The Accident (24 page)

She chooses one pair and stands straighter, studying her reflection. How long since she’s dressed up? She hasn’t been to signings or readings in years, and she has most of her meetings with her editors here or over the phone.

Lauren is waiting for us downstairs, holding her jacket impatiently. She was already set to go before, when I returned from my run with Kayla, still grinning despite myself.

‘Are we going or what?’

I must have been only nine or ten when I first dreamed the dream. Every time I dream it, it’s as though I’m right back there, a skinny, shy fourth-grader.

By that point Mum’s writing had become a firmly entrenched part of our family life. In my dream she came home one day with a shiny clunky metal thing.

‘A shredder,’ she says. ‘For turning paper into snow.’ Then she starts to pull all her old bundles of manuscripts down from the top of the wardrobe, where Dad once kept his things, ripping the brown paper off one and feeding the cover sheet through. We watch with goosebumps as the machine churns and the paper is sliced into long, white strips.

‘I want to try! My turn!’ we all cry, and Mum stands aside to let us slice open the bundles and feed the pages through, never once pausing to look at the closely typed words covering them. Morgan is sent running to fetch buckets to catch the strips, and when we finish the last pages Mum stands at the top of the stairs and tips the bucketfuls down over us, one at a time, letting the pieces float down like snow, while we dance underneath like the heathens our grandmother says we are.

Among my sisters’ squeals I found myself falling silent as I stood, watching the paper snow falling, falling, and I felt something spreading through me, a slow rush of relief like a breeze through my veins. Time stopped, and I floated, and my body was separate from my mind and my thoughts. I looked up, and my mother was standing at the top of the stairs, last bucket emptied, leaning against the railing and staring as I was at the floating pieces, seeing them like I was, slowly, slowly, like falling snow. And in my dream, even at eight, I could feel, if not understand, what a powerful moment it was. Only years later did I discover the word for it. Catharsis.

The show is sold out, so we stand up the back, watching not just the action on the stage but the reaction from the audience. There’s an energy to the show tonight, more confidence than last time, and it shows.

I stand between them, Mum on my right and Lauren on my left, watching, feeling their warmth and hearing their breathing. Conscious that this might be the last time we’ll be together for a long time to come. Feeling some sort of peace between us, something of that moment in the dream where everything slowed down and it brought us all together, flawed as we are.

My sister will go to New Zealand, and maybe she will sort herself out, and find inner peace and all that crap. Mum will keep writing, because she doesn’t know what else to do, but maybe she’ll find a way of balancing that with caring about our lives. Maybe I’ll get better at reminding her to do it.

Falling, falling like snow. Clapping.

Knowing that this one act, this one moment, isn’t everything; but hoping it will be enough.

Paper snow and peace rushing like wind through my veins. Catharsis.

before
after
later

Wipe my tears and runny nose on the back of my sleeve. Try not to think of her. Try to think of anything, anything at all that will hurt less, like the stupid things I’ve done and the poor abused kids whose lives mine has collided with, but those things, those stupid things that have kept me awake so many nights, are completely outweighed by the single thought, the single word. One stupid little accident who means more to me than anyone and anything else ever could.

I’m proving myself, Terry. Proving I do know the best thing for Tash, and that it’s not me. Won’t be long till she’s making permanent memories and it’s the best thing for her if I’m not in them. Might just be the only decent thing I’ll ever do for her.

Rain. Starts with just a splatter or two, then starts pelting down, makes it hard to see. Makes me cry all the harder. God, if he’s up there, is crying with me.

Rain gets heavier, starts pounding down. Terry’s long-awaited low-pressure system in all its glory. Thunder and lightning start to roll and crack. Tash will be scared, she hates storms.

Street lights up ahead stutter and go off. Road is dark, with passing blurs of red tail-lights and flashes of headlights. Wind drives the rain under the eaves of the bus shelter. Shoes getting wet, jeans start to stick to my legs.

And then it all happens fast. Fast, but slow. A car, almost invisible in the dark and rain, no headlights, coming from my right. Black car. In front of me, headlights surging suddenly out from the side street, white beams penetrating the haze of raindrops.

In my mind, somehow calm, aware of the inevitability: they’re going to hit. There’s about to be a collision.

Half step backwards, as if the bus shelter will protect me.

Neither car has time to stop, and the brakes screech and wheels lock and start to swerve but not enough and they’re going to hit.

I physically recoil at the moment of impact. Trip on my bag, put a hand out to catch myself, unable to draw my eyes away. Cars crumpling into each other. Flinch away, eyes squeezed shut. Hearing the tear and crunch of metal long after it’s actually stopped; feeling it like a slow-motion slamming punch to the face.

Open. Watch. Both cars spinning, spinning, and then slowing, like the end of a teacup ride at Disneyland. Don’t know how long it actually takes. Feels like forever. Then a long second of deafening stillness.

I’m pretty sure someone just died.

Run. Door of the black car opens and a guy half falls out and starts puking on the road. Past him, to the white car, crumpled against the brick wall. Smoke pouring from the front half. Most of the bonnet gone, compacted into nothing. Front windscreen shattered.

Reach for the front passenger door. Doorframe is buckled, door jammed. Round to the other side, and the driver’s door comes free. In the dark, make out a girl sitting there. My age, maybe. Not moving. Dead? Front of the car has caved in on her, airbag deflated.

In the passenger seat a boy, pinned by the bent frame of the car, chest swallowed up by the dislodged dashboard. Everything’s covered in blood. Air smells like iron and gunpowder. Rain slices through the open door.

A sound, like a gurgle, from the girl. Sound of running footsteps coming up behind me. Step back into the full force of the pounding rain. Wet fringe sticking to me, getting in my eyes.

‘Here,’ I call. Shaky voice. ‘I think she’s still alive.’

She’s alive. But he’s dead.

Bile in my throat. Swallow it down.

The man’s out of breath from running. Pushes past me, leans into the car, says something. Draws back, blood already on his shirtsleeves. Reaches into his pocket, then tosses me something. His phone, now with bloody fingerprints on it.

‘Call an ambulance.’

Watch him with the girl in the car as I give the details to the operator. He gestures for the phone, and I hand it to him. Without asking, he grabs my hand and presses it down on the girl’s thigh, his hand on top of mine, pushing so hard it hurts. Talks fast, out of breath. ‘Keep pressure on this. Whatever you do, don’t let go.’

Want to whimper or back off or say no but know that I can’t. Lean over the girl, putting all my body weight on her leg. Feel the blood squirm between my fingers, warm and sticky. He touches my back. ‘I’ll be right back. Keep the pressure on.’

Listen to his shoes slapping the wet road as he runs. Count the long seconds. Watch the girl draw one shallow breath, then another. She moves slightly. Groans. After twenty-six seconds the footsteps return and a blinding light floods the car’s interior.

‘She still breathing?’

Squint, trying to see again. My eyes adjust and I see he’s holding a heavy-duty torch in one hand and bag in the other. First-aid kit. Look back and see how very bright red the blood is, and try not to feel sick.

‘I think she’s waking up.’

He checks her again in the light. Points me to a black bag he’s tossed on the ground. ‘Find me a bandage, the big triangular one. And the shock blanket.’

He works. I follow instructions: find, hold, put pressure here. The girl stirs, groans as he wraps the bandage tightly around her thigh to keep the pressure on. People come, murmuring and trying to hold up umbrellas against the relentless rain. Sirens. Ambos push through and I step back, still holding spare wads of gauze in my bloodied hands. A police officer gently takes the gauze from me, and asks for my statement. I hear the girl crying in the car, horrible groaning sobs.

He stays with her, talking to her, helping the paramedics. Dozens of people here now—police and fire brigade and ambulance officers, all dressed in their reflective night gear, yelling terse instructions to each other in the rain and pushing the crowd back as it inches closer again and again. Give my statement, then sit on the bench in the bus shelter, watching as they start to cut the frame of the car away.

Think of Tash, head lolling on Terry’s shoulder. Rose-Marie worrying about the rash. Know that some day I’ll have what it takes to do the parenting thing right, but for now I need parents as much as Tash does. And all I want to do is go home.

Kitchen light’s still on, weirdly normal. After the harsh light and shadows of the crash scene, it feels clean and safe and warm, even with nobody else home. Tash’s newest drawing on the fridge. She’s got the T and the S happening now.

Clothes are covered in blood, still wet after the rain. Peel them off and climb under the hot shower, watch the muddy brown water sluice down the drain. Put bloody clothes into the washing machine, unpack my bag, sit and wait.

Past one when they get home. Tash is asleep in Terry’s arms. Never been so glad to see them, but I don’t let on. Don’t want to scare them.

‘What did they say?’

‘They think it’s a reaction to the medicine. They’ve switched her onto a different one.’

Nod. Watch as he hands Tash to Rose-Marie. Tash stirs sleepily, thumb finding its way into her mouth. Rose-Marie carries her out of the room, off to bed.

Terry fetches himself a glass of water, then puts it down and looks at me. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Yeah.’ Pause, wanting to say something, not wanting to sound mushy. Think of the family who’ll be spending tonight in the hospital and won’t go home with such a simple diagnosis. ‘Just glad you guys are back.’

I gesture at the kitchen window. The rain is still hammering down outside, sheets of it sloshing against the glass. I hear a crack of lightning in the distance followed by a roll of thunder. ‘Your rain finally arrived.’

He nods. ‘The roads are chaos, took us an hour to get home.’ He gestures to the window. ‘This keeps up, we’ll easily get a hundred and fifty, two hundred millimetres in the next thirty-six to forty-eight hours.’

He sounds like the weather forecaster he is, like he should have a map and a pointer. I don’t care, though. Maybe on some subconscious level I’m remembering my various lives in the country, and how desperately everyone waited for rain. Or maybe it’s the cathartic quality of it, torrents of water to wash me clean. Either way, I just find myself feeling ridiculously, soberly thankful for it.