I was aware of the blast before I heard it. The back of my neck stung as if it had been hit by a thousand tiny pins, followed by a whoosh! as my rear window exploded into the backseat. The right wheels of my Toyota hit the soft shoulder, and the steering wheel spun wildly, catching my right thumb and jerking it painfully as I tried to regain control of the vehicle. Somehow I wrestled the car back onto the road, but something wasn’t right, and it took all my strength to keep from plunging into the ditch. The way the car pulled toward the shoulder, I suspected my right front tire was flat.
Even in that crippled condition, I was still going fifty-five when I reached the pond and I realized with absolute certainty that barring a miracle, I wouldn’t make it around the curve. I pressed both feet on the brake pedal, sending the car fishtailing across the centerline. As I pulled back into my lane, I was vaguely aware that the dark van was still with me, but I was too busy to think about much more than slowing the car down. Hold on, Hannah! Here we go!
My car sailed over the ditch, shot through a hedge, ripped through a barbed-wire fence, and plunged, nose first, into the murky water of the Baxters’ pond. The last thought I had before everything went dark was not of Paul or Emily or the fear of dying but: Oh, damn, I’m going to ruin Connie’s scarf.
13
Angels. I hadn’t expected angels.
In the silence following the crash, two of them swam before my face. My eyes gradually focused, and I realized that my angels were air bags that had deployed, saving my life.
The car had nose-dived into the pond at a forty-five-degree angle, and I found myself sitting in water up to my hips, trapped in the driver’s seat by my seat belt. By the time I’d figured out that I wasn’t actually dead and that I’d need to do something, the water had risen to my waist.
I pushed the red release button with my thumb, and as the seat belt recoiled, I floated up a few inches. Get out, Hannah! I felt frantically along the door and finally located the door handle a few inches underwater. I wrapped grateful fingers around it and pulled. But when I pushed at the door with my shoulder, it wouldn’t budge. Oh, God! What had I seen on TV? Wait for the pressure to equalize, something like that. Easy enough for actors to say. With rising panic I waited, watching the water creep up to my chest. When it was even with the window, I tried again to open the driver’s side door. It still wouldn’t move.
A dead animal floated by. I was trying to put as much distance between me and the poor creature as I could, when I realized it was only my wig. I reached for it and noticed splotches of red on the blazer I’d borrowed from Connie. Blood? Where was it coming from? I touched my cheeks, my forehead, my nose. Oh, Lord! Blood was pouring from my nose and dripping all over Connie’s precious scarf! I felt with all five fingers along the bridge of my nose and was relieved to discover that nothing appeared to be broken.
By then the water had filled the glove compartment, which hung open with the owner’s manual floating about inside, still in its plastic cover. This car, I thought, is a goner. But not me! I’d worked too hard to live-through the triple ordeal of surgery, recovery, and months of chemotherapy. I wasn’t about to let a couple of demented juvenile delinquents take my life. Not without a fight anyway!
Open the window! I pushed on the button, but nothing happened. The engine’s dead, you dope! The electric windows aren’t going to work.
I pushed fruitlessly against the driver’s side window and began to get hysterical. Take deep breaths, Hannah. Breathe! You can do this. I floated over to the passenger side of the front seat, fumbled for the door handle, pulled it toward me, and then pushed outward. Much to my relief, the door opened as the car was, by now, nearly full of water. A sizable pocket of air remained between the dome light and what was left of my rear window. With my face hovering near the ceiling I gulped in some precious air, held my breath and, kicking hard, swam out of the car and bobbed to the surface. Still clutching my wig, I swam a few yards and turned to tread water as I watched my car tilt and teeter, list and slide on its inexorable way to Toyota heaven, that happy scrap yard in the sky.
I splashed about, feeling for the bottom of the pond with my feet. Where’s my damn purse? I remembered throwing it into the backseat and thought briefly about diving down to retrieve it until visions of Chappaquidick rose unbidden to my brain, and reason prevailed. Instead, I swam the short distance to shore, waded onto the muddy bank, pulled myself out, and lay back, panting, on a patch of tall grass. When I dared to look, my trusty Toyota, barely two years old, disappeared into the pond with a final blub-blub-blub as water poured over the bumper and my Save the Bay vanity plate.
I don’t know how long I lay on the bank of the pond, trying to regain control of my breathing. In. Out. Calm down, Hannah. The utter silence surprised me. Baxter’s ducks and chickens must be laying low. No frogs ribbiting. No crickets chirping. In this tiny town where the populace seemed to communicate by some form of rural telepathy, I expected help to materialize at any moment. Police cars, an ambulance, the volunteer fire brigade. But if it hadn’t been for the bubbles rising from the center of the pond and the concentric rings spreading across its surface, lapping in tiny waves at my feet, I might have dreamed the whole episode. Except for the blood.
Lying there in my sodden, borrowed clothes, I began to shake as the adrenaline rush subsided and a light breeze began to cool my skin. I wrapped my arms around my chest, hugged myself for warmth, and waited. And waited. No mounted cavalry cresting the hill. Prince Charming was busy, hiding out from the wicked press in Cape Cod. And there wasn’t a sign of Hal or Dennis, so no knight in shining armor to the rescue either.
Regretting that real life wasn’t much like the movies, I started to walk.
“My God, Hannah, you’re bleeding!” Connie screamed this into an ear that was still ringing with the echo of an already deafening shotgun blast.
“It’s just a bloody nose.” I ripped a paper towel from the roll and used it to wipe my face. I looked down at the mud and blood that dotted the blazer and scarf I had borrowed from Connie. “But I’m afraid I’ve ruined your scarf.”
“Never mind about that.” She pushed me in the direction of a kitchen chair. “What on earth happened?”
“Some maniacs ran me off the road and into the Baxters’ pond.” I began to shiver. “This just isn’t my week, Connie.”
Connie disappeared into her studio, came back with the familiar afghan, and wrapped it around my shoulders. “I’m calling the doctor.”
That was the last thing I needed, but I didn’t say so. “No, Connie, don’t do that. I’m fine. Really. I just need a hot bath. A good, long soak.”
“Dennis, then.” I didn’t argue with that.
While she went to the phone, I peeled off my ruined clothes and settled into a lovely tub of vanilla-scented bubble bath. I was gingerly feeling around my scalp for cuts when Connie rapped twice and poked her head around the door. “Dennis will be here in fifteen minutes.” The door closed, then opened again almost immediately, as if she’d forgotten to tell me something. Connie entered, lowered the toilet seat lid, and sat on it. “And I’m not leaving you until he gets here.”