I don't think there is EVER a good day to be involved in a car accident. But can you imagine being involved in one on Christmas Eve? Especially if it's your first Christmas Eve as a divorced woman and you've just dropped your two precious little girls - the darlings of your heart and your very reasons for living, off with their father and the twenty year old bimbo he's replaced you with. And as if all that weren't enough, what if the 24th of December happens to be your birthday as well? Your 40th birthday no less! Talk about joy to the fucking world! I'll never forget it; and hopefully, neither will you.
That night was bitterly cold and a steady snowfall was pelting the windshield of my Jeep Grand Cherokee as I drove home. The slush on the roads was now freezing slick and solid as the temperature dropped into the teens. But I barely noticed any of it. My heart was broken, my soul was crushed and I hated the entire world. As Johnny Mathis proclaimed "It's The Most Wonderful Time of The Year" on the radio, I wanted to reach through the speakers and rip his larynx out. How could this have happened to me? I thought I had been so smart - focusing on my work, establishing myself in my career and building a solid life for myself before I married and started a family. Then when Mister Right finally did come along, I'd be ready, both financially and emotionally to make marriage, family and love last for a lifetime. And when Mister Right turned out to be Daniel Lasden - a charming, handsome and successful corporate attorney who was ten years my senior, been divorced from his first wife for five years and had no kids, I knew that all my careful planning and hard work was about to pay tremendous dividends.
Stupid bitch!
I stopped at a liquor store near my home in the suburbs of Dallas, Texas. And yes, Dallas does frequently have brutally cold and bitter winters. I bought two packs of Marlboro Reds and a bottle of Amaretto. I hadn't had a cigarette in nearly twenty years and never drank anything stronger than red wine, but on a night like this - fuck it!! As I continued on toward my house, the streets were for the most part deserted; everybody was either still at the mall or at home with their families - except me. I felt completely abandoned and totally alone in the world. Both my parents had long since passed away, I was an only child and now my children where spending the night with their 50 year old father and his 20 year old dormitory slut.
Slowing my jeep to a virtual crawl, I inched carefully over the rough railroad tracks and then came to a stop at the red light at the intersection just beyond the railroad crossing. I was reaching for the first pack of Marlboros when the collision occurred from behind. It was sudden and sharp, but not terribly violent, for it only caused my jeep to lurch forward a few feet. But the surprise of it was enough to cause my soul to practically leap out of my body. Quickly ascertaining that I was unhurt, I glanced around to get my bearings then looked in the rearview mirror. From what I could make out, a beat up old Volkswagen Beetle with now only one working headlight had rear ended me and was now sitting slightly askew on the pavement directly behind me. The shock quickly turned to fury and burned up inside me like magma inside a volcano. I lowered my window and signaled the fool that had just capped off my glorious holiday to follow me. I drove forward a few yards, the Beetle following, and pulled off onto a gravel driveway that led to an enormous concrete slab that the sign claimed would one day be another strip shopping center; but at the moment was just a deserted parking lot.
Still in my work attire - suit coat, silk blouse, skirt and two inch heels, I sprang out of my jeep and stormed across the wet gravel through the bitter cold night without putting on my raincoat. The wind was howling eerily and blowing with a biting arctic chill; but I was so fueled and on fire with rage that I was completely oblivious of the weather. The door to the Beetle was opening slowly and as the wind whipped my long walnut brown hair about my face, I reached out and jerked the door open all the way.
"Are you okay?" A soft and meek female voice shuttered from behind the driver side door.
"Am I okay?" I raged before my mind could fully process that it was a woman who had hit me; a very young woman by the sound of her voice. "You just plowed into my car, you jackass! What the hell do you....Oh my God!!?"
My hands slapped over my mouth as the young girl emerged from the battered old Volkswagen. At first glance, she looked like death warmed over and appeared to be as beat up as the car she was driving. As I studied her in the soft glow of the overhead street lamp, the look of sheer terror on her face, along with a small stream of blood trickling out of her left nostril and the brutally inflicted black and blue bruise around her left eye immediately silenced me. My rage vanished instantly and was replaced with an overwhelmingly powerful instinct of motherly compassion and worry. The poor baby's eye was virtually swollen shut, appeared to be throbbing and there were speckles of blood splattered all about her face.
"I'm so sorry, ma'am." She whimpered. "I didn't mean to hit you. It's just that the road is so slick and I wasn't really paying attention. God, I'm so sorry. Don't worry, I have insurance."
"Oh honey! Oh God! Did that happen just now?" I asked, motioning toward her eye. "Oh dear God!"
Instinctively I reached out and ever so gently brushed my fingertips on her face and into her soft hair. She recoiled at first, but I simply stepped closer. The girl was a good four or five inches shorter than me with long and disheveled honey blond hair. Her face was small and round but angelically adorable. Her lips were quivering as she curled them nervously through her teeth and bit at them while her nose was bright red with a combination of the cold, traces of blood and the strain of fighting back tears.
"I'm okay." She said.
"Are you sure? Oh God, did you hit your head on the steering wheel or something?" I asked.
Though it was painfully obvious that somebody had beaten her up, I wasn't about to start throwing out accusations nor did I want to frighten her anymore than she already was. She seemed so fragile; so very timid. And she seemed even more alone in the world than me. She trembled quite noticeably as she stood before me; whether it was the cold, the shock of the accident or just her life crumbling, I couldn't be sure.
"No, it wasn't that." She said. "I fell at work and bumped it against the corner of a table. I'm a waitress. I've already seen a doctor and he says I just need to ice it and he gave me a prescription."
With my heart filling with compassion and pity, I continued to study this pretty little creature and didn't even realize that I had been gently stroking her hair the whole time.
"Honey, you're trembling." I said.
"I'm cold. Plus it's been a very emotional day. A really rotten day." She replied. "A really rotten life actually." She whispered to herself. "Here, let me get you my information."
She took a step back, swung around and dove back into her beetle. As she rummaged through her glove box in search of her insurance information, my eyes scanned the inside of the vehicle. The entire backseat and a good portion of the front were stuffed to capacity with anything and everything a person, or in this case a young woman, could possibly own in the world. Losing myself deep in thought as I scanned the inside of her car, the girl suddenly sprang out, her shaking hands full of papers. Her purse, which had been sitting on her lap, slipped off and smacked to the ground, spilling most of its contents.
"Here, I think I found it..." She stammered. "Oh God! " She mumbled through an onset of fresh tears as she surveyed her fallen purse and its contents on the freezing ground. "Jesus, can't just one fucking thing go right for me today?!"
With that, I immediately stepped forward and took her gently by the arms.
"Hey, hey, hey..." I began softly. "Honey, listen to me. The first thing you need to do is try and calm down, alright? Nobody got hurt and I'm not mad at you. It was an accident. I know you didn't mean it."
As she looked piteously at me through her swollen, puffy and soggy emerald green eyes, I felt a bizarre quiver deep in my belly. Though she was a complete mess and an emotional wreck at that moment, I was suddenly struck with just how beautiful a girl she was. Even with her savagely bruised and battered eye, she was as beautiful and innocent looking as a Christmas angel. As I studied her face, I could clearly see that she was on the verge of coming completely apart on me.
"Oh God sweetie, you are shaking like a leaf. Here, why don't you sit down, okay?" I spoke softly.
I helped her back down into the driver's seat and then proceeded to gather up her purse and the articles that had fallen out of it; one of which was her wallet. I picked up her wallet and as I did, a debit card slipped out of it. As I quickly snapped it up and flipped it over, I found instead that it was her driver's license.
"Nicole?" I read off the license. "That's your name?"
"Yes ma'am." She replied softly.
"Nicole Leann Foster." I read. My heart froze and my breath caught in my throat as I glanced at her date of birth. "Today's your birthday."
"Uh-huh." She whimpered.
"12/24/1989; twenty years old." I replied with a little smile. "Happy Birthday, Nicole."
