The Saffron Gate (10 page)

^{That first summer of owning the car I ventured out frequently, not only through the country, but also into the heart of the city, where people didn't know me. The car drew attention, and I developed a new and rather proud smile, nodding at those whose eyes lingered on the sleek outlines of the car and then looked at me. I felt an undeniable pride in not only, owning it, but driving it proficiently, and suddenly I wasn't just Sidonie O'Shea, the woman with the limp who lived with her father on the outskirts of the city.}

^{In the height of that steamy summer I drove deep into the countryside, waving at children walking along the ruts of the dusty back roads of Albany County. I'd leave the car at the side of the road and tramp through the tangled thickets and marshes, sometimes coming to one of the ponds that dotted the area. I sat at the edge of the water and sketched the bulrushes and the wild flowers. I watched the beavers in all their industry, the squirrels and rabbits working their way through the underbrush, the birds swooping and nesting. Frogs gulped and insects whirred around my head. I found new flora, wild plants I had no name for, and. I sketched them with quick, rough lines so I could identify them from the pages of the growing pile of botanical books in my room. By the time I returned to the car, my clothes would be streaked with perspiration, burrs caught in my hem and my hair damp and wild from the humidity.}

^{I couldn't wait to get home so I could paint what I'd sketched. And there was a difference in my paintings that summer. Something about driving had made my wrists and fingers and even my shoulders looser, so that my brushstrokes were freer. The colours I chose were richer, deeper.}

^{Once, as I finished a painting of an Eastern Phoebe on its nest of mud and moss, I stood back from it, studying it. And what I saw so pleased me that I picked up Cinnabar and did a shuffling movement about the room. I think I was dancing.}

^{I know I was happy.}

^{When the first heavy snow of winter came, it was too difficult to get the car out of the yard, and I had to give up driving for those long, dreary months. I spent the winter longing for the throaty rumbling of the engine, the slight vibration of the wheel beneath my palms, and the newfound freedom the Silver Ghost had given me. I dreamed about driving her again.}

^{It was the very tail end of winter when my father told me he was going to the next county to watch a car auction. He said he would go with Mike Barlow.}

^{'No, I'll drive you,' I said, immediately standing, the old excitement surfacing. 'The snow has melted enough; I looked at the yard this morning, and I know I'll be able to get the Ghost out. Last week I took the tarp off and started the engine and let her run a bit. She's all ready to go, Dad.'}

^{'There's no need, Sidonie. Mike has said he'll take me in his truck, and the roads are icy after yesterday's wet rain and then the freezing. With your leg—'}

^{'Stop fussing about my leg. And I want to go as well. We haven't been to an auction in months.' I didn't mention my desire to drive. Later, when I understood more, I would realise the thought of getting behind the wheel again had been akin to lust. I put on my coat, glancing at myself in the mirror over the sideboard and smoothing back my hair. 'I'm taking you, and that's all. It'll be fun, Dad,' I added.}

^{Something was different now; I had a new confidence.}

^{My father shook his head, his lips tight, but he put on his coat and his galoshes.}

^{I didn't want us to leave with bad feelings, and put my arms around him, hugging him, then pulled away and smiled. 'Wear a scarf, Dad,' I said.}

^{'
No
man ever wore a scarf as warm as his daughter's arms around his neck'
he quoted, and again I smiled.}

^{This time he smiled back at me, nodding.}

^{We both had to shovel the last mounds of slushy snow out of the driveway, and by the time we were done I was flushed and hot, and took off my coat, tossing it between us.}

^{'Sidonie. You'll catch cold.'}

^{'Dad,' I said, shaking my head but grinning. 'Just get in.' Nothing could diminish my joyful anticipation.}

^{While it was indeed wonderful to drive the Silver Ghost again, I hadn't ever driven on anything more challenging than surfaces wet from summer or fall rain. As my father had predicted, the roads were slippery, and if I accelerated too quickly the car's thin tyres slid to one side, just enough to surprise me and make me turn the wheel sharply to line up the car again. My father said nothing, but I could hear his teeth working the stem of his unlit pipe.}

^{My body cooled, and I grew chilled, my shoulders tight. I was sorry I'd taken off my coat, but didn't want to admit it. I shifted gears slowly, and occasionally one would grind. Each time this happened I saw, from the corner of my eye, my father's head turning sharply towards me, but I ignored him. Even though it was just past noon, as we drove out of the city the sky was growing grainy.}

^{It was easier to keep the car steady on the deserted gravel road. Wet fields stretched out on either side of us, and I forced myself to relax, dropping my shoulders and loosening my grip on the wooden steering wheel.}

^{'Turn on the lights, Sidonie,' my father said, picking up my coat. 'Pull over and put on your coat and turn on the lights.'}

^{I shook my head, the concentration I needed making me tense. 'It's not dark, Dad,' I said, annoyance in my voice. Later I would remember that my last words to him had been in this slightly strident tone. 'It's just your eyes.'}

^{'But it's growing foggy.'}

^{'There are no other cars on the road,' I said, looking at him, seeing him holding my coat against his chest, and suddenly his expression changed. I thought it was anger I saw, and shook my head at him. 'I'm quite capable of—'}

^{'Sidonie!' he yelled, and I looked back at the road. A truck loomed on the other side of us, pale as a phantom in the gloom, and its unexpected presence startled me so that I gasped, wrenching the wheel sharply away from the truck. When I relived this split second and my reaction, over and over and over, in the ensuing days and weeks and months, I saw, in my head, that there had been no need; the truck was on its side of the road, and we were on ours. It was only that I hadn't seen it coming as I looked over at my father, and my reaction was an instinct born of surprise.}

^{The land blurred, and there was a sickening spin of the car as I fought to get it under control.}

^{'Don't brake,' my father yelled. 'Downshift. Downshift!'}

^{I tried, but my foot, in its heavy shoe, slipped off the clutch. The wheel whirled beneath my palms
.
There was the unbelievable sensation of flight, and then darkness.}

^{I don't know how long it was before I opened my eyes. The view through the windshield was odd. I kept blinking, trying to understand what I was seeing. Finally I realised the car was on its side, my cheek against the side window.}

^{'Dad?' I whispered, moving my head. There was an odd crunching under my face, and a dull bite in my cheek; I raised my hand and touched something unfamiliar, something embedded in my cheek. I pulled it out, feeling no more than a slight sting, and dully looked at a long shard of glass covered in blood.}

^{'Dad,' I said again, dropping the glass and looking for him. He wasn't in the passenger seat. For a brief moment I thought perhaps he'd gone to get help, but as clarity came back I saw, with horror, that his side of the windshield was completely smashed. Blood clung to the splintered edges of the glass. I struggled to pull myself up. The side of my head hurt, but it was just a dull throb. In order to get out of the car I had to climb over the stick shift and drag my lower body across the passenger seat, fighting to open the door straight up into the sky. When I was finally able to swing it open, I pulled myself out, the uncooperative weight of my lower body similar to my earlier days of polio. I clambered out, falling the short distance from the open door to the ground. The car was half on the road and half in a shallow depression leading to a field of frosted stubble.}

^{I pushed myself into a sitting position, peering through the wispy fog. 'Dad!' I called, my voice low and hoarse. I got up and wandered into the middle of the road. I saw a still, small dark animal ahead of me; when I came closer, it was my coat. 'Dad,' I cried, turning in a slow circle, 'where are you?'}

^{And then I saw a mound in the ploughed field a number of yards from the car, and knew with certainty it was my father. When I reached him I kneeled beside him, saying
Dad, Dad, Dad,
and stroking his bloodied face. He lay on his back, one arm thrown over his head, but other than the wide gash on his forehead and so much blood he looked as still and calm as if sleeping. A tuft of coarse wet winter grass was caught in his collar. I pulled it out, laying my cheek against his chest. It was warm, and I felt it rise and fall, slowly.}

^{It was only then, knowing he was alive, that I cried.}

^{'You'll be all right, Dad. You'll be all right,' I said, over and over, weeping as the cold, damp air swirled around us.}

^{Something woke me, and I lifted my head in a hopeful rush. But my father still lay unmoving in the hospital bed, and in the next instant I knew that what had woken me was a painful throbbing in my cheek. I reached up to touch it, and felt gauze and tape. I explored it for a few seconds, only mildly curious, and then again took my father's hand, as I had when they first allowed me to come into his room. The skin on the back of his hand was papery. Veins, thin and blue, created a tracery of webs under darkened spots. When had my father become so old?}

^{His breathing caught for a moment, and I squeezed his hand, looking at his face. A spasm passed over his features, but in the next instant both his face and his breathing settled, and I sat back again. My mouth was dry. I lifted the metal pitcher of water from the small table beside the bed, and saw my distorted reflection: my hair hanging around my face in long tangles, my eyes pulled to an odd shape in the metal, my thick eyebrows, the white bandage on my cheek, my lips parted as if in a question.}

^{I put the pitcher back on the table. 'Dad,' I said, quietly. 'Dad. Please.'}

^{Please what? Wake up? Don't die? Forgive me? I took his hand again, holding it against my unhurt cheek.}

^{'You should rest while he sleeps,' a voice said, and, dully, I looked over my shoulder. It was a man, a doctor, I assumed, from the stethoscope around his neck. I put down my father's hand and stood.}

^{'Can you tell me anything?' I asked. 'What . . . will he be all right?'}

^{The doctor looked at my father, then back at me. 'There were many injuries. Internal.' There was something vaguely familiar — perhaps the word was comforting — about the man's voice. 'And because of the age . . . it's . . . Miss O'Shea, yes? You must prepare yourself.'}

^{I sat down. 'Prepare myself?'}

^{'You would not wish to go home for a while? The man and woman who brought you and your father here — did you know them? Could you call them to take you home?'}

^{I shook my head once. I had only a vague recollection of a car stopping on the road, of a man lifting my father into the back seat, a woman pressing a handkerchief against my cheek, putting my coat around me. 'I'll stay with him.'}

^{The doctor was silent for a moment. 'Has someone called your mother?' he asked. 'Or perhaps a brother, sister . . . You tell the nurse, and she will phone for you. You have family, someone—'}