Never Too Late

“Of course I’m right. I could tell in thirty seconds, you have a lot to live for. Drive safely.”

He went back to his car and she put hers in gear. She signaled, looked around and carefully edged away from the curb. She was only five minutes from home. He followed her, she noticed with some amusement. She came to the traffic light and stopped on the red. She gave him a little wave in the rearview mirror, but couldn’t tell if he returned the gesture. The light turned green and she cautiously entered the intersection.

And the lights went out.

Sam Jankowski went back to his squad car. Whew, he thought. What a dish. If he’d met her anywhere else, he’d have asked her out. Even with the tears, that was one good-looking woman. She was a little older than he, but he liked that. The women he was accustomed to dating tended to be younger, often immature and a little flighty. He liked a woman who had lived a little. A woman who was clear on what she wanted and where she was going. Clare Wilson, five foot four, one hundred and eighteen pounds, brown hair, green eyes, stupid ex-husband.

She pulled away from the curb, blinker and all, and he moved off right behind her. She stopped at the traffic light on the corner and when it turned green, proceeded into the intersection. Then, from out of nowhere, bam! An SUV ran the light and broadsided her, shoving her car all the way across the intersection into the light pole. “Holy Jesus,” he said.

He lit up the squad and moved into the intersection behind the collision to stop any approaching traffic. He keyed the radio attached to his belt while jumping out of the car. “Control, DP-thirty-five, roll medical. I have a 401 at the intersection of Winston and Montgomery.”

“Copy. I have them en route.”

“Can you copy for two plates?” he asked, as he went to the trunk for flares.

“Copy.”

“Mary Nora Paul seven six nine,” Sam said, repeating Clare’s license plate from memory as he ran toward the collision. A young woman was getting out of the SUV. “Ma’am,” he called, “please get out of the intersection if you can. Stand on the sidewalk.” He lit and threw down a flare.

“My baby,” the woman cried.

“Control, advise medical we have an infant in the vehicle.”

“Copy.”

“Copy plate Union Zebra Henry two two nine.” He went to the woman, who was looking in the backseat. The rear windows were intact, the baby was crying, a good sign, and the broken glass of the windshield was contained in the front of the vehicle. “Ma’am, leave the baby in the car seat until medical arrives.”

“I have to pick him up,” she said in a panicked, shaken voice.

“It’s better if you don’t move him.”

He lit and tossed another flare. “Ma’am!” He heard sirens. “Leave the baby for paramedics to examine before moving him.” He ran to the trunk for his fire extinguisher, then to Clare Wilson’s little, destroyed Toyota. There didn’t seem to be a fire, but he’d be ready.

The driver’s side was crushed against the light pole, which, thankfully, hadn’t broken in half. The right side was destroyed by the SUV. He couldn’t get to her, but he could look in the driver’s window. Her hands still gripped the steering wheel, her head lolling to the side. She moaned. He reached through the broken glass and took her left hand into his. “Clare,” he said. “Can you hear me?”

“Uhh,” she moaned, eyes closed.

God almighty, he thought. This is bad. Bad. He held her hand. “Try not to move, Clare. Just try. It’s going to be okay.”

“Jason,” she said.

“Be still, Clare,” he said.

“Mike. Mike!”

“Shh,” he said. One of those must be the ex, he thought.

He was moved away from the wreck by paramedics, so he backed up and went into the intersection, directing traffic. It took a long time for them to remove the SUV, pull the Toyota away from the pole, and then it required the Jaws of Life to remove her from the car. He heard her scream as they put her on the stretcher and the sound ripped through him like a knife.

After the ambulance took her away, he asked the fire captain, “She going to be all right?”

“I don’t know. Her vitals are iffy. You see it?”

“I was right behind her. She had a green light. The SUV ran the red. I’ll put it in my report.” And then, he thought, I’ll call the hospital.

Clare was wandering around in a fog so thick it was hard to move her limbs. She wasn’t sure if she even had her eyes open. There seemed to be a dim light in the distance and she did all she could to move toward it, but it was difficult. She felt as if she were restrained. Something was pulling at her.

There was a figure coming toward her, a shadow. As it neared, the light behind it brightened and he came into view. She gasped as she recognized Mike, the love of her life, still wearing that Air Force flight suit he’d had on nineteen years ago. He stopped several feet in front of her and treated her to one of those bright smiles that just made her melt. “Mike!” she gasped. “Oh, Mike! I knew you’d come back!”

“Hi, Clare.”

“Oh, God,” she said, weeping, trying to reach for him.

But he didn’t come closer. His hands were plunged into his pockets and he kept his distance but he looked so perfectly at home, at peace. “You have to go back, Clare. You have things to do.”

“I want to be with you! All I’ve ever wanted was to be—”

“I can’t stay, and neither can you. I’ll see you next time.” And he turned his back on her and began to walk back into the fog.

Terrified of losing him a second time, she screamed. At first nothing came out, then only the weakest groan. When she tried to reach out to him, to follow him, she was prevented. The force that held her was filled with fear and anger and though she tried to escape it, it held her fast.

So she screamed again—but had no voice.

The fog began to thin, then lift. A light was beginning to penetrate from above and she struggled against it, pinching her eyes closed. The power that was drawing her away from Mike was so jagged, so raw with emotion—not pleasant at all—that she began to thrash in protest. Then her eyes suddenly popped open and there above her was the face of her son.

“Mom!” he said. “Oh, Mom!”

Jason was instantly pushed away, out of her line of vision, while people in scrubs moved in and took over. A woman was injecting something in a tube that dangled above her, the surface she was lying on was being jostled and a man was shouting, “CT’s positive. Give her a hundred mics of fentanyl and send her upstairs, stat.”

And the world went dark again.

The next time, she woke from a dreamless sleep and looked up into the face of her older sister, Maggie. Nothing was ever more beautiful to her; Maggie always made her feel safe, even when she was chewing her out for something. She tried to smile, but wasn’t sure she had succeeded.

“We’re all here, Clare,” Maggie said. “Dad, Sarah, Jason, Bob. But we’re not going to crowd around your bed.”

Clare tried to explain that she’d seen Mike, but only a guttural sound escaped.

“Don’t try to talk. You’re going to be fine, but there will be pain. Just let them drug you out of your mind and try to sleep. Bob and I will take care of Jason. We’ll be here.”

That woman, who she now knew must be a nurse, was fiddling with her tubes again, and then sleep came. The tube was magic.

She was in and out from then on, having no idea of the length of time in between. Once she lifted a hand to see how much her nails had grown, wondering if it had been days or weeks, but they looked the same. She became increasingly aware of pain, in her throat, back, pelvis, gut, legs.

The last thing she could remember was not getting a speeding ticket. Had she done something wrong? she wondered.

The pain was terrible, but just as terrible was not having any idea why she was here. She opened her eyes and there was Maggie again. Maggie was so busy—too busy to be sitting around the hospital for hours. Or was it days?

“Hey, ’bout time,” Maggie said.