I can’t move my neck, but I can shift my gaze to Bubba, who looks like a bouncer with a brush cut. The name suits him.

  Carrie, on the other hand, is a pretty, petite blonde who appears extremely focused and capable as she wraps a blood pressure cuff around my arm. I give her a few seconds to read the dial and release the air in the cuff.

  “What’s my BP?” I ask.

  “It’s excellent. One twenty-six over eighty-five.”

  “That’s a bit high for me, but given the situation, I’ll take it.”

  Others gather around to transport me up the hill.

  “How’s your pain?” she asks.

  “Manageable. My legs are sore, and these abrasions on my face are stinging a bit, but it’s nothing I can’t handle.”

  I’m aware of Troy still at my side, helping the paramedics carry me up the steep slope, which is no easy task because the rocks and debris are unsteady.

  As luck would have it, it begins to rain. Soon enough, I’m feeling ice pellets on my cheeks, and I’m forced to close my eyes.

  A moment later, we are cresting the top of the embankment and are back up on the road. The gurney wheels touch down.

  Again, I ask, “Has anyone reached my husband yet?”

  “I’m not sure. We’ll check on that,” Carrie says.

  “And has anyone seen my dog?”

  Carrie is busy pushing my gurney toward the ambulance. She slips and slides on the ice. “You had a dog with you?”

  “Yes.”

  Troy helps me out. “He’s a golden retriever. His name is Winston.” Troy leans over me. “Don’t worry, Abbie. We’re looking for him. I promise we’ll find him.”

  “I really need to know that he’s okay.”

  Troy nods and leaves my side to see if there’s been an update.

  I wish I could sit up and look around, but I’m strapped tightly to the gurney, and the neck brace is restricting. There’s even a strap across my forehead, and two red foam blocks press against my ears, so I can’t turn left or right. All I can see is the cloudy night sky over the paramedics’ heads and the glistening freezing rain coming down in curtains as Carrie and Bubba prepare to slide me into the back of the ambulance.

  I hear a lot of commotion from the rescue vehicles on the road, and the cops are directing traffic.

  I say to Carrie, “Was anyone else hurt? Please tell me no one was killed.”

  “The other driver is on his way to the hospital right now,” she answers. “Still alive.”

  “That’s good news, at least.”

  Bubba grips the front leg-release levers, and they slide me in.

  “But I don’t understand how this even happened,” I say. “He just crossed the center line for no reason. It wasn’t even raining then.”

  “Yeah, well . . . ,” Bubba replies. “It may not have been raining at the time, but the other guy smells like he’s been swimming in a sea of booze all day.”

  “What?” I feel an explosion of rage in my belly. The other driver was drinking? My hands clench into fists, but I don’t have time for anger, because they’re about to close the ambulance doors.

  “Wait. Please . . . I don’t want to leave without my dog. Winston!” I shout, hoping he’ll hear me and come running.

  My heart rate accelerates.

  Carrie speaks reassuringly while she secures the gurney inside the vehicle. “Don’t worry, Abbie. Troy’s a dog lover. He’ll do everything he can to find Winston. But we really have to get you to the hospital.”

  Bubba closes the ambulance doors, and I feel a lump form in my throat. I want to cry because I can’t bear for Winston to think for one second that I’ve abandoned him.

  And what about Alan? Does he even know about my accident yet? I ask Carrie to try calling him again, but there’s still no answer. I ask her to call Zack, but he must be on the ice by now. He doesn’t answer either.

  Please . . . I need my family.

  At last, I ask Carrie to call my mother, and she gets through. She holds the phone to my ear so that I can speak to Mom and reassure her that I’m okay.

  Mom begins to cry, but I tell her not to worry.

  She pulls herself together and says she’ll meet me at the hospital. Carrie ends the call, and we speed toward Lunenburg, sirens blaring.

  It’s hard not to think about the drunk driver and how badly I want to shake him and shout at him for being so stupid and irresponsible, but my anger won’t change anything. At least not now. He was injured in this accident too.

  And what about Winston? It’s killing me to imagine where he might be. What if he’s lost and alone in the woods? Traumatized by what happened? Fearful of the noisy rescue vehicles? He’s terrified of fireworks. He always darts into a corner and shake
s.

  Please, Troy . . . please find him.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “I have half a mind to march over there and tie a knot in his oxygen tube,” my mother says under her breath as she sits by my side in the ER.

  My x-ray shows no broken bones, but I have a gash on my head, which explains my headache and why they want to keep me for overnight observation. Otherwise, I’m remarkably unscathed, with just minor cuts and bruises. My neck brace has been removed, but I have to wait for further treatments because it’s a small rural hospital with limited resources, and the drunk driver in the trauma room is the priority at the moment.

  “Mom . . . ,” I say with a hint of scolding in my tone, but of course I know she would never actually do such a thing. Besides, I can’t blame her for being angry. If something like this happened to Zack, I’d probably want to murder the drunk driver too. Metaphorically speaking.

  Another part of me wants to go to the trauma room and lend a hand, because I’m a qualified medical professional and I understand how stressful this must be for the team, with so few doctors and nurses on duty.

  If it had been up to me, I would have rushed the guy to a larger trauma center in Halifax, but it wasn’t my judgment call. Maybe the paramedics were worried about making the longer trip in the freezing rain.

  “Has the pain medication kicked in yet?” my mother asks.

  I nod and try to relax on the pillow.

  They’ve given me a shot of Toradol, a nondrowsy anti-inflammatory, and while part of me wishes it were something stronger, I know it’s important to keep me coherent to monitor my head injury. They’ve already asked me all the usual questions: Do I know what day it is? Do I know where I am? Do I know who this woman sitting beside me is?

  The blood on my face came from a deeper laceration on the top of my head, most likely caused by Winston’s claws as he was thrown around inside the vehicle.

  Thinking of him again, I turn to Mom. “Would you mind asking Carrie to come in? I want to find out if they’ve found Winston yet. And could you try Alan again?”

  Mom digs her cell phone out of her purse and dials Alan’s number.

  “Still no answer,” she says as she rises from her chair to look for Carrie.

  I glance at the clock. It’s just after nine. Zack is still on the ice, and since I’m more or less okay, I see no reason to pull him out in the middle of the game. It’s an important one. But maybe that’s crazy. I don’t know. I can’t think straight.

  While I’m waiting for news from Carrie, I take the opportunity to call the hospital where I work and let them know I won’t be able to perform the surgery I have scheduled in the morning. The head nurse tells me not to worry. They’ll reschedule things and get one of the other surgeons to cover for me for a few days. She tells me to take care of myself. “That’s the most important thing,” she says.

  I end the call and try to be patient while I wait for the ER doc to return and stitch me up.

  Carrie walks into the private examination area behind the blue curtain. “Everything okay?” she asks.

  I lift my head off the pillow. “Yes, but we still haven’t been able to reach my husband. I don’t know where he is and why he’s not answering. I wish we could get ahold of him.” I shut my eyes and shake my head. “I’m sorry . . . I know there’s nothing you can do about that. Is there any word about my dog?”

  Her compassionate eyes meet mine, and I already know the answer before she tells me.

  “I called Troy five minutes ago. He’s off duty now, and he called a few friends to help him search the woods. They’ve also put out an informal APB on Winston. The cops are keeping an eye out.”

  “My word. Your dog is a fugitive,” Mom says to me as if scandalized, hoping to cheer me up with a joke.

  I appreciate the attempt, but nothing will cheer me more than news that they’ve found him alive and well. Or that Alan has finally received all the messages we’ve left and is on his way.

  “Thanks, Carrie,” I say. “Let me know if you hear anything.”

  “I will.”

  She turns to go, and I wonder how the other driver is doing. Despite the fact that he brought this on himself and almost killed me in the process, I can’t help but feel sorry for him and his family. I wonder how old he is. Is he a teenager with his whole life ahead of him, like Zack, with parents who love him and are beside themselves with worry? Or is he a parent? Does he have children who need him?

  Ten minutes later, Carrie sweeps the blue privacy curtain aside and appears with a cardboard Bankers Box. “Good news. They found your purse and a bunch of stuff from your car.” She carries the box closer to the bed. “Lieutenant Smith said it was like a debris field on the road and down the slope of the ravine. They tried to collect as much as they could, but it was dark. If anything is missing, you might find it tomorrow in the daylight.”

  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.