Pieces of Hope (2 page)

“The
house should be just across the street.” Claire adopted a bossy tone, wagging
her finger in my face. “Dad’s been through enough already. Try not to do
anything stupid between here and there!”
 

I wanted
to slap her face. Did she really think I was going to off myself crossing a
street? I would never do anything like that (not without a lot of thought,
anyway) and no amount of torture would ever get me to admit that the idea had
crossed my mind. Only to escape the pain of Mom’s death. Only for that. But the
idea of permanently leaving my family had prevented me from doing anything
drastic. That and Mom’s disappointment in me. From heaven, or wherever she
might be.

“I guess
this means my diabolical plan to take a short drive off a tall cliff is a no
go,” I mumbled in a flat voice. “Well, on to Plan B.”

Claire
didn’t respond. Her hands were shaking as she white-knuckled the steering wheel,
probably wishing it were my neck. I slid out of the old van, soaking both feet as
they touched the street, then slammed the door hard without ever looking
back.
    

With the
rain pelting away, splashing against the bottom of my jeans, I waited at the corner
for the light at the crosswalk to change. I crumpled the address in my hand
over and over, holding onto the anger as long as I could before the chilling
numb crept in again.

At least
I wasn’t the only idiot tramping around in the rain. Eugene
was home to the University
of Oregon, and most of
the college kids around me seemed oblivious to the downpour. Wet was just the
norm in November. The stick figure appeared now, signaling it was time to cross
and, with a dull pause, I thought I recognized this street. It took a few
seconds to place it. Had I—Had I seen it in a dream?
 

I looked
across the intersection to be sure. The rain was both pelting and misting,
making it difficult to distinguish shapes and judge distances, especially with
the glare off the car and streetlights. But sure enough, this was it.
  

My anger
waning, that familiar sense of exhaustion took its place. The crowd was already
fifteen feet ahead of me. It was difficult to see clearly, what with the rain
and the hood obscuring my vision, but when I stepped off the curb, I glanced
around and noticed no cars were waiting at the light. This part was definitely
different. In the dream, a car skidded through the intersection, annihilating
an old woman as she crossed the street.
 

The
dream was quite graphic, repeating itself for seven nights, and it always left
me with the sensation that it was more than it seemed. I was afraid to fall
asleep, afraid to see her flying through the air, afraid to hear the sound of a
body colliding with metal. To ease my worries, I’d blabbed about it to anyone
who would listen. Though no one could unravel its mystery, after Mom died, I
hadn’t dreamed it since. Now it had crossed over to my real life, and it was
kind of freaking me out.

I
stooped as I slogged along, every bone in my body aching. I would bet this was
how old people felt—beaten down, broken. Halfway across the street, I froze.
Though an annoying buzzing filled my ears, much like a horde of gnats inside my
head, it seemed I heard my mother’s voice beneath it all, urgent and chilling,
whispering to me.

Save yourself . . .

Suddenly,
car tires screeched across the slick pavement and chills of another kind shot
through me. I peered from beneath my hood in time to see a black sedan shoving
an old green beater sideways toward me. I stood paralyzed, unable to think
beyond a single haunting question, a question that had formed an answer long
before I’d asked it.

The
woman from my dreams . . . Why had I thought she was old?

I
pictured her again. A heavy coat and hood disguised her features, but she
walked slowly, almost painfully, across the street, shoulders bent
forward—hunched over like an old—like an old—
Oh, God
! I pushed the hood off my head and threw my shoulders back
for the first time in weeks. As the green beater slid prominently into view, I
realized what I should have seen weeks ago. How could I have missed it?

Save yourself . . .

My face
contorted as I realized the truth. The dream that had taunted me for seven
nights, the message I couldn’t unravel, the person whose torment I’d witnessed
again and again—that person was me! That warning was mine! I closed my eyes and
braced myself for the crash, allowing my limbs to go limp just before the
impact. I imagined my mother and a sense of peace came over me. I no longer
feared death. If this were the end, maybe I would meet her in heaven.
 

A long
minute later, I opened one eye and found myself a good fifty feet from the
intersection. Was it possible I’d imagined the whole thing? I knew that people
sometimes hallucinated under duress. That would explain it. I felt along my
ribcage, then the top of my head, and glanced down at my feet. All seemed well
except that I was missing my left sneaker. Weird! Still, I wasn’t about to go
second-guessing anything—not when I felt so, well, fabulous really. I was
suddenly in the mood for climbing and I couldn’t wait to tell my best friend,
Brody. He’d be thrilled! No more mopey Hope. No more not-so-hushed whispers
behind my back. For the first time in weeks my head was silent—like bare feet
on freshly fallen snow. And oh, how I loved the stillness!

A group
of people had gathered on the sidewalk and the rain had stopped. When had that
happened? Maybe I’d blacked-out for a while too. Feeling lighter than a cloud,
I practically floated in their direction. Two police officers were standing at
each side of the street, holding back the bystanders, so I peeked around a
really tall guy with a big-haired girlfriend and saw two people lying in the
middle of the street. I couldn’t tell if they were male or female because the
paramedics were blocking my view, but I bobbed around the gawkers to catch bits
and pieces. My senses had flipped into hyper-mode and I could see, smell, and
hear details that amazed me. A rainbow of colors in a single droplet of rain,
the scents of the students around me mingling in delightful chaos (perfumes and
hair gels, soap and sweat); even the sounds of their breathing as they exhaled
and inhaled (some deep and slow, others fast and shallow). It must have been the
adrenaline racing through me. Brody was going to flip when he heard about this!

The
officer on the opposite side of the street had to be nearly sixty feet away,
but despite the blinding glare of the streetlamps, and beyond the indescribable
mess between us—paramedics, ambulances, wreckage, bodies—I easily read his gold
nametag: Deputy James
Washpun
. Clearly agitated, he
stomped back and forth in front of the
Police
tape like a cat in a cage. Another cop, balding and shorter, approached
him. As if I stood right beside them, and over the clamor of the crowd, I
clearly heard the shorter officer ask the taller one, “Hey, Jim.
Whaddawe
got?”

Deputy
Washpun
stopped, twisted his barrel-chest toward the second
officer, then boomed like a Marine sergeant, “It’s a circus, man . . . a total
mess!” I jumped a little, but the other officer didn’t flinch. “Try a two-car
accident involving a pedestrian, two critical injuries, and one fatality . . .”

The
shorter deputy pursed his thin lips. I got the unmistakable impression he was
less concerned about a fatality than he was about a long, grueling night of
paperwork.

“Seems
the driver of the Cadillac had a heart attack at the wheel. Then the Caddy
struck the Pontiac
which rammed the pedestrian. And to top it all off”—he stabbed a stubby finger
in the air, gesturing toward the beater with the broken windshield—“when it all
went down, I was tailing
that
joker
for his possible involvement in a string of burglaries!”

“At
least you didn’t lose the tail,” the shorter cop said obligingly, an idiotic
smile crossing his face. Deputy
Washpun
turned away
without comment, not looking the least bit amused.

Behind
them, I just caught sight of Claire. She must have known someone in the
accident because she was screaming hysterically into her cell. I waved to her
from behind the tall boy, but she didn’t see me. Then I remembered that I
hadn’t returned with the dog yet and quickly dropped my hand.
       

My eyes
jumped back to the center of the street where two beefy paramedics were busily
lifting the driver of the Pontiac
into a waiting ambulance. This adrenaline kick was so powerful; it seemed I
could feel other people’s emotions. I focused on the boy on the stretcher and a
sense of despair caused me to double over. Beneath the blood, his young face
seemed almost familiar. It tugged at a distant memory. But before I could
locate it—doors slammed, sirens wailed, and the ambulance sped away. In that
same split-second, I thought of the woman in the Cadillac—the fatality the cop
had spoken of—and a missed anniversary passed through me and then out of me.
But how did I know that the driver was a woman? Or sense these emotions from
people I’d never met?

Only one
victim remained, tucked beneath a blue blanket in the dead center of the
street, not moving, and apparently not breathing, either. Time and again, I
watched as one paramedic pumped several times on the victim’s chest. And then
the other—the one that blocked my view of the victim’s face—would lean down
close enough for a kiss.

I knew
what that was like: the overwhelming fear, the rush of emotion, the notion that
someone could die in your hands. I had performed CPR only once and, lucky for
me, the woman had lived. The procedure was deceptively simple—thirty chest
compressions followed by two short breaths.

“Hold
on,” the first paramedic said, and somehow
I
had detected the faint rhythm before he had. “I think we have a heart
beat.”

The
second paramedic waited, still hovering near the person’s head. Although the
blanketed form hadn’t moved, he announced, “She’s as stable as we’re
gonna
get her. I’ll get the cart.”

He stood
up and strode to the ambulance. Only now could I get a clear view of the girl’s
small, even features. Long, dark hair matted with blood lay in a messy swirl
around her head. I made to gasp, but the air got stuck in my throat. Something
caught the second paramedic’s eye. In absolute horror, I watched as he slipped
a single red sneaker between the girl’s feet.

I had no
sooner looked down at my missing sneaker when it happened. It felt as if a
giant hand jerked me by the back of my coat, and was now forcibly dragging me
toward the girl lying in the street. Panic pulsed through me as I became
conscious of what had happened, what was about to happen, and the pain I was
sure to suffer. I bumped into the tall boy in front of me, but then I slipped
straight through him. In the brief instant that we were one, I felt this
amazing love for some girl named Caroline . . . Who? But when he looked at the
big-haired girl beside him, I knew. She was Caroline.

Though I
kicked and wailed and struggled to break free of the force that held me, I
couldn’t fight the inevitable. “NO! This can’t be happening! Make it stop! Make
it stop!”

I
slammed into my broken body as if I’d been thrown, and when I tried to scream,
no sound came out. Breath exploded in my ribcage. Pain erupted everywhere at
once. My left leg—seemingly twisted at an impossible angle. My head—approaching
the size of an over-inflated basketball. And there was something stiff and tight
around my neck.

“One two
three,” the paramedics counted before lifting me onto the stretcher.
 

Oh, the
pain! It clawed and screamed at me with every tiny breath. It burned when I
breathed. It throbbed when I didn’t.
Please!
Please! Make it stop!

Time seemed
to rewind . . . I saw the green beater sliding sideways toward me, its
once-golden stripe glistening in the rain. Legs paralyzed, mind numb . . . I
let my body go limp as I awaited the crash. The front fender crushed my left
leg. I bounced twice across the hood before my head broke the windshield. My
insides shattered like icicles striking granite. A low moan escaped me . . .

Then
everything went black.
 

2
Confessions

The next
thing I knew I was standing beside a hospital bed, in a private room reeking of
antiseptic, staring at myself. It didn’t take a mind-reader to know how awful
the me in the bed felt. However, the me beside the bed felt better than
perfect! And not only was I free from any physical pain, but the more
devastating part, Mom’s death, no longer had me in the state of an oozing
wound. In the absence of that, a thrilling new sensation replaced it, one I
never would have anticipated. Somehow, I felt impossibly close to her, closer
even than when she was alive. It seemed that if only I could have whirled fast
enough, twisting my head just so and narrowing my focus, I would have caught
her smiling at me from the edges of my eyes. But craziest of all, this feeling
that I was more like my old self. Maybe better. And whole—no longer in pieces—was
enough to make me giggle hysterically.

I looked
down to see that I was wearing my infamous red sneakers (both of them) along
with my faded blue T-shirt and jeans. Though I was in spirit form, I was
surprised to see that I looked quite solid—not transparent or ghost-like at
all. I pinched myself and yelped, but my physical body showed no reaction.

It was
odd to see myself from this perspective. My body looked small in that giant
hospital bed, but I was cuter in real life than I had known. Except for the
numerous cords, tubes, and beeping machines, I seemed to be sleeping
peacefully. I saw that my left leg—stretched up on some sort of traction
device—finally looked straight. Several bruises and some gashes marred my face,
but overall I didn’t look too bad. In truth, I’d expected to be hideous. Or
(gulp) dead. It was good to know that I was neither, but where exactly did that
leave me? What did they call this in-between place? And how long might I be
here?