With less to worry about I silently wished them luck.
Tracy was unable to fly on a commercial airline due to her cast so a medical transport plane was suggested in order to get her home. We were delayed an additional day because the insurance company that covered Tracy did not want to pay for such a thing because they felt it was unnecessary. I had a little talk with them while Mom was out of the room, mentioning things like lawyers and lawsuits and media coverage. They listened to me and eventually saw it my way, making the arrangements, not just for the plane but for ambulance transportation from the Spokane Airport and for a hospital bed and visiting nurses at our house. I thanked them politely and hung up.
Tracy said goodbye to the nurses that had cared for her and to Dr. Kwack. An ambulance picked her up and drove her to the airport where they loaded her onto a twin-engine prop plane that was designed just for such things. It was staffed with two nurses in addition to the pilot. Mom rode with her after giving the small plane more than a few nervous glances. Dad and I had a flight back to Spokane in another two hours on a commercial jet and would actually arrive home first. We watched the small plane climb into the sky and disappear into the clouds.
I'd told Dad about my conversation with Tracy and he was shocked to hear of her greed and feelings before the accident but also pleased to hear about her apparent conversion after the accident. As we waited in the lounge before our flight was called, Dad drinking a beer, me drinking a soda, he asked me about what I thought the meaning of all this was.
"So the accident that Tracy was supposed to have has happened," he said, taking a sip. "But she's still alive. What does that mean?"
"I've been thinking about that," I told him, envying the beer he had. "And the answer is, I'm not sure."
"You're not sure."
I shook my head. "I can see it both ways. For one, all of the requirements of the accident were allowed to come together and it occurred. Though Tracy didn't die, probably because she had forewarning of the accident, it has happened. So maybe it can't happen again. But on the other hand, Tracy was supposed to die in the accident. But she didn't. Will fate keep trying to get her? Will it try to arrange another accident? Maybe, maybe not. Again I believe that the basic premise still holds. The longer Tracy stays alive, the more likely it is that fate will accept her being here. What confuses me however is the fact that she's been in taxi-cabs before without any problem."
"What do you mean?" Dad asked.
"She's been in the exact same circumstances before in Berkeley and nothing happened to her there. She told me that they even drove along the Bay a few times. Part of me wants to think that there is no fate and that everything is just random chance. But I can't believe that since the accident was almost exactly the same as it was supposed to be. It just doesn't make any sense that earlier, when the pull to put things right was stronger, that fate didn't seize the opportunity on one of her cab rides. How much of this IS random? Can fate send a cab driver that is drunk when Tracy hails a cab?
Or does it have to wait until a drunk one just happens to cross her path? Before, I would have thought that if Tracy tried to get into a car as a passenger that fate would automatically have arranged to have a drunken cab driver there. Remember, it wants to put things right. So if fate was trying to get her and all of the conditions had been met, why hadn't…" I trailed off, a thought suddenly coming. ALL of the conditions?
"What?" Dad asked.
"Jesus." I said softly. "Could it really have been that simple?"
"What do you mean?" He repeated.
I told him what I was thinking. He raised his eyebrows thoughtfully.
"Interesting," he muttered. "Sounds like you need to ask Tracy about this, but maybe you've hit upon it."
"Wow," I said, shaking my head, thinking that Tracy was going to be pissed if that was the truth.
Tracy was installed in a hospital bed in my Dad's den since her old room was upstairs and moving her up and down would have been damn near impossible. Her chest tube and her IV had been removed before leaving Reno and she was given strong oral analgesics in place of the Demerol that she'd been taking.
The catheter remained and Mom was given instructions by the nurse on how to empty it and how to keep an eye on the output. She was given a supply of bedpans for her other bodily functions. The nurse was scheduled to stop by twice a day to check on her, give her a sponge bath, and to make sure she was healing up. Arrangements were made for further treatment at a local hospital and later, at a local physical therapy facility.
We moved in a TV, a stereo, and her record collection, putting all of it in easy reach. We brought in books, magazines and everything else we thought would make her comfortable in her little prison. She was obviously not happy to be bedridden but her spirits seemed high as she settled in. She fell into an exhausted sleep shortly after dinner so I never had a chance to be alone with her, to ask her what I suspected.
Though I was tired myself I was also going into withdrawal from not having seen Nina in nearly a week. I called her up and she came over. We spent two hours on the porch swing just talking, occasionally sharing a kiss. She went home around ten o'clock and I went by Tracy's new room on the way upstairs. My sister was snoring the snores of those on narcotics. I went upstairs and fell asleep the moment I was undressed and in bed.
The next morning was Saturday. Mom prepared one of her famous, high cholesterol though nearly as good as sex breakfasts. Dad and I ate at the table while Mom ate in the den with Tracy. After all of the dishes were done and put away Tracy said she was going to read for a while and then maybe catch a nap before the nurse showed up to check on her. Her morning medication was working strongly upon her and she seemed quite cheery.
Mom and Dad flipped on the TV and went about the task of reading the newspaper. I wandered out of the room and into Tracy's. She was lying awake in the bed, a book open on her chest, the radio playing the local rock station softly.
"Book no good?" I asked her.
She smiled. "I don't know," she said. "This medicine they gave me has got my mind a little fuzzy. I read two pages of it and then realized I couldn't remember a single thing I'd just read. Music is a little better, much better in fact." She raised her eyebrows and I noted that I could actually see her right eye a little now. "In fact, I think a little Pink Floyd would go nicely with this stuff. You think maybe I could borrow a few of your albums?"
"What's mine is yours," I told her. "I'll go get them in a minute. Do you mind if I sit down for a second?"
"Sure," she said. "What's up?"
I grabbed Dad's desk chair and pulled it over next to the bed. "I've been thinking about all of this fate stuff," I told her.
"Yeah," she said, disgusted. "Fucking fate."
I nodded in agreement. "Yeah," I said. "Anyway, I was kind of thrown for a loop by the fact that you'd been in cabs before in Berkeley and you never had any problems with that. In light of what happened to you, doesn't that strike you as a little strange?"
"As a matter of fact," she said, "it does. I've been wondering about that myself. I didn't see cabs as a threat so I willingly climbed into them more than once. If fate was out to get me then why didn't it go for me earlier?"
"We thought we had all the pre-conditions for your accident worked out," I said. "Water, drunk driver, automobile. We thought that was everything. But what if that wasn't everything?"