another accident

I heard only the first words on the voice mail and broke into a cold sweat.

"There's been an accident."

I didn't listen any more but to get details of where they were. I didn't even grab my purse, and I left my front door wide open. 'Come, get everything you want. My babies have just been in an accident and I am going to them. That's all that matters right now,' I wanted to shout as I ran down the stairs, somehow not falling on something.

I had been with a student and thus turned off the telephone and the answering machine, out of respect for my student's time and our lesson.

As I sped up the streets two miles to where Hunter Mill and Lawyers intersect, my mind was racing with images of our accident a year and a half ago flooding my mind. The one in which we should have died, but our secure Outback did its job, valiantly giving its life to save ours, the carseats likewise restraining our children so that, even upside down, they were kept in their seats and did not sustain even a scratch.

I approached the intersection and waved to the police officer directing traffic. Stretching my neck out of the car, I yelled, "I'm their mother!"

I was trembling like a leaf. In the middle of the intersection was a car overturned. I hoped it wasn't our truck.

I got around the corner, parked on the side of the road, put on my hazards, and dashed across the stopped traffic. The truck was there, door crashed off, my babies just fine. They ran to me and told me all about it. My husband had to stay with the truck to find out about towing and said he would catch a cab home.

The drive home was endless, mainly due to the winding-road detours we had to take. My mind worked incessantly to figure out how this could have happened. I later got the scoop, although it is still difficult to picture:

They were the first car in a line of cars at the left turn light, which was red. Right lane traffic to go straight, however, was going on a green light. An 18 year old girl, evidently very distracted, came up the crest of the hill at such an angle that she somehow did not realize she was heading right for the row of cars along her left, stopped in the turn lane. She hit our truck on the passenger side, and with such a velocity that it made her flip. She had to be cut out of the vehicle, and she suffered a concussion. It is a 35 mph speed limit on that road; to have flipped like that she must have been accelerating much past that.

La Princesita has spoken of both accidents last night and today. The Young Prince seems to have forgotten it happened. This is the second big accident they have both been in, and I was never in one until I was 34 years old. I feel horrible for them. It is my job to ensure their safety--but how is that possible when you can't trust others?