A Husband She Couldn't Forget

With a sharp cry, she jerked the wheel hard to the right to avoid impact—too hard, she realized too late. The thick trunk of a Douglas fir reared up beyond the windshield.

A split second later, the world went black.

Voices.

They seemed to come from all around her. Voices and sirens and strange sounds—air escaping, metal creaking. Her chest felt like someone had whacked it with a hammer. And the skin of her face, which was buried in something that smelled like singed baby powder, burned as though she’d face-planted on asphalt.

She heard a groaning sound. It came from her own mouth.

A man’s voice near her left ear said, “She’s coming around.”

Another groan escaped her. Gritting her teeth, she willed her body into action and somehow managed to flop back away from the smelly thing that covered her face—an air bag! The smelly thing was an air bag.

With yet another groan, she put it together. Somehow, she’d been in an accident, and it looked pretty bad...

Carefully, she turned her head to meet the worried eyes of the state trooper staring at her through the wide-open driver’s-door window. Red light from a light bar reflected on his face in strobe-like flashes.

“It’s okay,” the trooper promised, in that tone people use when it really isn’t, but what else can you say? “We’re going to get you out of there. Can you talk to me?”

“I...yes. Of course.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Uh.” She tried to decide. “I think I’m all in one piece, at least.”

“Good girl. What else?”

“There’s...some pain. My chest aches. And my face...” It really did feel as though someone had taken a cheese grater to her cheeks and forehead.

“That’s from the air bag,” the trooper said.

Aly shut her eyes and dropped her head to the seat rest again. “Everything hurts, but I don’t think anything is broken...” Or maybe she was just in shock and didn’t even realize she was almost dead.

“Hold tight,” the trooper said. “I promise we’re going to get you out of there as quickly as we can...”

It took a while. They brought out the Jaws of Life and sawed her free of the ruined car, which had folded itself around her like a big metal pretzel.

The EMTs moved in. They talked about how lucky she was—her face a little scratched up, a big bruise forming like a beauty pageant banner diagonally across her chest from the seat belt. On her left knee, she had a cut that would need stitches.

And she’d sustained what they called a mild traumatic brain injury—seriously, who even knew you could use the words mild and traumatic brain injury in the same sentence? One of the EMTs said they estimated she’d been unconscious for less than ten minutes. Patiently, they guided Aly through the basic vision and consciousness tests.

She passed, the paramedic reassured her. She was going to be fine. The woman patted her shoulder gently. And Aly felt such gratitude, like a warm wave washing through her aching chest.

So what if everything hurt? She was lucky to be alive and relatively unharmed.

The EMTs gave permission for her to talk briefly to another state trooper, a woman this time. Aly tried to remember. She recalled passing Camp 18, but after that, it was all a blur.

“I don’t know, really, how it happened, or why I hit that tree. I think there were headlights, maybe, coming at me, in my lane...”

The trooper nodded. “We have a witness, a woman in a vehicle who wasn’t far behind you. She saw the other car in your lane and barely swerved in time to avoid a collision herself. She’s the one who called 9-1-1. Unfortunately, her description of the oncoming car is too vague for identification. She said she thought it was a dark sedan.”

“So, whoever it was will get off scot-free?”

The trooper gave a shrug of regret. “It happens—too often, sad to say.”

Aly put her hand to her head. “I’m sorry. My head really hurts.”

The officer was sympathetic. “I’ll let you go, then.” She gave Aly a card. “Call this number if anything more comes back to you.”

“What about my things? They’re still in what’s left of the car.”

The trooper gave her another card with a number to call to get her stuff once what was left of the car had been “processed” and “cleared.”

And that was it. The EMTs loaded her into an ambulance and off they went to Valentine Bay Memorial.

At the hospital, she kept telling everyone that she felt fine, just a little banged up with a headache. She asked to call her parents. The request brought soothing noises and promises that she could make the call “soon.” They took her vitals and examined her more thoroughly for any new and potentially worrisome symptoms from her head injury. The air bag burns were declared minor and treated with a gentle cleaning and antibiotic ointment.

In the end, the doctor in charge prescribed a night at the hospital for observation. Barring complications, he promised, she would be released the next morning.

They moved her to a regular room and she used the phone by the bed to call her mom, who answered on the second ring with, “If you’re a telemarketer, hang up now.”

Her cheeks still hurt, but Aly smiled anyway. “Hey, Mom. It’s me.”

Catriona Santangelo said nothing for a slow count of three, after which she stated carefully, “You’re not calling from your phone and we expected you two hours ago.”

“Yeah, well...” Alyssa let her head drop back to the pillow with a sigh. “Can you believe I don’t even know where to start with this?”

“What’s happened?”

“I’m fine, I promise you. Are you in bed?” Aly’s mom was forty-eight—and seven months pregnant with her fifth son. In recent weeks, her blood pressure had climbed. She’d had cramping and some bleeding and the family doctor had put her on modified bed rest—which was why Aly, who never came home for more than a few days at a stretch, had taken an extended leave from her job in Manhattan. At a time like this, Cat needed her only daughter at her side and Aly needed to be with her mom.

Cat scoffed, “Of course I’m in bed. I hardly dare to get up to go to the bathroom. The men in this family will be the death of me, I swear. Overprotective is too tame a word for your father and your brothers, let me tell you.”

“And yet here you are, having another one.”

“God never gives us more than we can handle—plus, well, you know your father.” Ernesto Santangelo was a plumber by trade. He was strong and fit at fifty and he loved Aly’s mom with a fiery passion, to say the least. Cat’s voice grew husky. “Impulsive and so romantic. What can I say? I could never resist him.”

“La, la, la—I don’t want to hear about your, er, private life, Mom.”

Cat started laughing and then Aly was laughing, too—until she gasped at the pain around her ribs. “Ouch!”

“All right, Alyssa,” her mother said sternly. “What is going on?”

“It’s nothing that serious. I was in a little accident, that’s all. My rental car was totaled, but I’m going to be fine.”

More dead air on the line. Alyssa’s mom never got hysterical. Cat was the strong, silent, effective type in any emergency. “Tell me,” she finally commanded. “Tell me everything. Now.”

Aly explained what she could remember about the accident, finishing with, “I don’t really remember why, exactly, I veered off the road and hit a tree, but when I came to, the car was a goner.”