—
I AWOKE TO BLACKNESS. Something ice-cold was running down my back.
We’re in a lake! I thought. Something heavy was on top of me. The
mattress. I tried to kick it off but couldn’t, so I crawled beneath it, my
hands and knees pressing into the ceiling of the van, which was upside
down. I came to a broken window. It was full of snow. Then I
understood: we were in a field, not a lake. I crawled through the
broken glass and stood, unsteadily. I couldn’t seem to gain my balance.
I looked around but saw no one. The van was empty. My family was
gone.
I circled the wreck twice before I spied Dad’s hunched silhouette on
a hillock in the distance. I called to him, and he called to the others,
who were spread out through the field. Dad waded toward me through
the snowdrifts, and as he stepped into a beam from the broken
headlights I saw a six-inch gash in his forearm and blood slashing into
the snow.
I was told later that I’d been unconscious, hidden under the
mattress, for several minutes. They’d shouted my name. When I didn’t
answer, they thought I must have been thrown from the van, through
the broken window, so they’d left to search for me.
Everyone returned to the wreck and stood around it awkwardly,
shaking, either from the cold or from shock. We didn’t look at Dad,
didn’t want to accuse.
The police arrived, then an ambulance. I don’t know who called
them. I didn’t tell them I’d blacked out—I was afraid they’d take me to
a hospital. I just sat in the police car next to Richard, wrapped in a
reflective blanket like the one I had in my “head for the hills” bag. We
listened to the radio while the cops asked Dad why the van wasn’t
insured, and why he’d removed the seats and seatbelts.
We were far from Buck’s Peak, so the cops took us to the nearest
police station. Dad called Tony, but Tony was trucking long-haul. He
tried Shawn next. No answer. We would later learn that Shawn was in
jail that night, having been in some kind of brawl.
Unable to reach his sons, Dad called Rob and Diane Hardy, because
Mother had midwifed five of their eight children. Rob arrived a few
hours later, cackling. “Didn’t you folks damned near kill yerselves last
time?”