4 P.M. gloomy afternoon – Doorbell rings. I go to the back door. Everyone usually comes to my back door. Open door.
“I’ve had a wreck,” said my daughter, Carol. I’m in shock.”
We draw together with arms around one another and cry.
C: We all stood around about an hour after the policeman got there. It was on the corner of Shepherd and Innwood. The policeman gave the woman a citation for failure to stop. Then I went to my class on Spanish Literature.”
L: “Why did you do that?” C: “Because the teacher has such a relaxing voice. But now I must call Sim.”
C calls her husband, Sim, a Federal Judge. She goes to the phone, opens purse, takes out a lot of little pieces of paper with numbers on them. She speaks: “I’ve just had a wreck…I’m all right. I’m just in shock. My car was hit in the back. I can drive it but can’t take the key out, so when I park, I have to leave the key in the lock. I’m at the hotel (what she calls her childhood home).
Her voice is unusually low because she is trying to keep it steady and not break into a cry as she did when first arriving here. I have to lean forward and listen intently to hear. She is slouched down in the old grey chair which she has taken from the breakfast table and pulled over to the built-in desk under the southeast kitchen windows. It’s a grey day. No sun shines in as it usually does.
Her beauty parlor blond hair does not tell of her 52 years. Her blue eyes pierce each little piece of paper as she reads off phone numbers and names of the policeman, the woman who hit her and the woman in the car behind that woman. I couldn’t tell what her husband was asking her; in a low voice she said, “yes”… “yes”…”You don’t have to come home.” In an aside to me she said, “Sim is so efficient. I have to take the car to _________ repair shop.” Sim must have objected because Carol answered: “The Insurance Company said I have to take it there. How do you get there? I hate to go on the old Katy Road.”
Sim tells her another route. She repeats after him: “Just go down Voss to the freeway then one more block? That’ll be easy.”
The pungent smell of stewing apricots fills the kitchen. I look at her. She seems so vulnerable. She seems like a little girl again. It makes me think of her little dolls sheused to make act for the amusement of her brother and her old white cat, Celeste, whom she liked to stroke.
We both take sips of our ice water. I don’t know why we were so dry. She picks up the little pieces of paper with the names and phone numbers on them, puts them in her purse. She gets up, straightens her dark blue conservative long pants, pulls her plaid sleeves down and reaches for her umbrella.
“I must go now to the repair shop and leave the car to be fixed. Timothy will meet me there and bring me home.”
L: C: L:
“Do you have anything for supper?” I asked. “No,” she says wistfully.
“Well, you should cater to your shock. Plan to go to the cafeteria,” I said lovingly, and hugged her gently goodbye.