The woman at the bus stop checked her watch. She was on her way to work. She was the night manager for one of the national home-improvement centers and was waiting for the 9:09 bus to El Monte. She knew it would arrive at 9:15. For as long as she'd been riding that bus, it had arrived more often than not at 9:15. Why the bus authority didn't just list it in the time schedule as arriving at 9:15 was a mystery to her. ‘15’ would make much more sense—‘15’ was an increment of a quarter of an hour for Pete's sake. ‘09’ made no sense at all. The woman shook her head in resignation.
She looked up from her watch and saw a small silver car in the distance. It was racing as all get out toward the intersection. She could tell the car was trying to beat the light which had just turned yellow. She had an ugly feeling.
There was a small, grey car waiting at the red light that would soon turn green. The woman could see a young man in the driver's seat, a young girl in the front passenger seat, and another young girl in the back. It looked like all three were in an animated conversation. Either that or they were goofing to the music, which the woman couldn't hear, but she could feel the ‘thump-a, thump-a, thump-a’ of the bass.
With a sickening certainty, she saw in her mind's eye what would happen in the next three seconds—and there would be nothing she could do about it. The silver car would continue to accelerate. The yellow light would turn red. The red light would turn green. The grey car would start to move through the intersection, and just when it was in the direct path of the silver car, that silver car would cut straight through the grey car.
***
The extent of the damage to both cars was not surprising. Both were completely destroyed, nothing left but scattered pieces of charred and twisted metal. The force of the impact had been that violent. Officer Garvey, the first to arrive, muttered that the area looked less like an accident scene and more like a scrap metal yard with so much wreckage strewn about.
And scattered among that wreckage were bodies: the body of the dead teenage girl driving the silver car, the body of her dead older cousin, the body of the dead young man driving the grey car, and the bodies of his two young passengers. One was clearly dead, but the other held a spark of life. She had been rushed to the nearest trauma center.
***
Jane arrived at Good Samaritan Hospital a little before midnight. She tried desperately to hold on to just the tiniest piece of sanity as Dr. Pilke explained the severity of the situation. Dr. Pilke hated to be the one to deliver such horrific news to people—especially to parents about their children—but it came with her position as the lead surgeon, so she took a slow deep breath and just laid out the facts. She kept her voice calm and even as she explained to Jane, step by step, what actions had been taken to save her young daughter's life.
Finally, it was time for Jane to see for herself what was behind the double doors of the ICU recovery room. If the shock hadn't sucked the air out of her lungs, she would have screamed. Instead she went limp. The ICU nurse had been quick to wrap his arm around her shoulders before she hit the tile floor. He half led half dragged her to the chair by her daughter's bed and then hurried to get water.
While the nurse was away, Jane took several deep breaths and tried to make sense of the monstrous reality before her, the one that had swallowed her daughter's legs. Both had been amputated above the knee. God have mercy! But it was too late for that. God hadn't been merciful. Had he been, He would have taken only one leg, not both. God had been greedy. He'd also been cruel. Her daughter's left arm was missing below the elbow.
When the nurse returned with a bottle of water, he offered it to Jane, who was still in shock. She was staring numbly at her daughter's bandaged stump that only hours before had been extended to include a forearm, a wrist, and a hand. But those tangible pieces of her daughter were gone now, gone forever. Now there was just empty space.
Jane's fingers moved mechanically, twisting the cap off the water bottle. As she brought that bottle to her lips, she paused. Her eyes shifted to the cap in her right hand, and it was at that moment she awakened to the reality of just how dramatically her daughter's life had now changed. She would never again be able to perform simple tasks like the one Jane herself had just performed: removing a cap from a bottle.
‘If you need anything,’ said the nurse, ‘just press the call button.’ He hesitated before adding, ‘And please accept my condolences for the loss of your daughter . . . your other daughter.’
As he turned to leave, Jane stopped him.
Neither of her girls, Amy and Alexa, had carried identification. It was only after police interviewed the parents of the young male driver that they determined Jane's two girls had been the passengers in his car, and by the time Officer Garvey knocked on Jane's door and delivered the worst news of her life, her one surviving daughter had already come out of surgery. But which daughter?
Staring now at the bruised and swollen face of her—now—only child, Jane couldn't tell. She would need the help of this nurse to examine her daughter's lower back. Alexa had a small amount of scarring from multiple laser sessions to remove a tattoo of intertwined serpents she had gotten secretly when she was fifteen. If Jane saw scarring, Alexa lay in the hospital bed. If there was no scarring, it was Amy.
The nurse carefully rolled the sleeping, young girl on her side. There was no worry she would wake. She was in a medically induced coma to protect her brain against further swelling from the traumatic injury sustained during the accident.
With hesitant hands, Jane parted her daughter's hospital gown. The first thing she saw were red thong panties. Her heart sank. It was Alexa, not Amy. If Jane had any doubts, they were crushed by what she saw next: a purple orchid tattooed high on Alexa's right buttocks.
Alexa had been indifferent when Jane discovered those tattooed serpents, but that indifference quickly turned to fury when Jane threatened to withhold consent for Alexa's learner's permit unless Alexa agreed to have the tattoo removed. Jane now saw how pointless it had been to have forced her daughter into submission. After waiting until her skin had healed from the last laser session, Alexa had simply gotten another tattoo—this time a flower. The entire incident had only served to strain the already fragile relationship between mother and daughter.
After the nurse left the room, Jane buried her face in her hands and wept. Amy was the one who had died at the accident scene. Her beautiful, young Amy. Amy who always had a welcoming smile for her mother and never glared at her like Alexa so often did. Amy who never had an unkind word to say to her mother—not like Alexa who had gotten into the habit of telling her mother to ‘stop being such a bitch’ whenever they argued. Her sweet Amy, gone. Alexa, her rebellious wild child, alive.
Jane shook her head with bitterness and disbelief at God's cruelty. Why oh why couldn't Amy have been the one to survive?
As she blotted her eyes dry with fresh tissues from her purse, she considered calling Frank to let him know what had happened—he loved the girls as much as if they had been his own—but waking him with such devastating news this late at night would be too cruel. He would never be able to go back to sleep. In fact, he just might be foolish enough to cancel his business trip and make the four-hour drive back home immediately. Jane decided to wait until morning to call him.
A sudden peal of warning alarms startled her. She turned to her daughter's monitor. The alarms were coming from there. Something was wrong.
Within seconds the same nurse who had left the room only moments before came rushing back in. He checked Alexa's monitor then rushed back out shouting ‘code cart!’
Jane knew the monitor displayed her daughter's vital signs like blood pressure and pulse, but all the colored lines were flat.
And then the room exploded with activity as doctors and nurses rushed in, one of them pushing a bright red cart on wheels that looked just like the tool cart Frank kept tucked in the corner of their garage. Jane stood and looked around helplessly, confused as to what she should do. One of the nurses—an older woman whose face reminded Jane of a favorite aunt—hurried to her side and started to guide her out.
‘Mrs. Emerson, if you can wait outside. We'll do everything we can to revive your daughter.’
As the nurse led her out of the room, Jane thought of the life that awaited her. Alexa could barely tolerate twenty minutes alone with her mother, and now the two of them would be forced into constant and intimate contact. Would she have the strength to endure this new reality?Just thinking of the battles with Alexa that lay ahead under this new dynamic set Jane's head throbbing.
And to add to her headache, there was her recent promotion at work. It would come with a much-needed pay increase to finally start enjoying life instead of working merely to pay bills, but that would never happen if she didn't pass her six-month probationary period, and that was now in jeopardy.
It had taken Jane years of hard work to get that promotion—she had even taken a couple of night courses to give herself an edge over the other candidates—but the new position had been more demanding than she had expected, and she had been overwhelmed at first. It didn't help that the stress of constant battles with Alexa at home had followed her to work and affected her performance there. Though she was determined to pass her probationary period, Jane thought it might not happen now if she started taking time off to care for Alexa.
But what choice did she have?
Then a flash of clarity jolted her.
‘Stop!’ Jane shouted with such force she startled the nurse at her side, causing her to actually jump and throw her hands in the air. All activity stopped. All eyes turned to Jane.
‘Don't . . . don't.’ Jane wagged her finger at the doctor who was poised to apply a defibrillator pad to Alexa.
The medical staff looked stunned. They stood motionless and cast worried looks at one another, uncertain whether to continue or not.
The doctor standing over Alexa spoke. ‘Mam, are you saying you don't want us to resuscitate your daughter?’
‘Yes. That's what I'm saying.’
Lines of disbelief creased his forehead. ‘But there's a good chance we can revive her. If you'll just allow us to—’
Jane was adamant. ‘Do not resuscitate my daughter.’
The doctor's disapproving look weighed heavily upon her, but Jane bore it with the strength of her conviction that she was making the right decision. Alexa would never again be able to roam the streets free, party with her friends, sneak away to dance clubs. And she could forget about the privacy she so fiercely protected. That was now a ghost of the past.
Jane knew her daughter—no one knew her better—and Alexa's spirit would wither and die on the vine if she had to be confined to live life with the cruel restrictions God had forced upon her. Alexa valued freedom more than life, of that Jane was certain.
Jane didn't flinch from the doctor's hardening gaze. ‘Please. I'm her mother. I'm doing what's best for my daughter.’
The alarms continued to sound as everyone waited. Eventually a nurse turned off the monitor and disconnected the lines from the lifeless girl.
One by one—with their heads fixed straight ahead, deliberately avoiding eye contact with Jane—the doctors and nurses filed out of the room. A dull silence trailed in their wake.
The hospital bed with its occupant was rolled away, and Jane, alone now, sat staring at the empty space left behind. A minute passed. Then another. And another. Each one heavy and filled with grief, piling onto her like stones, pressing her into the chair. If she didn't leave soon, she would be crushed by the weight, and so, with great effort, she rose and stood exhausted from that effort.
She had one more task to perform, but first she would go home and try to get a few hours' sleep, and then she would drive to the county morgue and provide positive identification of Amy.
Before she could take a step, however, her phone chimed. She reflexively opened her purse to retrieve it but then stopped. It wasn't her phone that was chiming, and the sound wasn't coming from her purse. It was coming from the plastic hospital bag with Alexa's clothing.
Jane dropped heavily back into her chair and rummaged numbly through the bag. She pulled out Alexa's jeans. They had surprisingly little blood but were ruined nevertheless. They had been cut along the outside seam of both pant legs.
Jane reached into the snug front pocket and tugged out the chiming cell phone. Its case was covered with tiny dots. This isn't Alexa's phone, she thought. Alexa's case has intertwined serpents. Amy's phone has the dots. Jane wondered what Amy's phone was doing in Alexa's jeans.
As the phone continued to chime, Jane brought it closer to her face. She had never looked this closely at the dots before, but now that she could see them clearly, she realized they weren't dots at all but tiny purple orchids. She thought of the purple orchid tattooed on Alexa's backside. None of this made any sense.
Jane was struggling to arrange these odd pieces of information into some kind of sensible explanation when a horrible realization suddenly struck her—like icy water entering her veins. She would have screamed if she had had the strength, but she had so little left, and she would need that to curse God His final cruelty.
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