It’s been a year since I almost killed my family in a car accident resulting from a bad left turn; the kind of left turn I’ve made a thousand times before with no problem. I still make that left turn several times a week, and, even though it’s been a year since the accident, I still have to breathe deeply and try to control my heart rate when I make the turn.
Although I don’t remember the impact itself, I remember the seconds leading up to it and the eternity after. Every airbag in the car fired, and thank God they did. Injuries ranged from none to bloody toes and bruises and burns from the airbags. I sustained the worst of the injuries (rightfully, I guess) with a pretty sizable burn to my forearm and frightening scrapes and bruises on my chest, abdomen, and legs. The woman in the other car had minor bruises.
I remember being terrified of the smoke in the car after the impact. I realized later that it was just dust from the airbags, but at the time I thought that it was smoke from a fire. I’m told that I yelled repeatedly for everyone to get out, although I don’t much remember that.
I remember small details; like how when I stumbled from the car my left shoe was still inside. I remember cowering next to my sister- and brother-in-law while Dimitri seethed with rage and flung his keys into the ground and stormed away without asking if I or the baby was alright.
I remember being so incredibly thankful that my stupidity didn’t cause any more harm than it did, and being willing to pay any price, ANY PRICE, to move time back 30 minutes so that set of circumstances wouldn’t have happened. To see my loved ones being checked out by paramedics because of my actions shamed me, and the memory of it still makes me tear up even as I write this.
I was proud of how well I was able to keep it together after the accident. I was so busy buzzing about taking care of everyone else that I didn’t notice the flesh burned from my forearm. The Ving Rhames look-alike paramedic pointed it out to me, and told me that I should just sit down for a little while and let everyone else do his job. But he didn’t get it; I needed to buzz around. I needed to make sure that everyone was okay. I needed to make it right as best and as fast as I could. My arm could be burned, oozy, and painful later. I needed to keep busy.
I needed to keep busy or I would have lost my mind. I was so scared and so pumped full of adrenaline that I couldn’t tell if the baby was kicking or not. I refused to wrap my mind around what that might mean. I needed activity to forcibly drown out any more thinking along that line. I needed to keep busy because I was keenly aware that when Dimitri finally came back to the accident scene he couldn’t touch me or look me in the eye, he was so angry. I had to keep busy because if I didn’t I would crack. It was a crisis, and there was no one for me to lean on, so I had better not need to lean, I told myself. I felt so alone and so guilty and so unable to change things. I knew deep in my bones how close I came to severely injuring my family and a total stranger in the other car, and it petrified me. It was a horrible feeling, and I wouldn’t want anyone, not even my childhood nemesis Jim Best or that cow-from-Girl-Scouts Kim Speicher, to experience that. Hitler, maybe. But no one else.
So I sucked it up and kept my sanity loosely held together with whatever was immediately at hand. I maintained my calm and lucidity for a good 45 minutes. After that, Dim finally came to his senses and realized that his terrified, nine-month pregnant wife might need a little taking care of, and hugged me. I crumpled. I sobbed, really SOBBED, the kind of snot-inducing, chest heaving, tingly-in-the-arms sobs that they never show in movies because, hello? would Nicole Kidman agree to be filmed with snot flying everywhere? I babbled something about getting a job to pay off the car and Dim shushed me; not just because he wasn’t worried about paying for this BRAND NEW and ROYALLY FUCKED car, but also because the more I talked the more slimy and salty mess dribbled down the front of his shirt.
We walked back to Sophie’s house and tried to make the best of the evening. Once I was calmed down, and the adrenaline could go back to doing whatever it’s normally supposed to do, I could focus on making sure that the baby was still active. Dim was crouched next to me as I sat in a recliner, and it slowly dawned on me that I couldn’t feel the baby kick. All of the noise around me dulled and people moved slower than normal and my surroundings went all fuzzy. I told Dim that I wanted something sugary. Now. Seriously, RIGHT NOW. I have to give him credit: as much as he totally flunked being a supportive husband at the accident scene, he became Superman afterwards. He made a slice of Apple Pie materialize instantly, shooshed everyone around me so that I could focus, and didn’t take his eyes off of mine until I could tell that the baby was jumping up and down from the sugar high of apple pie. It was really scary, and he was right there with me.
Later he took me upstairs and lay down with me on Sophie’s bed so that I could rest and decompress. He stroked my hair and listened while I told him how horrible I felt and how I would take it all back if given the chance. He apologized for not reacting appropriately at the accident scene. We both had our hands on my belly, relieved that she was kicking up a storm, and relieved that everything turned out so well, considering.
I didn’t drive for about a month after the accident. I used the newborn Bean as an excuse, but the truth was that I was terrified. The insurance company offered to bring me a rental car, which I refused. Dim purchased another Pilot with the insurance settlement, the same color and interior as the crashed one, and it was more than a little creepy to ride around in it. The last time that I sat in the driver’s seat the front end looked like a metal pug dog, and I had to move a deflated air bag out of the way to stumble out.
Finally, about a month afterward, I decided that I was going to have to suck it up and get behind the wheel. I left Dim and the baby napping, and forced myself behind the wheel. I had to talk myself into easing the gearshift into reverse to back out of the garage. I had to breathe deeply and tell myself that it was okay, that I could do this. I drove a few blocks to Wal-Mart, I don’t remember what for. I just knew that was one place I could get to with mostly right turns.
I left Wal-Mart, and ended up back in the garage. I rested my head on the steering wheel to collect myself for a few minutes before going inside. And that was that. I did it. I was back on the horse.
So it’s been a year, and I’m not fully recovered. I’m physically recovered, of course, and the scar on my forearm has faded considerably. I still have flashbacks of the accident, and I still get teary about it from time to time, much to the perplexity of my husband. He doesn’t understand why I hold my breath and get jittery when he makes a left turn when there are oncoming cars less than a quarter mile away. But he wasn’t there when it happened. He won’t know what it’s like. Ever. I hope he never does.