[ WP ] The air left my lungs

Race car driver Walter Rohl said that understeer is seeing the tree before you feel it and that oversteer is when you feel the tree before you see it. I definitely saw the tree as I felt it rip into the side of my car. 
 
 I do n't remember much after that. The mind remembers things that are pertinent to its existence, and I remember the wailing siren, the mustachioed paramedic, the surgeon's mint scrubs. They pointed and gesticulated, grim and heads shaking and it goes dark. Nothing. 
 
 I do remember the Subaru dealer pulling the hard sale four years earlier, the cheap suit glistening in the waning autumn glow as he gesticulated to the various points outlined in the training manual. 250-horsepower engine. 6-speed stick-shift. All-Wheel-Drive. Leather seats. 5-star NHTSA ratings on all sides. `` Faster than a Porsche!'' he triumphed. A discerning enthusiast of sorts I knew all this. I just wanted to know if it came in silver on beige. 
 
 Six months to the day I bought the car I ran into Cat, and not Catherine, she insisted. She introduced herself to me outside in the parking lot. She wore a tangerine moleskin trenchcoat, her brown hair tucked under a tweed newsboy cap. If I try hard enough I can picture her canvas bag and maybe even the items inside. Over time one date became two, two became three, three became three months, and three months became four years. But why was she in the car? More importantly, how was she? 
 
 The nurse's voice woke me and my family and friends were the first things I saw when I came to after the surgery. Their worried looks prompted me to perform a limb check: pass, everything was still there, they still worked albeit with some scars that would probably fade. They were still sad. My mother gives The Look and everybody else scatters. Coast clear, she leans in and whispers in my ear the news I feared. 
 
 I did n't eat for the rest of the day or the next. 
 
 Gradually the memories came back day-by-day as did the pain and the relief. 
 
 A valley. Trees along the road. A country road? Two lanes, no shoulders. Sheets of fog being spun into a blue sea. That was day one. 
 
 The distinctive boxer rumble like a fist to the stomach, the shifter skating through the gates. Vapid Pop Song on the radio. That was day two. 
 
 Laughter as Cat just found out my fear of getting car sick and crying. I point out her fear of being airsick and crying at the end of children's films. She rolls her eyes. I smile. The car smiles too, as if blessing the relationship. She asks how close we are to Chrissie's house so we can see baby Brambaugh. `` Brambaugh? That's a stupid name'', I bluntly reply. `` Not as stupid as yours'', she retorts and I shut up. Day three. 
 
 A crimson BMW sedan. The driver downshifts and accelerates. I downshift, the car revs in protests, and Cat rolls her eyes. It's the only way this trip is bearable, I tell her and I accelerate. Together we dance the tango and sing the duet through the country roads, his high-strung castrato in stark contrast to my feral peasant cry. Over curves and hills and bumps we fly, through sunroofs the song is heard. She tries to hide her smile but I feel her blessing. Day four. 
 
 Was that sign indicating a sharp left or a fast right? At 80 mph it is hard to tell but we keep the pedal down. Michael Stipe whines on the radio and Cat, annoyed, switches to a diabetically-sweet Phil Collins song. `` Baby Brambaugh has mommy's eyes! Daddy's nose! Great-granddad's arms! ``, she sarcastically lists. `` What, withered and old?'' I mutter. she punches me as she tries to hide her glee. Day five. 
 
 The pedal rumbles in disconnected bliss as I hear screaming. In front the crimson BMW flickers amber as white knuckles contort at violent angles. My car is cresting and I am flicking the wheel in varying degrees of opposite lock with the accelerator down, engine revving. All four wheels abandon all hope of dignity, the indomitable grip perching the car at wicked angles like an alley cat ready to attack as they claw at the rapidly vanishing contact patch. Over the left-turn crest we go into a blind right hander. I am no longer in control. The car realizes a few seconds later that it too is not in control but fights vainly, and for the first time I see the oak tree in its magnificent 100+ year glory. I think of the wilted flowers and the faded photographs of people long gone. I think of the bootleggers who've met their ends with cops in tow. I think of the over-confident young jocks in their hairy-chested muscle cars who've kept the go pedal down, who saw seventeen years flash by in five seconds. Does that tree know what it's done? Is it sorry? More importantly, will that be us? I turn to my right and for the first time, the auburn eyes are drained of life before me. A loud crash as the car hugs the massive tree and everything goes dark. Day six. 
 
 She was gone. And it was my fault. The woman I loved for the last four years died because I carelessly wanted to keep myself company with a stranger while she was there. I was selfish. I was stupid. And she was gone. There would be no more good mornings, good afternoons, or good nights. I did n't care about the car. It could be replaced with a better one, which I would do, anyway. I wanted to blame the stupid baby but I quickly realized that it was not his fault for being born, it was mine for being a moron. The realization hits me like the metaphorical ton of bricks. 
 
 The air left my lungs surely as quickly as the air left hers, and for the first time in ten years, I cried. 
 
 
 
 

