Imperfect Spiral (28 page)

What is soothing? Nothing. Nothing comes to mind. Okay, here's something soothing: sleep. I'll visualize my bed, sleeping in my bed. But that makes me think of my really unacceptable morning bed-head. And my very favorite sleep shirt, which is very comfortable but hideous and not for anyone's eyes but my own. Also not helpful.

“Ms. Snyder,” Council Member A's voice, amplified by a microphone, brings me back. “May I call you Danielle?”

I nod.

“All of us here on the council share your pain at what was certainly a traumatic and heartbreaking experience. No one here wants to cause you, or the Danker family, any additional pain. No one here blames you for what happened.”

Council Member B: “Our questions for you today are simply to assist us in determining whether certain improvements to Quarry Road would be appropriate in light of the accident that resulted in Humphrey Danker's death. We do not hold you, no one holds you, responsible for that tragedy.”

I am not going to be able to keep the names of these people straight. To me, they are A, B, etc.

Council Member A: “Maybe it would be most helpful if we started by having you tell us, in your own words, the sequence of events that led to the accident.”

I open my mouth to speak. Nothing comes out.

Council Member A: “Is your microphone not working, Danielle?”

The microphone is fine. I clear my throat. Imagine the beach—no, don't imagine the beach. Imagine the park. The crummy park, mine and Humphrey's and Justin's. The little jungle gym. Imagine the Bumble-Boos.

Humphrey.
Say something interesting
, he said to me.
Something highly interesting
.

I start talking.

I give them the big picture. How we were walking home from the park along Quarry Road. Eastbound, on the north side of the street. (I have mastered the points of the compass.) Facing the westbound traffic, not that there was much of that. Not walking in the street, but on the shoulder, way over where the pavement meets the brush and weeds and where the trees are.

I am holding a football. Humphrey is walking beside me, mostly. I am holding his hand, mostly. But at some point we drop hands. At some point, the football pops out from where I have it tucked between my right arm and hip. It goes bouncing into the street. Humphrey runs after it. I see a silver car heading westbound, and a pickup truck and white car heading eastbound. I don't notice the blue minivan until later.

Council Member A: “I understand it was around seven thirty at night when the accident happened. How much visibility would you say you had, walking along Quarry Road?”

Me: “Uh—I had enough visibility. I mean, I could see.”

Council Member C: “But the question really is, how well drivers can see pedestrians.”

Council Member D: “How safe and secure did you feel walking along the shoulder on Quarry Road?”

Me: “I felt okay walking on the shoulder. It's where I've always walked. Everyone walks there. There's a lot of room, so you're away from the traffic. And, anyway, there weren't many cars on that side of the road, at least not that time of day.”

Council Member A: “Yes, the westbound lane of Quarry Road is fairly quiet in the evening rush hour. It's the eastbound lane that carries most of the traffic that time of day.”

Council Member D: “If there had been a sidewalk there, though, would you have still walked in the street?”

What a stupid question.

Now here is something highly interesting: I had begun to see, kind of out of the corner of my eye, the evil wave of panic edging toward me. I saw it, and I felt it in my throat. Then came the stupid question. It pushed the scary fear right back to wherever it comes from. Like Moses pushing back the Red Sea just by stretching out his hand.

Me: “I'd walk on the sidewalk if there was a sidewalk.”

Council Member D: “You would have walked on the sidewalk, and not on the side of the busy road.”

Me: “Yes. Yes, of course I would have.”

Council Member D: “You understand, young lady, no one
blames you. You had nowhere else to walk. But if a sidewalk were built alongside Quarry Road, it seems to me future tragedies might be avoided.”

He's not really talking to me, but rather to the audience.

Council Member E: “I'd like to get back to the question of visibility. There are no streetlights on Quarry Road. You said you had ‘enough visibility.' Now of course, you're not an expert, but can you tell us what makes you say there was enough light?”

Me: “I could see. I saw the cars. I saw Humphrey. I could—I don't know, I could see everything.”

Council Member B: “The sun didn't set that day until eight fifteen p.m.”

Me: “And the moon rose at six forty-eight p.m. And it was almost full.”

At least three sets of eyebrows go up among the council people.

Me: “Humphrey liked knowing that sort of thing, about when the moon rose and the stars came out.”

Council Member E: “So you're saying, in your opinion, there was
plenty
of light for a young woman, and a child, walking along the street that night. The street lined with tall shade trees.”

From the way he says “plenty”—lots of emphasis—I think he thinks there couldn't possibly have been plenty of light.

Me: “It wasn't dark. I could see everything. I think the cars
could see us. But everything happened so fast. Sometimes accidents just happen.”

As I continue talking, I can see the possibility for everything to work out okay: Humphrey, in the street, but still in the lane on our side, sees that the ball is
BOING
-ing its way to the other lane, the one with all the cars. He may be only five, young enough to forget, momentarily, while under the spell of a bouncing football, that you don't run into the street. But he's smart enough to know not to run after a ball into a lane of traffic. He turns back and looks at me for guidance.

I'm about to scream at him to run back to me. I'm about to run into the street to grab him. But I do neither, because suddenly I see the silver car zooming down Quarry Road toward us—toward Humphrey, to be precise.

When I say “zooming”—do I even know if it's speeding? I don't. The cars in the other lane, heading east, are moving slowly because there are so many more of them. “Zoom” is a relative term.

So as the silver car approaches, I am paralyzed. Can Humphrey make it back to me before the silver car? If I were better at math, I could calculate this: the distance between the silver car and Humphrey, divided by the car's estimated rate of speed, equals how long before the car will arrive at the point where Humphrey is standing. Is this greater or less than the number
that equals the distance between Humphrey and me, divided by Humphrey's rate of speed?

Or maybe the silver car will notice Humphrey in the street, and stop.

When Humphrey sees the silver car, at first he is paralyzed, too. What he really needs to do is just inch over to the center of the roadway. He needs to get over there and stand just on the bright double yellow line, not in the way of the eastbound traffic, and out of the path of the westbound silver car, which will soon be past him. That is all he has to do. Make himself small for a few seconds. There's no car behind the silver one, so once it's passed by, I'll dash out and grab him and drag him back to safety.

But Humphrey takes matters into his own hands. Runs away from the silver car. Away from me. And into the traffic in the eastbound lane.

There are a few seconds of what I would call respectful silence; respectful, since I've just replayed Humphrey's death in front of two hundred people. And then:

Council Member C: “The silver car is mentioned in the police report.”

Council Member B: “There is no suggestion that Humphrey was struck by that automobile.”

Council Member F: “Perhaps we should be thinking about
the speed limit on Quarry Road, since it is downhill going west….”

Council Member G: “The police report does not indicate that the car was speeding down the hill—”

Council Member C: “And yet we are not limited here to the police report. The point of having our own hearing is to elicit facts that may not be in the report.”

Council Member G: “Yes, but I don't wish for us to be distracted by, for want of a better term, facts not in evidence. I know we're not held to legal standards here, but Ms. Snyder is not saying that the silver car was speeding, is she? Are you?”

Me: “No. I'm not. I don't know what the speed limit even is. Maybe I shouldn't have said ‘zoom.' All I'm saying is the silver car was heading down the hill in our direction. And I think Humphrey ran to get away from it.”

Council Member E: “As you say, Ms. Snyder, in a situation such as the one you faced, everything happens so fast. In view of this, I'm of the opinion that it would be beneficial to pedestrians and to drivers to improve the lighting on Quarry Road, and it would also behoove us to take a serious, serious look at sidewalks, as well as crosswalks and crossing signals at appropriate intervals on this thoroughfare.”

Right. We are talking about road improvements. On another note, wouldn't Humphrey love the word “behoove”?

I hear murmurings in the audience.
Mm-hmm
. A couple of people applaud, and then a lot of people applaud. These people want their road improvements.

I have to admit, although my heart goes out to the Littleleaf Linden trees that may lose their lives if sidewalks and stuff are put in, I don't care much one way or another about streetlights and sidewalks and crosswalks and crossing signals. If people want to “improve” Quarry Road, whatever; I'm not going to live here forever. I can just see them naming a lamppost after Humphrey and feeling all warm and righteous about that.

Council Member F: “But you're correct, Ms. Snyder, when you remind us that sometimes accidents just happen. This was one of those accidents where no one is to blame, least of all you.”

I've now been told by a majority of the county council that I am blameless. It's like they passed a law about it. This should make me feel good, right? But instead, this vote of confidence punctures something inside of me, something that feels like a balloon between my ears. It's the audio blackout my brain has imposed on the accident from the moment I dropped that football; it's dissolving. The white noise that has been the sound track of the accident suddenly lifts, and the sounds and words take shape.

Me: “Actually—I
am
to blame. Or, at least, I'm the cause. It's not the street's fault. It's not some driver's fault. It's me.”

Council Members A–G: “No, no, no. Unfortunate-blah-blah. Circumstances-blah-blah. Safety-issues-blah-blah.”

Me: “No, really. I was there. I take back what I said. Yes, sometimes accidents just happen. But this wasn't one of them.”

Humphrey and I walked along Quarry Road, holding hands, as we had so many times before.

“Oh!” Humphrey said suddenly. He stopped and dropped my hand. “Look!”

It was a huge moon, orange above the trees.

“Whoa,” I said.

“Whoa,” he said.

“Okay,” I said after we were done admiring the moon, “now we really have to get going. I think when we get home it'll be time for—”

“Second Dessert!” Humphrey said.

He started to run ahead of me.

“Humphrey!” I called.

He came back. We walked together, talking about what there was in the house for Second Dessert besides juice pops.

“You're too slow!” Humphrey said. “Let's run!”

“You have to stay right next to me,” I said, but I did break into a slow jog. At first, he ran right by my side. Humphrey was a good listener and followed directions. But soon he fell behind—even jogging slowly, with my long legs, I easily pulled ahead of Humphrey—so I turned around. When he saw me stopped and facing him, he put on some speed.