hotel in my trunk, it would do me no good. The embankment is icy and steep, and there’s no way I could reach it, even if it held the riches of Tutankhamun. Still, I’m not altogether unprepared for what’s happened to me. Before I left, I packed a thermos full of coffee, two sandwiches, prunes, and a bottle of water. I put the food in the passenger seat, next to the letter I’d written, and though all of it was tossed about in the accident, I’m comforted by the knowledge that it’s still in the car. If I get hungry enough, I’ll try to find it, but even now I understand that there’s a cost to eating or drinking. What goes in must go out, and I haven’t yet figured out how it will go out. My walker is in the backseat, and the slope would propel me to my grave; taken with my injuries, a call of nature is out of the question.
About the accident. I could probably concoct an exciting story about icy conditions or describe an angry, frustrated driver who forced me off the road, but that’s not the way it happened. What happened was this: It was dark and it began to snow, then snow even harder, and all at once, the road simply vanished. I assume I entered a curve – I say assume, because I obviously didn’t see a curve – and the next thing I knew, I crashed through the guardrail and began to careen down the steep embankment. I sit here, alone in the dark, wondering if the Weather Channel will eventually do a show about me.
I can no longer see through the windshield. Though it sends up flares of agony, I try the windshield wipers, expecting nothing, but a moment later they push at the snow, leaving a thin layer of ice in their wake. It strikes me as amazing, this momentary burst of normalcy, but I reluctantly turn the wipers off, along with the headlights, though I’d forgotten they were even on. I tell myself that I should conserve whatever is left of the battery, in case I have to use the horn.
I shift, feeling a lightning bolt shoot from my arm up to my collarbone. The world goes black. Agony. I breathe in and out, waiting for the white-hot agony to pass. Dear God, please. It is all I can do not to scream, but then, miraculously, it begins to fade. I breathe evenly, trying to keep the tears at bay, and when it finally recedes, I feel exhausted. I could sleep forever and never wake up. I close my eyes. I’m tired, so tired.
Strangely, I find myself thinking of Daniel McCallum and the afternoon of the visit. I picture the gift he left behind, and as I slip away, I wonder idly how long it will be until someone finds me.
“Ira.”
I hear it first in my dream, slurry and unformed, an underwater sound. It takes a moment before I realize someone is saying my name. But that is not possible.
“You must wake up, Ira.”
My eyes flutter open. In the seat beside me, I see Ruth, my wife.
“I’m awake,” I say, my head still against the steering wheel. Without my glasses, which were lost in the crash, her image lacks definition, like a ghost.
“You drove off the highway.”
I blink. “A maniac forced me off the road. I hit a patch of ice. Without my catlike reflexes, it would have been worse.”
“You drove off the road because you are blind as a bat and too old to be driving. How many times have I told you that you are a menace behind the wheel?”
“You’ve never said that to me.”
“I should have. You didn’t even notice the curve.” She pauses. “You are bleeding.”
Lifting my head, I wipe my forehead with my good hand and it comes back red. There is blood on the steering wheel and the dash, smears of red everywhere. I wonder how much blood I’ve lost. “I know.”
“Your arm is broken. And your collarbone, too. And there is something wrong with your shoulder.”
“I know,” I say again. As I blink, Ruth fades in and out.
“You need to get to the hospital.”
“No argument there,” I say.
“I am worried about you.”
I breathe in and out before I respond. Long breaths. “I’m worried about me, too,” I finally say.
My wife, Ruth, is not really in the car. I realize this. She died nine years ago, the day I felt my life