Hit and Run

          “Harry, are you ready?” I called to my husband from my place near the front door.

          “Just a minute,” he yelled back. “I’m looking for my wallet.”

  I sighed. The farther the two of us got into our old age, the more senior moments we were beginning to have. Harry was constantly forgetting where he had last put his car keys, wallet, or hat.

          “Found it.” Harry reappeared from the hallway. “It was in my shirt drawer.”

    As we traveled on foot to the local Triple A, the California sun was shining high in the sky and the temperature was pleasant. I was in high spirits. Ever since I had been a little girl, I had always wanted to travel, but it had just never worked out. But now, finally, Harry was retired and we had a decent amount of money with which to see the places that everyone should see before they die. Harry and I had already been on an expensive but breath-taking cruise in Alaska, and it made sense to us that we would now voyage to the other highly scenic, non-contiguous state.

          “I wonder if I’d have any talent at doing the hula,” I joked to Harry as we approached the intersection.

                                                      ***

    Why wasn’t the car in front of mine moving? The light was green. Figuring it was some absent-minded octogenarian behind the wheel who had forgotten to check the color of the traffic light, I swerved around the battered white Sedan ahead of me. In the split second before my car sped into the crosswalk, I saw them. But there was no time to hit the breaks; no time to avoid the elderly couple slowly crossing the street. As my Chevy Impala collided with them, I heard the sickening thump of their bodies hitting my vehicle. Slamming on the breaks, I put the car into reverse and high-tailed it back the way I had come, switching into the right lane as I sped away from the scene. I was terrified that perhaps I had killed them, but I didn’t want to know their fate.

    I stopped at the first gas station I came to and threw up in the restroom.

                                                    ***
           
          “We’re very sorry, Mr. Sullivan, but we don’t believe your wife is going to make it,” a sympathetic young doctor told me. “There is massive trauma to the brain and also some internal bleeding.”

    I slumped back in my chair. It couldn’t be. My arm was in a sling; that was all. I was the one who had, in recent years, fought and won a battle with cancer, and following that, pneumonia. But my Ann Marie had always been the one in robust health. She was the one who was supposed to bury me.

                                                    ***
          “Spencer, don’t,” I said laughingly as my boyfriend put his hand on my shoulder and leaned in to kiss my cheek while I was trying to cook.

          “Why, what do you have against a little affection?” he teased. That was Spencer; always ready to have fun.

    I heard the sound of my cell phone’s novelty ring-tone go off.

          “Make sure the potatoes don’t burn,” I instructed Spencer. I took three steps to where my phone lay on the kitchen counter. Flipping it open, the display box told me that my father was calling.

          “Hi Dad.”

          “Hey Amy.” His voice sounded strained.

          “What’s up?” I said, concerned.

          “It’s your mother...”

    Ten minutes later, I was seated next to my father in an uncomfortable chair in the Emergency Room.

          “Dad, it isn’t your fault.”

          “Yes. Yes it is. I should have looked. I should have stepped in front of her. She should have been the one who survived.”

          “Dad,” I said, my voice breaking.

          “That bastard!” he continued. “He wasn’t looking where he was going, and he killed my wife! And then he just drove off, like it hadn’t happened! He didn’t even care! I swear to God almighty, when I catch that asshole, I’m going to kill him a million times over!”

    I leaned forward and extended my arms around him, and we cried together.