Doing it All over

Chapter 14

Those four words: "there's been an accident" brought the blackest dread to my heart in that instant. Just four little words, a simple arrangement of syllables rolling off my father's tongue and I felt that my whole world had just collapsed around me. I felt fate at work, felt it's presence as I had in the garage when Mike had said he was thinking about joining the Air Force, only stronger, in lethal proportion. Had I really thought that I could thwart fate in the matter of a life? Had I really thought I'd won? Why hadn't I foreseen this? Especially after Mike.

"Is she…" I asked my Dad slowly, fighting to maintain control of myself. Fighting and losing. I couldn't finish the sentence, couldn't speak the word.

"She's alive right now." Dad told me, knowing exactly what I was thinking, what I was dreading. "We don't know a lot about how she's doing."

By now Nina was fully awake and following the conversation. Her face was troubled, worried, but she kept silent. Behind us Mike and Maggie still slept, oblivious.

"What do you know?" I asked him. "What happened?"

"We got a call from the South Lake Tahoe Police," Dad said.

"South Lake Tahoe?" I asked. That was a considerable distance from Berkeley, about four hours by car.

He nodded. "Tracy was up there and was riding in a taxi cab. They don't know what happened yet, or at least they're not telling us, but the cab somehow crashed into the lake and landed upside down."

"Jesus," I muttered. "And Tracy?"

"She didn't drown," Dad told me. "She got out of the car somehow but she was hurt. The cops didn't know how badly, all they know is that she was airlifted to a hospital in Reno. The cab driver is in a hospital in South Lake Tahoe. He wasn't hurt too bad they said."

"They don't know anything about her injuries?" I asked.

"Nothing," Dad said. "I tried calling the hospital she's in but they couldn't or wouldn't tell me anything."

"What time did all of this happen?" I asked him, feeling guilt that I'd been out playing on the lake while in another part of the country my sister was having a horrible car accident. A possibly lethal car accident.

"We got the call a little over an hour ago," he told me. "The accident happened about an hour before that. They had a little trouble identifying her because she apparently had a fake I.D. on her. Only after they searched through her things did they find her real driver's license. I guess she was up there for a little gambling trip."

"Jesus," I said again.

"There's a red-eye flight out of Spokane in two hours," Dad told me. "It doesn't go to Reno but it stops in Sacramento, which is only a couple hours away by car. Your mother and I are going to be on it."

"Me too," I said quickly.

"Bill," he started. "There's nothing that you can…"

"I'm going Dad," I told him. "I'll pay for the ticket myself."

He looked at me for a moment. "You don't have to do that," he said. "Why don't you get the boat put away so we can get ready to go?"

Obviously a damper had been put on the end of what had been a very pleasant day. Mike and Maggie, after hearing the story of Tracy, offered condolences and then quickly slipped away. I was not so far out of it that I didn't notice Mike climbing into Maggie's car even though he only lived around the corner. Nina offered me some soothing words and a hug and then she too left, making me promise to call her and let her know what was going on. I promised.

I showered quickly and packed a few things. Soon we were on our way to the airport.

We took off on time, heading Southwest for Sacramento. The flight took forever. I spent much of it staring out the window to the darkness below while Mom and Dad held hands quietly next to me. Around us the lights were dimmed down and most of the other passengers were asleep in their seats. I was exhausted from the day I'd just spent and the droning of the engines was soothing white noise but I couldn't sleep. Not while my sister was maybe already dead somewhere, maybe sitting in the refrigerated section of the county morgue in Reno, a little tag tied to her toe.

Sometimes having knowledge of how a medical system works is not a good thing. This was one of those times. I could perfectly envision Tracy being taken into some hospital room, possibly the trauma resuscitation room, possibly the emergency operating room. I could see a team of doctors working on her, mechanically following written protocols as they cracked open her chest, or cracked open her skull, trying to save her but knowing it was useless. Doing it only because their training dictated they try. I could see a technician squeezing a bag attached to a breathing tube to supply her with oxygen while the efforts were going on. The technician would probably be checking out her tits as he did it, admiring them, thinking lightly that it was a shame they were going to be taken out of circulation soon.

At some point the doctor in charge would decide enough is enough. The time would be noted and all of the devices would be taken off of her. She would be zipped into a body bag which, by protocol, would have already been placed beneath her before she'd even arrived. The doctors, nurses, and technicians would all go onto other things, treating patients, stitching wounds, writing orders, fetching blankets, reflecting sadly for a moment how it was a shame that someone so young had died that way.

But none of them would shed a tear for her. None of them would slam their fists into the wall, cursing the insidious nature of DEATH, the mortal enemy. They would go about their tasks, eat their lunches, and the next day none of them would even remember her. Except maybe the technician who had admired her tits. The zippered bag would be moved into a storage room somewhere and a phone call would be placed. Soon a white van from the coroner's office would arrive and the bag would be placed on a small gurney and taken to the county morgue. The next day a pathologist would rip open her body, saw open her skull, take out her internal organs and weigh them, and then finally stuff everything back inside and crudely sew her up.

I could not get this vision out of my head no matter how hard I tried to think of other things. As our aircraft slowed and began to descend into Sacramento we passed within sight of Reno. I could see it's lights shining up from the pre-dawn darkness and the vision became almost overwhelming. Tracy was down there somewhere. Was she still drawing breath? Not if fate had had it's way.

We touched down normally at ten minutes after four in the morning. The Sacramento airport was almost completely deserted, the few passengers from our plane it's only customers at the moment. Mom went to go secure a rental car while Dad and I headed directly for a bank of pay phones. He dialed a number that he had written on a slip of paper. The number for Washoe Medical Center in Reno, where Tracy was (if she wasn't in the morgue, a nasty part of my brain insisted upon reminding me).

Dad fought through at least five different people, said Tracy's name at least fifteen times, and was placed on hold at least ten. It was maddening watching this, waiting for someone to tell him something. Finally, after nearly fifteen minutes he managed to get hold of someone who knew something.

"She is?" he said softly.

She is what? I wondered, wanting to rip the phone out of his hand. She is dead? She is alive? What?

Dad, sensing what I was going through, held the phone away from his mouth for a brief moment and told me, "she's in surgery right now." He then spoke into the phone again. "What kind of surgery? Can you tell me how bad she is?"

He listened, his face souring. "What do you mean you don't know who I am?" he shouted into the phone. "I'm her father and I'm very worried about her. Please tell me what's going on!"

He listened some more, his expression darkening. "But I'm in Sacramento!" he yelled. "I'm more than two hours from there! Are you really going to let me go the next two hours wondering? Just tell me how bad she is! What kind of surgery she's having!"

He listened for another moment and then slammed the phone down angrily. "Fucking asshole!" he shouted at it loudly enough for his words to echo through the terminal. A few people glanced at him uneasily and then went about their business.

He turned to me, shaking his head. "They won't tell me anything about her condition." he told me, "because they can't verify who I am. Who the hell else would call up and say they were her father?"

I sighed. "You're dealing with bureaucracy at it's finest when you're dealing with a hospital," I told him. "And remember, the accident happened in California, law suit capital of the world. They probably have lawyers who call up and pretend to be family members in order to get information. It happens all the time, even in Spokane."

"That's disgusting," he proclaimed.

"That's lawyers," I said. "At least we know she's still alive."

"Yeah," he breathed. "Let's go find your Mom and get headed up there."

Mom had procured a Toyota Corolla for us. Dad updated her with what he knew as we walked to the rental car pick-up. Fifteen minutes later we were roaring away, Dad at the wheel, Mom in the passenger seat, me in the cramped back seat, reading the map we'd been given and navigating. There was little talk as I directed Dad down Interstate 5 to I-80 East. We passed through the darkened city of Sacramento and it's suburbs and were climbing into the Sierra Nevada Mountains when the sun made it's appearance in front of us.

It was shortly before eight in the morning when we entered the Reno city limits. I navigated Dad through the city, past the towering casinos, until we pulled into the parking lot of the hospital. We practically rushed inside and spent twenty more minutes finding someone who could tell us something. Was Tracy dead? Was she alive? Was she horribly crippled? Was she on a ventilator awaiting permission from the parents to pull the plug? The tension was so thick between the three of us that it was almost palpable in the air.

We were directed to a small waiting room on the third floor of the hospital.

It was empty when we arrived. This time my knowledge of the medical system was an asset. I smiled happily as I read the sign and saw what part of the building we were in. Hope showed itself for the first time.

"We're in orthopedics," I told Mom and Dad happily, my voice conveying the message that this was good news.

They looked at me cautiously, waiting for me to explain the ramifications of this.

"We're not in neurology, which would be bad," I told them. "That would mean she had some sort of neurological damage. You know, brain injury, spinal injury, paralysis, something like that. Orthopedics is bones. They put you here when you have broken bones, and only broken bones."

They became cautiously hopeful but I could tell they were awaiting a final word. It was understandable. I was too. About ten minutes after we arrived a young doctor came into the room. He was dressed in scrubs and I had an eerie flashback to waiting for the prognosis on Jack. He introduced himself and we all stared for a moment in disbelief as we heard him say his name.

"Did you say Dr. Quack?" Dad finally had to ask.

He smiled the smile of one who has explained this many times before. "It's spelled with a KW," he said, "but yes, you have the pronunciation right. But have no fear. My name does not reflect my skill, although I had to put up with quite a bit of teasing in med school and residency. Anyway, I'm an orthopedic surgeon and I'm in charge of Tracy's case."

"How is she?" I blurted before anyone else had a chance to.

"In considerable pain," he told us. "And she'll be in a wheelchair for a few months, but other than that, she's doing fine. I expect a complete recovery."

It took a few moments for that to sink in. I almost thought I hadn't heard him correctly. Doing fine? Complete recovery? Had fate been thwarted again? Beside me Mom and Dad breathed great sighs of relief. Dr. Kwack smiled at us for a moment and then explained her injuries.

"From what I hear," he said, "Tracy was seatbelted into the right rear of the taxi. The driver was making a left turn and was struck by a shuttle van right where your daughter was seated. The impact was considerable and the taxi was spun around to where it rolled off of an embankment into Lake Tahoe, landing upside down in the water. Fortunately Tracy was able to extricate herself from her seatbelt and get out of the car before she drowned. This is a remarkable feat I must add since her injuries were undoubtedly caused by the initial impact. It must have been horribly painful for her to drag herself out of the car but somehow she did it."

"And what are her injuries?" Mom asked.

"Her pelvis is broken in four places," Dr. Kwack explained. "Her right femur, that's the long bone in the leg, is broken in two places. She has two broken ribs on the right side and had a partially collapsed lung when she was brought in. A chest tube down in the ER took care of that. She also has a nasty cut on the right side of her head. That's been stitched up. I operated on her leg and her hip and put pins in to help set the bones back together. She's going to have to go through some physical therapy and she'll probably always walk with a little limp since her right leg is going to be about an inch shorter than her left. And she'll probably set off airport metal detectors for the rest of her life. But she's alive and doing well."

"When can we see her?" Dad asked, tears in his eyes as he heard the news. It was understandable. There were tears in mine too.

"She's just been moved to her room," he said. "And she's pretty doped up on pain medication, but you can go see her now if you wish. She may not be capable of talking to you, but you can see her."

We did. And Dr. Kwack was right. Tracy was flying high. She was lying in a hospital bed, her body covered by a gown. Her entire pelvis and right leg were encased in a fiberglass cast. Her ribs were taped on the right side and the plastic hose of a chest tube snaked out from beneath it. Her face was deeply bruised, the right cheek an ugly purple color, her right eye swollen shut. Some of her hair had been shaved away and a neat line of stitches was visible on her scalp. There was also the inevitable catheter hose protruding from beneath the sheets and ending at a plastic bag with urine in it. The other end of the hose would be threaded through her urethra and into her bladder. Remembering my own experience with such a thing I pitied her.

Mom wept openly at the sight of her, stroking her hair and trying to get her to talk. Tracy opened her eyes a few times to Mom and Dad's voices but seemed to have no awareness of what was going on around her. When she tried to speak it was only in nonsensical grunts. We stayed for nearly an hour before a nurse finally suggested we leave for a little bit. She would probably be like this for the next twenty-four hours we were told.

We found a hotel room in one of the downtown casinos and fell into immediate sleep within minutes. It had been a long night.

The next day Tracy, though in pain, was awake and alert enough to talk. She told the story of what had happened to her both to Mom and Dad and I and to the investigator from the South Lake Tahoe Police department.

Her and one of her girlfriends from college had ridden a Greyhound bus up to the casino area to do a little weekend gambling and drinking. Tracy, I knew, did not like to ride in a car with anyone but she had no problem with airplanes or buses, figuring that fate would not wipe out an entire vehicle full of people just to get to her. Since you had to be twenty-one to gamble or drink in Nevada, Tracy and her friend had secured fake ID's from a reputable dealer at the college. She declined to name just who this person was to the cop, although he did ask. The Greyhound had dropped the two girls off at one of the casinos on Friday night. They'd spent a few hours gambling and drinking and then, finding the room rates at the casino a little more than they could afford, rode a shuttle bus to one of the motels on the California side of the town and got a room there. Early the next morning they rode another shuttle bus back to the casinos.

The two friends spent all day on the strip and Tracy managed to get ahead more than a hundred bucks. Her friend was down about the same amount. Feeling fatigued, Tracy elected to head back to the motel to take a nap for awhile. She tried to find a shuttle bus heading in her direction but discovered that none were scheduled for more than an hour. Wanting badly to sleep, she'd gone out to the taxi stand and hopped in a cab. After all, she was ahead of the game and she could afford it.

The last thing she remembered was driving down the boulevard of South Lake Tahoe in the back of the cab. The next thing she knew, she was in horrible pain in a helicopter, looking up at a trauma nurse in a blue jumpsuit. Things were very spotty from there.

She was questioned several times about the accident itself but she said she could not remember anything. Nobody disputed her on this point. Amnesia is common among accident victims.

The cop filled us in on a few details that had been uncovered.

"According to the witnesses," he explained, "the cab made a left turn against across traffic and was struck by the shuttle van, which was moving about thirty miles an hour. The van driver was slightly injured, as were six of the passengers, although that's probably just what we call Jacoby and Myers pain around these parts. Anyway, your daughter and the cab driver were the only one's with any significant injury. The fault for the accident lies directly on the cab driver. No question about it."

"The driver of the cab was drunk," he said. "From what we've learned he's a hopeless alcoholic. We found an empty pint of vodka under the seat in the cab. Vodka and gin are the favored beverages of those alcoholics that are trying to function on the job. It doesn't leave much of an odor on the breath although it does leave a little. Our officers smelled it right away when they questioned him. They took a blood sample from him at the hospital. He registered point two-one percent. That's more than twice the legal limit. He has two previous convictions for driving under the influence. One in Nevada, one in California. He'll be charged with felony driving under the influence this time."

Tracy, who had remained very composed through all of this, listening respectfully, suddenly turned angry. "Why," she asked the cop, "was this man still driving a cab if he had two DUI convictions?"

The cop gave a cynical look. "Don't ask me," he replied. "If it'd been up to me the asshole – excuse my language – would have had his license yanked forever the first time he got convicted. Unfortunately, it's not up to me. You don't get much around here for DUI. A little fine, a little lecture from the judge not to do it again. Sometimes I think those Iranians have the right idea about that problem. They give 'em the death penalty. A little harsh maybe, but they don't have pretty young girls ending up in hospital beds because of drunk cab drivers."

Though my parents were screaming liberals and routinely canonized the efforts of groups such as the ACLU, they didn't dispute the cop's argument. Nor did I.

"Anyway," he went on, "I think this time he'll at least do a little time in county. He'll also have his hack license taken away. I wish I could promise you that he'll never do it again but you know alcoholism is a "disease" and it's not really his fault. That's what they tell us anyway." He looked at Tracy meaningfully. "Are you SURE you don't remember anything?"

She shook her head, the effort obviously painful. "Not a thing," she said quietly, her eye, the one that was open, flitting away from the cop's face.

He nodded thoughtfully. "Doesn't matter," he finally said. "I'm glad you're gonna make it all right. You probably won't even have to testify. I'm sure a plea bargain will be worked out." He said the words "plea bargain" the way other people say "venereal disease".

We stayed at the hospital for a good portion of the day. Mom brought Tracy some flowers and Dad brought her a large stuffed bear with it's leg in a cast. Her friend Linda, who had accompanied her to Lake Tahoe, stopped by also and we all got to meet her. Linda was a cute blonde, very nice, though a little on the shy side. She was a business major and a member of the young republican's club. She'd apparently gone through quite a bit of turmoil of her own during Tracy's accident. She'd returned to their room expecting to find Tracy there and didn't. She was only slightly worried at that point, figuring her friend had slept and then gone back to the casinos.

But when she still hadn't returned the next morning she became seriously worried. She began calling the cops and the local hospital. The local hospital of course hadn't heard of her since she'd been taken to Reno and whomever she'd talked to at the police department didn't recognize Tracy's name in relationship to the accident. She became frantic when the time for their return came and went and Tracy still hadn't shown up at the room. Another call to the cops was made and someone finally was able to make the connection and let Linda know where Tracy was and that she was alive.

Linda didn't stay long, just long enough to assure herself that Tracy was fine, exchange a hug or two, and let my sister know that she'd retrieved all of her belongings from the motel and would keep them for her. She told us all that she was pleased to meet us and then disappeared.

When Tracy received her latest pain shot and drifted off to sleep we decided to disappear also. We piled into the rented Toyota once more and headed back to our hotel room.

Mom laid down herself and fell quickly to sleep. Dad, claiming he was too wired to sleep, decided that he would go downstairs for just a little bit and maybe have a beer. I gave him a knowing look as he went.

I tried to lay down myself but found sleep impossible. There were many unanswered questions going through my mind. Finally I got up and crept out of the room, catching the elevator to the lobby. Dad was not in the bar but this did not surprise me. I began wandering through the casino, dodging the occasional security guard to keep from being ejected. I walked past jingling slot machines, beeping poker machines, and hundreds of people, finally finding Dad sitting at a two-dollar blackjack table. He had a beer and a stack of five-dollar chips before him and was hitting on a fourteen when I put my hand on his shoulder.

He looked up and gave me a guilty smile. The dealer, oblivious to my presence, slapped down a five on top of his fourteen. He took a quick look and then tucked his cards under his bet.

"Doing a little gambling?" I asked him with mock sternness.

He shrugged. "As long as we're here," he said, "I thought I'd try my luck a little. It's funny. Your mother looks at this whole thing as a tragedy and of course it is, but I know the real tragedy that was supposed to happen. It was supposed to happen on her graduation night and it was supposed to happen the other day, wasn't it?"

"It certainly seems a little more than a coincidence," I told him, keeping my voice low to avoid having the other players gleam what we were talking about. I didn't really have to worry. They were all watching the dealer who was admonishing an ancient man at third base for touching his bet after the cards were in play. "All of the elements were there. Drunk driver, car, water. Somehow Tracy dragged herself out of there though. She didn't drown. That goes against everything I thought I understood about this whole thing."

"Yeah," Dad nodded. "And it makes me feel guilty to feel good about the fact that my daughter was merely injured. We got lucky Bill. Somehow we did. So I figured I'd come down here and see if maybe some of that luck is still floating around."

"And is it?" I asked him.

Before he could answer me the dealer, finished with her gentle reaming of the third baseman, resumed play. With a ten showing she flipped up her down card. It was a five. She gave herself another card, a six, and the table groaned. With a sorrowful look she collected all the bets.

"As you can see," Dad told me, "the theory's flawed. I'm losing my ass." He put another five-dollar chip on the table. "What brings you down here?" He gave me an evil smile. "Pity you're in Reno and too young to gamble, eh?"

I laughed lightly. "You gotta take the bad with the good. But anyway, I wanted to borrow the car," I told him, "I need to talk to Tracy."

He turned serious. "You don't think she's telling everything she knows, do you?"

"I'm not sure," I said. "I don't think she's lying about anything but I just wanted to be able to talk to her alone, to see if she tells me anything else if you and Mom aren't there. She doesn't know that you know after all."

The dealer gave him two aces. She herself had a four showing. Dad smiled and picked up another five-dollar chip, splitting his bet. "That's a good idea," he told me, watching as he was given an eight and a nine to go with each of his aces. He looked at this in satisfaction for a moment and then reached in his pocket and withdrew the car key while the dealer attended to the other players.

"Thanks," I said, taking it from him and pocketing it. "I won't be too long."

"Who knows?" Dad said. "Maybe I'll win so much while you're gone I won't have to worry about things like stocks and investments."

At the table the dealer flipped up a ten to go with her four. She dealt herself a two and then a five. Another apologetic smile to the groaning crowd and she began to collect the money. Dad looked at this in disbelief. Two of the other players got up and left.

"I wouldn't go cashing in any stocks just yet," I told him, chuckling to myself as I headed for the door.

Tracy was awake when I entered her room. She almost looked as if she was expecting me. I took a moment to marvel at the condition of her face. Two and a half days after the accident now it was very swollen and a spectacular array of colors had erupted upon it. Hues of purple, black, blue and yellow competed for billing, centering around her right eye, which was still swollen tightly shut. Though I'd spent eight years looking at people that had been battered with everything from baseball bats, to steering wheels of cars, to crowbars I had never had much opportunity to observe these injuries after they'd had time to swell and discolor. I now knew why police photographers liked to wait twenty-four hours before they snapped shots of assault victims. It was hard to believe that in a week or so her face would be back to it's normal, pretty self as Dr. Kwack had assured her.

"How bad is it today?" Tracy asked. "They won't give me a mirror."

"It's pretty bad," I admitted. "But you're alive. It'll get better."

She nodded, wincing a little as she did so. "Are you alone?"

"Yeah," I answered, coming over and grabbing a seat next to the bed.

"I thought you might come by alone," she said. "I was kinda hoping for it."

"Oh?"

"I lied to the cop Bill," she told me, her voice hitching, tears running from her good eye as she began to cry. "I remember everything that happened. Every last fucking thing."

She broke down completely, sobs pouring out her, her chest heaving up and down. I got up out of my chair and sat on the edge of her bed. It was awkward with the cast and the pulleys and the IV line but I managed to get my arms around her and her head pulled against my shoulder. She cried hysterically for the better part of five minutes, her tears burning my chest and wetting my shirt. I soothed her the best I could, patting her on an uninjured part of her back and speaking soothing words to her. Finally her sobs quieted down and she got control of herself again. She raised her head from my shoulder and looked at me, sniffing.

"I'm sorry," she said softly. "I don't ever do things like that. I don't ever cry."

"It's okay Tracy," I told her. "Sometimes you have to. Do you feel better?"

She smiled a little, a weak smile at best. "A little," she said. "Can you get me some water?"

I released her and stood up, picking up her glass from the tray next to the table and pouring some of the water from her plastic pitcher. There was a flexible straw in the glass, bent at a ninety-degree angle. I handed the glass to her and she took a long sip. Figuring that the immediate crisis was over I sat back down in the chair again.

"You know something?" she asked. "The day of the accident I was in the sports bar in Harrah's. Linda and I were having a beer and, you know, checking out the guys and I happened to see that they were taking bets for the football season. You could put down money on who you thought would be in the Super Bowl, just like our pool for the baseball season that I asked you about that time."

I nodded. "I really didn't know," I told her, wondering what this had to do with anything. "I still don't, although with Nina's Dad's help I'm actually starting to like baseball a little bit."

She smiled. "But I thought that you did," she told me. "I thought you just didn't want to tell me because you didn't want me taking advantage of your knowledge. I was pissed off at you Bill, I almost hated you because I thought you were depriving me of something that I had a right to."

"Tracy," I started, seeing that a tear was flowing from her eye again.

"Let me finish," she said, fighting to keep her voice steady.

I nodded.

"When I was in the sports bar and saw the football thing I thought about calling you again. I was going to yell at you and demand you tell me who was going to be in the Super Bowl this year. It's supposed to be held at Stanford stadium this year and that's only an hour from Berkeley. I wanted to get tickets, go watch the game and then catch a bus up to Tahoe and collect my money. I figured I had a right to that information. I was gonna call you up and law down the law with you. I was gonna threaten not to…"

She sobbed a little and took a deep breath. "Not to speak to you anymore if you didn't tell me." She sobbed some more. "I'm sorry Bill. I can't believe I was such a bitch, that I was thinking things like that. I was actually telling myself that you didn't love me very much if you wouldn't kick down a little information to me. The only reason I didn't call you was because when I was talking to Linda about wanting to make a bet on the Super Bowl she told me that my fake ID wouldn't hold up for something like that. But I was prepared to do it Bill. I was really going to."

"Tracy…" I started again and then trailed off. I honestly didn't know what to say, what to think about what she'd just told me.

"I just can't believe I was like that," she cried. "I was actually thinking you didn't love me, that you were trying to keep me down or something. I'd completely forgotten that I was still alive because of you, that you'd already showed me how much you loved me by saving me, not once but twice. And how do I repay you? How do I return your love? By trying to get you to exploit what you know against your morals. By calling you up and trying to get you to tell me about a baseball game and then getting pissed at you because you don't know. By wanting to threaten you if you didn't tell me about a football game. By thinking you're some kind of moralistic…" She broke into fresh sobs again. "Oh God Bill!"

"It's okay Tracy," I soothed, holding her hand. "At least you like me now, right?"

She composed herself a little but continued to squeeze my hand almost painfully. "I've had a lot of time to think in here," she told me. "A lot of time. And I realized that I was having a lot of bad feelings for you. I told myself it was because of you withholding knowledge from me. You were on your way to getting rich but you weren't including me in it. Like I said, I felt I had a right to get rich off of you, and do you know why?"

"Why?" I asked, though I suspected the reason.

"Because I was blaming you for this death sentence I have hanging over my head. I realize now how irrational that is, you didn't cause it, you just told me about it. But somehow, in my mind, I thought it was your fault. You were the one that screwed around with fate and caused this. Never mind that fate would've taken me on graduation night if not for your interference, you were the one that put all this in motion and therefore you were the one to blame for it. So then part of me figured that if I got stinking rich all of this would just go away. I wouldn't have to worry anymore about riding in cars. Do you know how damn inconvenient it is to NEVER get in a car with someone? That was all your fault Bill. That was what I thought, what I brought myself around to believing. And then you wouldn't help me get rich to compensate for it. When I went up to Tahoe this weekend, I was a very bitter person."

I nodded, not talking, understanding the source of her feelings a little. I can imagine what it's like living every day wondering if fate was finally going to catch up with you. She probably felt a little like soldiers in a war feel after a while.

"Sometimes I would feel paranoid beyond belief. Like I didn't dare even step outside the dorm room because fate was waiting for me out there. It would send a drunk driver along to run over me and knock me into the duck pond or something just to get at me. Other times I'd think the whole thing was a figment of my imagination, that I could climb into a car with Ted Kennedy and be perfectly safe. I can't even go to counseling about it. Can you imagine how the counselor would react? And I can't tell my friends about it either, although I must admit that sometimes, after Linda and I had a few beers, I was tempted to tell her what happened to you. Something kept me from doing that. The only person I could really talk about it with is you, but I didn't want to talk to you because you were trying to keep me down and you had caused all of this in the first place."

"But through all of that I stayed away from the situation that I knew fate wanted me to get into. I never got in a car with anyone else driving. I rode my bike when I wanted to get somewhere close by, even if it was pouring rain. If I needed to go to The City for something I took BART or the city bus. I was very careful not to give fate an opportunity.

"A few times though, I got into cabs. I didn't really like doing it but I also didn't think it was that dangerous. Cabs are public transportation aren't they? It never occurred to me that a cab driver would be drunk."

"You've ridden in cabs before?" I asked, surprised.

She nodded. "A few times. I only did it as a last resort but I never had a problem before. Sometimes we even drove right along the Bay too. I figured cabs were reasonably safe. In truth I didn't ride in them much mostly because they're expensive. And then I got in the one at the casino."

"What happened then?" I asked.

"I knew something was wrong almost right from the start of that trip."

"What do you mean?" I asked, fascinated, eager to hear this story.

She swallowed nervously. "It was the eeriest thing. I'd been drinking at the casino and was pretty buzzed, feeling kind of good you know? I was up a hundred bucks and ready to just go back to the room and crash. As soon as I closed the door in the cab and it pulled away I started to get nervous. I didn't know why at first. I didn't equate fate with any of it. I just felt twitchy, uncomfortable, like I didn't really want to be there. I thought it was the cab driver. He didn't seem drunk at all, that really would've made me nervous obviously, but there was something about him I didn't like. Something about his face, which looked kind of old and gross looking. He was talking about how good the tips were in his job since he usually only drove people who'd won big. Kind of hinting, you know? He asked me if I'd won big."

She breathed deeply, wiping a tear from her eye. I could see that she was trembling.

"He turned his head towards me when he asked me that," she went on. "When he did that I smelled it. Alcohol on his breath. Like the cop said, it wasn't much, just a faint whiff of that odor that people have when they've been drinking. I'm sure you know what I mean."

"Oh yeah," I affirmed softly. As a paramedic I'd smelled that odor thousands of times and knew it well. When I'd been new and had worked the night shift in downtown Spokane that odor had been on nine out of ten of my patients.

"As soon as that hit my nose and I realized I was in a car with a drunk driver at the wheel I was terrified. Absolutely terrified. The buzz that I had went away like that." She snapped her fingers. "I almost panicked, especially when I glanced over to my right and saw that we were driving alongside the lake. It was dark but I could see the water less than twenty feet away, just down a small incline. I could imagine perfectly being under that water, trapped in my seatbelt, not able to breathe, drowning. I could see Mom and Dad and you at my funeral, crying while they lowered my coffin into the ground.

"The cab driver was still looking at me, waiting for me to answer his question. Everything was moving in slow motion. He wasn't paying attention to where he was going and he was drifting into the other lane. That broke through. I yelled at him to watch where the hell he was going and he jerked his head back, steering back into his lane. He said something like, "Jeez lady, I wasn't gonna hit nobody" and looked offended. But I was still terrified.

"I told him to stop right there and let me out. He said, "what are you talking about, your hotel is still a couple a miles away?" and I told him I didn't care, to let me out right there. We argued for a minute about it and he just kept driving down the road, telling me that we were almost there and that he couldn't let someone out before they were where they were going. Finally I screamed at him to stop the fucking cab now.

"Things got really slow motion at that point. He was pissed off and said "fine, walk if that's what you want". But instead of simply stopping and letting me out he tried to pull into a parking lot on the other side of the street. He did it without looking to see if anything was coming first. Something was. It was one of the shuttle vans that take people from the motels to the casinos. He pulled right in front of it. It didn't even have time to put on the brakes. I didn't even have time to yell. In that second, while I was looking at it's headlights less than five feet from me, I knew that fate had finally caught up with me. I knew that I hadn't listened to you as much as I should have. I knew that I was going to die. I KNEW it!

"When it hit, glass sprayed all over me. I felt something like a sledgehammer hit me all over my right side. I felt the doorframe hit the side of my head. The noise was incredible Bill, I never heard anything like that. I felt us spin around and then start to tip over. Just as I became upside down there was a splash and water was covering my face. I couldn't breath and my body actually felt a little better, less pain when the cold hit me. I felt the seatbelt holding me in place just like I'd imagined. I was trapped underwater and I was going to die. And it felt RIGHT. I knew that if I just sat there for a minute or two it would all be over. Something inside of me told me just to do that. Just to wait there until everything went black. I wouldn't be in pain. I wouldn't have to worry anymore. It would just be over. It was a calming feeling Bill. The thought of just dying actually got rid of the panic.

"I sat there upside down, not breathing and I saw the roof of the car hit the bottom of the lake. I saw a bunch of bubbles go floating up. I saw a bunch of muck get stirred up and obscure everything outside. It seemed trippy to me. I wasn't afraid. I remember thinking, "so this is what it's like-this isn't so bad". I even saw the cab driver get out of his seat belt and swim out through his window. He'd had it open and he just squeezed his way out. His arm was bleeding and leaving little trails of blood in the water and I tripped off of them for a second. I knew that he'd swim to the top and that he wouldn't try to come back for me. I knew it.

"I didn't feel any pain right then. I was relaxed. Just waiting to die. Just waiting to do what I was SUPPOSED to do. It didn't feel bad at all. It actually felt kind of nice."

"Jesus." I mumbled, staring at her. She hadn't said that with nostalgia, but with horror.

"I was just starting to think that maybe it would be a good idea to just suck in a bunch of water and get it over with. I was SUPPOSED to die, so why prolong it? That's when I thought of you." She soured a little. "It wasn't a nice thought. I thought, "that'll teach Bill not to tell me what I want to know, not to keep me down anymore. Now the asshole can just cry his ass off at my funeral." It was that thought that got me moving. I actually saw you next to my grave, tears running down your face, wondering why I hadn't listened to you. The fact that you could cry for me told me that you really did love me, that you would be…" She broke a little. "Be disappointed in me."

"I sat there upside down, underwater, not able to breathe and all these thoughts going through my head. Was I really going to just die in order to get back at you? You'd fucked over fate time and time again and I was going to let myself die just to prove you were wrong? What the hell was I thinking? Shouldn't I at least TRY to get out of here?"

"I didn't think I was going to make it. I really thought I was going to die anyway because I was supposed to but I decided to at least try." She shook her head. "It was absurdly easy to get out of there. I've been wondering why the Tracy in the other time-line found it so difficult." She glared contemptuously at me, directing her glare to the "other Tracy" whom she obviously had little respect for. "That Tracy simply drowned. She wasn't injured like I was. I found the clasp on my seatbelt and pushed it, expecting that it would be jammed or something but it wasn't. It came right apart and I dropped slowly onto the roof of the car. My right leg was pinned a little bit between the front seat and the door that had been hit. It hurt when I pulled it but it came out without any problem. I was free but I was still in the car.

"Everything was calm and cool. I was considering myself as good as dead so I didn't worry too much about what would happen if I failed to get out. What did I have to lose by trying? I had time and presence of mind to actually consider the options of escape before I gave it a shot, that's how calm I was. I looked at the driver's side window, thinking I could swim out through there. But it was rolled up and the glass hadn't broken. I knew I wouldn't be able to break it. I looked at the window where the van had hit us. The glass had broken but the frame had been smashed in and I didn't think I could squeeze through it. So finally I looked at the window where the driver had gone out. There wasn't a partition between the front and the back seats like the cabs in Berkeley have so I decided that was the way to do it. I twisted myself around and pushed myself into the front seat.

"I noticed I was running out of air at that point, that I badly needed to take a breath, but that still didn't worry me. The worst that could happen was that I could die, right? All I was doing was trying. I didn't even think about how long I'd been under the water. So I pushed myself through the window. As I did that I felt some pain in my hip and in my leg but it wasn't bad, it was distant. Once I was free, I just let myself float up to the top.

"When I broke the surface and took the first breath of air, everything changed. I saw the stars outside, I saw the cab driver pulling himself onto the shore while other cars had stopped and people were starting to run over to the edge of the lake. I tasted the air as it went into my lungs and that was when I realized that I was still alive and that I could stay alive."

She looked meaningfully at me. "That's when it came home to me how precious life was and how close I'd just come to losing it. That's when all the pain hit me and I realized that it wasn't over yet, that I could still drown. Only then, I didn't want to drown, I didn't want to die. Pain went shooting through my whole body, centered on my right side from my face to my feet. It was agony Bill, absolute agony. I started to sink in the water and my face went under. I sucked in a bunch of water before I could force my head back up and started coughing. The coughing made the pain worse.

"I started flailing around in the water, really panicking now and then I noticed the cab was not completely under water. The back wheels were sticking up. I grabbed hold of one and held on as tight as I could. I've never hugged a tire like that before. I tried to put my feet down on the bottom and stand up but as soon as they touched, pain went shooting through my leg and my hips. Horrible pain. So I just held on and let my feet float. I coughed some more, thinking I still had water in my throat and a bunch of blood came shooting out. That's when I realized that I couldn't breathe very well. Every breath was hurting in my chest and it didn't feel like I was getting enough air. I also noticed blood dripping from my head down into the water. I was hurt bad. I started to wonder if I was going to die from the injuries.

"Through all of this nobody on shore noticed me. There must've been sixty people gathered at that point but they were all gathered around the fucking cab driver, may he rot in hell. He'd collapsed on the embankment and some people had pulled him up. They were all fawning over him, asking him a bunch of questions, and nobody was seeing me down in the water because I was on the other side of the cab hanging onto the tire. I tried to scream at them but as soon as I sucked in breath to try it made my chest hurt and made me cough up more blood. Meanwhile it was getting harder and harder to breathe.

"I was out there for almost five minutes and things were starting to get kinda gray and fuzzy. I was thinking that I was going to die anyway, just lose consciousness and slip into the water. It was like one of those dreams where you're trapped and in trouble and trying to call for help but nobody can hear you. You ever have those?"

"Yes." I nodded, surprised. They were a common stress dream for me though I wasn't aware that Tracy, or anyone else for that matter, had them too.

"I would've thought that it WAS a dream except for the pain and the trouble breathing," she went on. "Finally a cop car showed up. The cop waded through all the people and looked at the cab driver for a minute. Then he shined his flashlight on the cab, probably just to see it, and his light caught my face. The next thing I know he was splashing into the water and coming after me. He asked me how I was but I couldn't even talk by then, I was concentrating everything just on getting in the next breath. So he dragged me to the shore.

"He tried to pull me up the embankment but that hurt so bad that I DID manage a scream. So he decided to leave me down there. He stayed with me until the firemen put me on a backboard and pulled me up. A paramedic cut off all my clothes and stuck an IV in my arm. I was hurting so bad and was so scared that I wasn't even embarrassed to be lying naked in front of all those people. They gave me some oxygen and that helped a little, but not much.

"While they'd been working on me I heard a helicopter land and felt a bunch of dust and shit blow over me. A few minutes later a nurse in a jumpsuit came over and looked at me for a few minutes. She told me she was going to make it easier to breathe and then she jabbed a needle right into my chest."

"A chest decompression," I said. "I've done a couple of those."

"Whatever it was, it hurt like hell," Tracy told me. "But there was this pop in my chest and I heard a bunch of air come hissing out and all of a sudden I could breathe again. It made the pain from the needle worthwhile. So anyway, the next thing I know a bunch of firemen picked me up and put me into the helicopter. A few minutes after that we took off.

"What I told the cop was the first thing I remember was actually the point that things got kind of fuzzy on me. Everything is jumbled after that. I knew I was hurt bad but I didn't feel like I was going to die anymore. The clarity went away. I barely remember landing and being taken out of the helicopter. I remember all kinds of doctors and nurses poking and probing me, jabbing needles into me, and I definitely remember someone sticking their goddam finger up my ass. What the hell do they do that for?"

I smiled a little, sensing the old Tracy returning a little. "If you have an orifice," I told her, "they're gonna stick something in it. They leave no hole un-probed."

"Assholes," she mumbled. "So when they got done with the poking and probing and all that, they gave me something in my IV. Everything got really hazy after that. I have a vague memory of a doctor cutting into my chest and sticking a tube in there. I remember it hurt but that's the only clear thing until I woke up the next day and you and Mom and Dad were there."

We sat in silence for a minute, her words hanging in the air. She took another sip out of her water and then handed it back to me to set down on the table.

"So do you hate me?" Tracy asked finally. "I wouldn't be surprised if you did."

"Hate you?" I asked. "Why would I hate you?"

"Because of the way I treated you, the way I was thinking about you. I was being a bitch Bill. A total, unthinking, unfeeling bitch."

"I could never hate you Tracy," I said gently. "And I'm sure that what you were feeling was a natural tendency considering what you were going through."

"A natural tendency?" she asked.

"Well, I don't believe that there have never been any extensive psychological studies on the effects of having a family member return from the future to let you know that you have a death sentence from fate hanging over you. The target group is probably rather small. But I can understand the need to blame someone, something for what was happening. It's human nature and fate is not an easy target to discharge your frustration upon. I came back and told you something that profoundly affected your life. It's only natural that you wanted to punish the messenger for the bad news. I understand, I really do."

"You're not just saying that?" She asked, another tear trailing down her face.

"Of course not," I said, standing and giving her another hug. "I'm glad you're still alive, ecstatic about it. Remember, my number one goal since the day of my return has been to keep you alive. That was all that ever really counted." I shook my head angrily. "I didn't realize how close it had been until you told me your story just now. Christ Tracy, I should have warned you. I'd seen some signs that fate was still at work and I didn't even equate that with you."

"Signs?" She said softly. "What kind of signs?"

I told her about Mike and how he had come to me, telling me he was thinking about the Air Force.

"That's it?" Tracy said. "That's the sign you were talking about?"

"Yes," I nodded. "Don't you see, I should've at least called you and…"

"Bill," she interrupted. "You couldn't have prevented this. If you would've called me up with that story about Mike and the Air Force I would've laughed at you. I would've asked you if you were going to start reading the entrails of chickens next. Then I would've tried to get you to steal someone's invention or tell me about the Super Bowl. It wouldn't have made any difference. I still would've gone to Tahoe and I still would've gotten into the cab that night. You're not to blame for any of this. You've saved my life three times now because of what you know, what you've told me. If I hadn't of thought of you, of all you've gone through while I was upside down in that cab, I would've just drowned. It was thinking of you that got me moving, that got me out of that cab. I owe you my life and I promise I'll never forget that this time. I promise."

There were tears in my own eyes now as I listened to her. I was unable to say anything for a moment. Finally I looked at her.

"San Francisco and Miami," I told her.

She looked confused. "What? What are you talking about?"

"The Super Bowl," I said. "It's going to be the Forty-niners and the Dolphins. The forty-niners are going to win."

She looked surprised, "You DO know?"

"I didn't know about the World Series," I told her. "And I wouldn't know about any other Super Bowl. But I have a memory attached with this one. My first trip through I was at the community college working on my history degree during it. I remember specifically that it was my first year of college. Some friends that I was hanging out with had a Super Bowl party and there was a girl that I knew was going to be there. I was trying to get into her pants and had received some hopeful signs that the party just might be the clincher.

"Back then I was just getting over my shyness and learning that girls weren't the mysteries that I'd always thought they were. Everyone else at the party liked the Niners but Terry, that was her name, liked the Dolphins.

I didn't really give a shit about football one way or the other so I braved the contempt of my peers and allied myself with her on the subject of the Dolphins." I smiled. "It worked. After the Dolphins lost the game we went to her place and consoled each other."

Tracy laughed. "You know," she said, "it just figures that the reason you would remember something like that would be because of sex."

I shrugged, laughing with her. "Unlike most guys, I know where the real priorities lie."

"And so do I," Tracy told me, turning series. "So thanks for telling me and if there's a pool at college, I suppose I'll get in it. After all, who could resist? But I think I'm going to have a new outlook on things from now on. I won't call you up and bug you anymore about your knowledge, okay?"

"Okay," I said. "But remember, nobody's a saint. If I happen to remember anything non-dangerous, I'll be sure to clue you in. And when you get some free money, I happen to know of some good stocks to invest in."

It was three more days before Tracy was able to travel. We stayed in Reno, visiting her every day as much as we could. I'd called Mindy at the hospital in Spokane to let her know what was happening and that I would not be in to work probably all week. She commiserated and told me she would say a prayer for my sister. I thanked her. Mom had a similar conversation with her employer. Dad, being a teacher, was off work for the summer and had no such concerns. I also updated Nina on how things were going and she was pleased to hear that Tracy was going to be all right. She told me she loved me. I asked her is she'd heard anything about Maggie and Mike. She hadn't.

With less to worry about I silently wished them luck.

Tracy was unable to fly on a commercial airline due to her cast so a medical transport plane was suggested in order to get her home. We were delayed an additional day because the insurance company that covered Tracy did not want to pay for such a thing because they felt it was unnecessary. I had a little talk with them while Mom was out of the room, mentioning things like lawyers and lawsuits and media coverage. They listened to me and eventually saw it my way, making the arrangements, not just for the plane but for ambulance transportation from the Spokane Airport and for a hospital bed and visiting nurses at our house. I thanked them politely and hung up.

Tracy said goodbye to the nurses that had cared for her and to Dr. Kwack. An ambulance picked her up and drove her to the airport where they loaded her onto a twin-engine prop plane that was designed just for such things. It was staffed with two nurses in addition to the pilot. Mom rode with her after giving the small plane more than a few nervous glances. Dad and I had a flight back to Spokane in another two hours on a commercial jet and would actually arrive home first. We watched the small plane climb into the sky and disappear into the clouds.

I'd told Dad about my conversation with Tracy and he was shocked to hear of her greed and feelings before the accident but also pleased to hear about her apparent conversion after the accident. As we waited in the lounge before our flight was called, Dad drinking a beer, me drinking a soda, he asked me about what I thought the meaning of all this was.

"So the accident that Tracy was supposed to have has happened," he said, taking a sip. "But she's still alive. What does that mean?"

"I've been thinking about that," I told him, envying the beer he had. "And the answer is, I'm not sure."

"You're not sure."

I shook my head. "I can see it both ways. For one, all of the requirements of the accident were allowed to come together and it occurred. Though Tracy didn't die, probably because she had forewarning of the accident, it has happened. So maybe it can't happen again. But on the other hand, Tracy was supposed to die in the accident. But she didn't. Will fate keep trying to get her? Will it try to arrange another accident? Maybe, maybe not. Again I believe that the basic premise still holds. The longer Tracy stays alive, the more likely it is that fate will accept her being here. What confuses me however is the fact that she's been in taxi-cabs before without any problem."

"What do you mean?" Dad asked.

"She's been in the exact same circumstances before in Berkeley and nothing happened to her there. She told me that they even drove along the Bay a few times. Part of me wants to think that there is no fate and that everything is just random chance. But I can't believe that since the accident was almost exactly the same as it was supposed to be. It just doesn't make any sense that earlier, when the pull to put things right was stronger, that fate didn't seize the opportunity on one of her cab rides. How much of this IS random? Can fate send a cab driver that is drunk when Tracy hails a cab?

Or does it have to wait until a drunk one just happens to cross her path? Before, I would have thought that if Tracy tried to get into a car as a passenger that fate would automatically have arranged to have a drunken cab driver there. Remember, it wants to put things right. So if fate was trying to get her and all of the conditions had been met, why hadn't…" I trailed off, a thought suddenly coming. ALL of the conditions?

"What?" Dad asked.

"Jesus." I said softly. "Could it really have been that simple?"

"What do you mean?" He repeated.

I told him what I was thinking. He raised his eyebrows thoughtfully.

"Interesting," he muttered. "Sounds like you need to ask Tracy about this, but maybe you've hit upon it."

"Wow," I said, shaking my head, thinking that Tracy was going to be pissed if that was the truth.

Tracy was installed in a hospital bed in my Dad's den since her old room was upstairs and moving her up and down would have been damn near impossible. Her chest tube and her IV had been removed before leaving Reno and she was given strong oral analgesics in place of the Demerol that she'd been taking.

The catheter remained and Mom was given instructions by the nurse on how to empty it and how to keep an eye on the output. She was given a supply of bedpans for her other bodily functions. The nurse was scheduled to stop by twice a day to check on her, give her a sponge bath, and to make sure she was healing up. Arrangements were made for further treatment at a local hospital and later, at a local physical therapy facility.

We moved in a TV, a stereo, and her record collection, putting all of it in easy reach. We brought in books, magazines and everything else we thought would make her comfortable in her little prison. She was obviously not happy to be bedridden but her spirits seemed high as she settled in. She fell into an exhausted sleep shortly after dinner so I never had a chance to be alone with her, to ask her what I suspected.

Though I was tired myself I was also going into withdrawal from not having seen Nina in nearly a week. I called her up and she came over. We spent two hours on the porch swing just talking, occasionally sharing a kiss. She went home around ten o'clock and I went by Tracy's new room on the way upstairs. My sister was snoring the snores of those on narcotics. I went upstairs and fell asleep the moment I was undressed and in bed.

The next morning was Saturday. Mom prepared one of her famous, high cholesterol though nearly as good as sex breakfasts. Dad and I ate at the table while Mom ate in the den with Tracy. After all of the dishes were done and put away Tracy said she was going to read for a while and then maybe catch a nap before the nurse showed up to check on her. Her morning medication was working strongly upon her and she seemed quite cheery.

Mom and Dad flipped on the TV and went about the task of reading the newspaper. I wandered out of the room and into Tracy's. She was lying awake in the bed, a book open on her chest, the radio playing the local rock station softly.

"Book no good?" I asked her.

She smiled. "I don't know," she said. "This medicine they gave me has got my mind a little fuzzy. I read two pages of it and then realized I couldn't remember a single thing I'd just read. Music is a little better, much better in fact." She raised her eyebrows and I noted that I could actually see her right eye a little now. "In fact, I think a little Pink Floyd would go nicely with this stuff. You think maybe I could borrow a few of your albums?"

"What's mine is yours," I told her. "I'll go get them in a minute. Do you mind if I sit down for a second?"

"Sure," she said. "What's up?"

I grabbed Dad's desk chair and pulled it over next to the bed. "I've been thinking about all of this fate stuff," I told her.

"Yeah," she said, disgusted. "Fucking fate."

I nodded in agreement. "Yeah," I said. "Anyway, I was kind of thrown for a loop by the fact that you'd been in cabs before in Berkeley and you never had any problems with that. In light of what happened to you, doesn't that strike you as a little strange?"

"As a matter of fact," she said, "it does. I've been wondering about that myself. I didn't see cabs as a threat so I willingly climbed into them more than once. If fate was out to get me then why didn't it go for me earlier?"

"We thought we had all the pre-conditions for your accident worked out," I said. "Water, drunk driver, automobile. We thought that was everything. But what if that wasn't everything?"

She looked confused. "What do you mean? What else could there be?"

"On those other times you got into the cab," I asked her, "had you ever been drinking on any of those times?"

"Drinking," she asked, "what does that have to do with anything?"

"Were you?" I repeated.

"I don't think so," she answered after a moment's thought. "Usually it was when I was heading for the airport to go home on the holidays or returning from the airport. You know, when I had luggage and shit with me? Why…" Her eyes widened as she realized what I was saying. "Holy shit."

I nodded. "In my previous life, when you were killed on graduation night, you had a blood alcohol level of point oh nine. The papers made a big deal about that in their article about teenaged drinking. David Mitchell's attorney made a big deal of it at his trial, as if the fact that you were drunk too excused the fact that he'd killed you and abandoned you in the water. When your boyfriend at college drove into the Bay in the car that you were supposed to be in, you had been drinking. And when you got into the cab in South Lake Tahoe you'd been drinking too."

"Oh my God," she exclaimed, sitting up a little in the bed. Her book tumbled off and fell to the floor. "Are you saying that I had to be drinking too in order for the accident to happen?"

"I don't know," I told her. "You tell me. Were you drunk or had been drinking on any of your other cab trips? Or on any other time you'd gotten into a car with someone since graduation?"

She thought long and hard about that, her face scrunched in concentration. "Only once," she finally answered. "The night that Darren had his accident, the accident I was supposed to be in, I took a cab home instead of riding with him. I was drunk then. But other than that, never."

"Hmm," I said thoughtfully. "That fits. On the night of Darren's accident, fate had already arranged something for you. All of the conditions were met but you didn't get in the car. You got in another car. The fact that you were drunk was probably cancelled out by the fact that you hadn't gotten in the car you were supposed to have gotten in. Interesting. Are you sure there are no other times you got into a cab or another car while you were drunk?"

"Well, another car yes," she told me. "Quite a few times. But never while the driver was drunk too. And I never got into a cab while I was drunk at all. After you told me about graduation night and especially after Lisa Sanchez died, I made sure that I never got in a car with someone who was drunk. If Cindy and I went out, one of us would always stay sober, I made sure of it. When I went to college but before Darren's accident, I did the same thing. I made damn sure that if I was drinking someone else who had not been was doing the driving. On all of the cab rides I took before except for that one, I was stone cold sober since they were usually to or from the airport. Jesus Bill, do you mean to say that I could have been riding in cars all of this time as long as I wasn't drunk?"

"It kinda seems that way, doesn't it?" I asked.

"Fuck me," she muttered, shaking her head.

"But again Tracy," I qualified, "we don't know the exact rules here. I could be wrong."

"Doesn't it feel right to you?" she demanded.

"Yes," I admitted.

"Fuck me," she said again.

Mike stopped by for a few minutes the next day. He asked about Tracy and was glad to hear she was doing okay. He told me he couldn't stay long because he and Maggie were going downtown to catch a movie.

"You and Maggie are getting along pretty good huh?" I asked casually.

"Yeah," he said, his eyes beaming. "She's great. We've been out every day since the boat trip, doing something. You were wrong. She doesn't have a boyfriend at all. Hasn't had one in a while in fact."

"Cool," I nodded. "Guess my information was wrong then."

"Guess what else happened while you were gone?" He asked.

"What?"

"I got a job at the fire department."

"A job? What do you mean?"

"I'm gonna be what they call the courier. The position was open and the battalion chief at the station where I was at called and asked if I wanted it. I'll start next Monday. I'll drive around in one of their little trucks delivering the inter-station mail and the supplies. It's five days a week, about four hours a day and it pays five-fifty an hour."

"That's cool Mike," I told him, pleased. I guess the battalion chief had liked him after all.

"Yeah," he nodded. "And the best thing is that it keeps my foot in the door at the department for the next time they test. Keeps my face known and all that, especially since I'll visit all the stations on all three shifts. And the guys at the station where I was at told me I could use their weight room whenever I wanted to help build up my arms for the combat challenge." He gave me a determined look. "I'm gonna ace that motherfucker next time I take it."

We talked a little bit more and he eventually climbed back in his car and drove off to go get ready for his date with Maggie. Talking with him had put me in a great mood.

Nina came over for dinner that night. After eating my Mom's ham we spent a little time talking to Tracy in her little cave. The two of them chatted on and on, mostly ignoring me as Nina asked question after question about college life and Tracy answered them. We were at the stage where we were waiting for either the acceptance or the rejection letters from UWS and Nina told her how she waited every day for the appearance of the mailman and was disappointed every day when the letter wasn't there. Tracy said she remembered well what that had felt like. Finally, with her pain medication kicking in, Tracy started to nod off a little.

"We'd better let you sleep," I told her, standing up. "You got your appointment tomorrow at the hospital."

"Yeah," she mumbled sleepily. "What a nightmare that's going to be. Another ambulance coming over to wrestle me onto a gurney."

We said good night to her and headed out towards the porch, passing Mom and Dad who were in the living room watching television. Mom was working on some of the paperwork from her job that she'd missed while she was gone. She didn't plan to go back to work until Tracy was better so she was completing some of her work at home. Dad was going over some bills. My parents rarely watched the television, they just liked to have it on while they did other things. They both grunted to us as we went out the front door, closing it behind us.

We sat on the old porch swing and Nina leaned into me. The sun had just set and the few clouds in the sky were tinged with red as the sky steadily darkened. The evening star was the only one out.

"How come an ambulance has to come and get Tracy?" Nina asked me.

"Because she's in that lower body cast and she can't bend. She won't fit in the car so they have to put her on a gurney, take her to the hospital for the appointment, and then bring her back again. That's how they're gonna have to do it for the next five weeks until the cast can come off. Then she'll start physical therapy until she's able to walk again normally."

"Poor Tracy," she said sadly, snuggling a little closer to me. "Are you going with her tomorrow?"

"No," I said. "Just Mom and Dad. I imagine it'll degenerate to just Mom after a few times."

"What time does she go?"

"The appointment's at nine," I answered. "But the ambulance will be here at eight-thirty. Why?"

"Oh, just curious." She said innocently. Maybe a little too innocently.

We talked and swung gently back and forth as the last of the light faded from the sky. The kids that had been outside playing all drifted back in as their mothers called them. Other stars appeared and the sound of the crickets began.

I pulled her a little tighter and she turned her face up to me to be kissed.

I put my lips to hers, feeling her tongue dart out to taste me. My tongue answered back for a moment as I relished the feel of her mouth against mine.

I broke the kiss and tried to pull away but her arms went around my neck, pulling me gently against her. Her tongue shot back into my mouth insistently, hungrily. I kissed back enthusiastically for a moment, aroused by her aggression. I allowed my hand to drop to the skin of her bare thigh.

"Nina," I said breathlessly when our kiss finally broke. "My parents are right inside."

"So?" she asked, licking across my upper lip with her tongue. "They know we kiss don't they? Besides, I don't think your parents are the type to watch us."

"Yeah," I said, "But…"

"I missed you while you were gone Bill," she told me. "I missed talking to you, being with you, hearing you. I got to catch up on that yesterday. But I also missed touching you and having you touch me. I missed kissing you." She sucked my upper lip into her mouth and let her tongue slide inside my mouth again.

I gave in, surrendering to her kisses, my hand rubbing up and down on her thigh, feeling the skin beneath my fingertips, feeling my penis come to full staff in my shorts. After five minutes of this Nina let her hand slide slowly down my chest and stomach, her fingernails scratching at me through my shirt. Her hand continued downward and was suddenly resting on the bulge in my shorts. Her fingers, which were quickly becoming expert at the task, began to squeeze.

"Mmmmm, and I missed this," she said softly against my lips.

As much as I enjoyed the feel of her caressing hand on me I had to reach down and gently remove it. We were on a front porch on a suburban street. And though it was dark, it wasn't pitch black and anyone could have wandered along at any time. My parents also might have wandered out to the porch for whatever reason.

"Prude," Nina accused playfully, giving me one last squeeze but taking her hand away.

"Sorry," I chuckled.

She gave me another kiss and then moved her lips to my ear. She licked at the lobe briefly and then whispered, "I guess I'm gonna have take care of myself again tonight."

She had found one of my weak spots and she knew it. The thought of Nina laying in bed and rubbing herself was almost more than I could handle. I groaned in frustration.

"Unless," she continued to whisper, "you'd maybe like to take a little walk with me? Didn't you tell me once that you and Mike had a spot over at the school? A private spot? A spot that we could maybe put to a little better use than smoking pot?"

"Let's go," I said, standing quickly up.

She giggled and stood, taking my hand in hers. We started to walk.

It was very dark as we crept our way into the back of the school. There were no light poles or building lights nearby. The only illumination came from the stars and the half-moon that drifted above us. The crickets ceased their chirping as we found a spot under a tree and sat on the ground, our backs against the trunk.

"There," Nina told me, pushing her body against mine. "Nice and private. No parents, no people out for a walk. Nice place you have here Bill."

"Thanks," I said softly, pulling her to me and kissing her again.

Our kisses were frantic, deep, without a hint of gentleness as our tongues dueled in each other's mouths. Our hands slid up down each other's bodies, grasping and groping. I slid my hand beneath her shirt, under her bra, taking her bare breast in my palm and feeling it. Her hand slid down the back of my shorts, feeling my ass.

"Kiss my neck," she commanded, letting her head fall back on her shoulders. "I love it when you do that."

I complied, letting the back of my tongue trail across her cheek to her throat. My free hand slid up the inside of her bare thigh to the edge of her shorts. She opened her legs for me. I slid my fingers under the leg of the shorts, which were loose and baggy upon her. They moved upward until I reached the crotch of her panties, which were soaked with her excited secretions. Two fingers wormed their way beneath the cotton to her swollen lips. She moaned as my digits penetrated her.

It was awkward and my hand and forearm quickly got sore from the angle, but I brought her to orgasm as I slid my fingers in and out of her body. She thrust her pelvis rapidly into me and began to whine as she came. I silenced her vocalizations by putting my mouth to hers.

She relaxed against me, her tongue continuing to flit in and out of my mouth. I pulled my fingers free, again resisting the urge to smell them, to put them in my mouth and taste her.

She broke the kiss and looked at me in the darkness, her hand dropping down to the button on my shorts. "Your turn," she told me, unfastening it.

She unzipped me and then began to tug on the shorts and underwear. I lifted my hips a little, allowing her to drag them down to mid-thigh. My erection popped out and she took it in her hand, moving it slowly up and down as I'd taught her that night near the falls. I moaned while she kissed my neck, her hand continuing it's work.

"Does it feel good?" she asked me.

"Yeah," I moaned.

"Would it feel better," she asked quietly, "if I put it in my mouth?"

"What?" I asked, startled.

"I want to suck it," she told me, "would you like me to?"

"Are you sure you want to do that?" I asked, trembling with desire at the thought but not wanting to push her into doing anything too soon.

"Yes Bill," she said, kissing me again, squeezing my cock. "I want to make you come with my mouth, I want to feel it when you shoot. Can I?"

I nodded. "Yes Nina, oh yes."

She gave me one last kiss and then slowly shifted her legs so she had room. Still holding it in her hand she lowered her face to my lap. Her mouth opened and she put it on the head, allowing me to feel the wetness of her tongue against me. I jumped a little and groaned at the contact. I'd had many a mouth on my dick before but this was Nina doing it and the sensation was doubled, tripled by my mind, by the thought that she was actually doing this to me. She sucked only the head for a moment while her hand slowly moved up and down on the shaft and then she sank down slowly, taking as much as she could.

I looked down and saw her brown hair in my lap, saw her head moving up and down. I felt her tonguing and sucking as she moved. I felt her other hand gently caressing my balls, feeling them, testing their texture. It was obvious that she had never done this before. Her actions were tentative, hesitant, new. But at the same time she was doing it well. She was moving in a way that I liked without instruction. She was sucking while moving her head up and down and continuing to use her hand at the same time. She tried to deep throat once but had to withdraw as she gagged a little.

"Sorry," she said, raising her head up for a moment.

"It's okay," I squeaked back.

She dipped back down and resumed where she'd left off, increasing the speed of her movements as she gained confidence. I felt my hips started to rise up and down a little as my body instinctively began to move with the rhythm.

I felt myself getting closer and closer to the edge as she went faster and faster.

I took my right hand, the hand that had probed under Nina's shorts a few minutes before and put the fingers to my nose. I inhaled her scent, the strong, womanly musk of arousal and the thought that I was smelling the essence of Nina brought me over the edge. I felt the familiar tingle running through my body, felt the machinery of orgasm kicking into gear.

"I'm gonna come," I groaned to her, expecting her to pull her mouth away and finish me off by hand.

She didn't. She increased her pace and the strength of her grip on me. Waves of pure pleasure shot through my body, spreading from my groin outward. My hips raised off the ground and I began to shoot into her mouth.

Her mouth moved spastically upon me as she swallowed my offering but she kept up the motion, bobbing her head and sucking until the last spurt had come out and the jerking of my body finally came to a halt.

All of my muscles relaxed and I leaned back against the tree with a sigh. Nina sucked and licked my now-deflating penis for a moment and then raised her head up to me. She licked her lips a little.

"How was that?" she asked me.

"Beautiful," I told her, pulling her to me. I kissed her, catching a faint taste of myself on her tongue but not minding. Obviously this turned her on.

"So I did it right?" she asked.

"Perfect," I assured her. "You're a very erotic person Nina, did you know that?"

"Thank you," she said, kissing me again. "You're not bad yourself. I read how to do that in a book called "The Sensuous Woman". I was dying to try it. I'm glad they told me how to do it right."

"You read how to do that in a book?" I asked, laughing.

"Same place I learned to do what we did at the lake," she said seriously. "That was under suggestions for sex when you're on your period if your partner doesn't like to do it then. I adapted it to the situation. There's all kinds of other stuff in there too. Even stuff about orgies."

"Orgies?" I asked, incredulous, unaware that Nina had even known that word, let alone it's meaning.

She giggled. "For instance," she explained, "did you know that it is considered poor etiquette to attend an orgy while you are menstruating?"

I cracked up completely. "No," I said. "I didn't know that. The things our parents don't teach us."

"So keep that in mind," she said, "if you ever invite me to an orgy. Be sure to have me check my calendar first."

We laughed together in the darkness. Eventually I pulled my shorts back up.

We sat for a few more minutes, just holding each other. Finally we stood up, brushed each other off, and started walking back to my house.