Girls with Insurance

I hunker on the front porch until Ed’s monster truck rumbles by. One tire is
bigger than my whole Omni. It’s the crack of dawn and he’s a big man with a
big job to do. Ed is Sara's husband, a good guy, but not keen on me.

Our little house shakes when he goes by. Mama screams from the sofa,
“Fuckers!” She’s already packed her pill bottles and has her purse next to her, hands folded, even though her appointment isn’t till three. I slip my coat from the
hook. My father’s coat hangs next to mine although he’s been dead three years.
I still smell the smoke. “Where you going?” She turns just her head, and for a
second I think of a little broken doll where the head spins all the way round
till it falls off. I smile a second, but don’t answer.

The Omni’s motor sounds like a rock tumbler. I consider it my punishment. I’ll
never drive another Camaro, which I sped into the tree. I was out of that
hospital in a week, bones set, but Sara was there for months. First she slept.
Then she woke up and learned who everyone was. Before putting a name to my
face, she read it like Braille. Then she learned to walk, but never as well as our
first life.

I hide my car behind the boulders at the foot of her driveway. Ed put the
rocks there to make room for the house on the hill, which he built for Sara with his
own hands. It looks like the playhouse she once had, with turrets and pink and
yellow scalloped shingles.

I can’t build anything but the ‘69 Camaro model, SS convertible, which I
stomped into my bedroom hardwood. “Good God, what was that?” Mama called up the stairs. “Just high on glue,” I called back.” To which she responded, “Pray!”

I keep to the woods till I reach the pond. He built her one of those, too, for
therapy. She can’t walk well but she swims like a maniac, and in winter she
skates. Who would believe a girl with a short leg and fused spine could be so
graceful, gliding and doing those loops and spins? In some warped way I take
credit. I watch from the trees. I used to sit on the bench and tell her she
could be world champion. She would scrunch her nose, thinking me a little
creepy, because she couldn’t remember loving me.

She used to skate at night, and I would sneak up when Ed rumbled to the fire
house to drink beer. I sent for this spotlight, one million candlepower, and
asked if I could turn off the light on the pole and follow her around with my
light, just like in the competitions. She said, “Well, okay.”

Then it happened. Between my light and her spinning she had a seizure. I put
my coat under her head until it was over. I had no phone. I just waited until I
could carry her to the house. I put her on the couch, and she was still
sleeping when Ed came home. He squeezed my arm and told me if I ever came back he’d get an order against me. But after looking into my face he just let his tension free. He knew I wasn’t right. He just about sobbed. He knelt and circled her belly with his arms.

She stirred as I was leaving. “What happened?”

“You were just spinning too fast, babe.” He laughed.

From my hiding place I watch her arms rise and tangle, the necks of swans. She
does figure eights with her eyes are closed. I’m such a sappy freak, I
whisper into the wind. “Sara.”

When I get home I say to Mama, “Ready?”

“Isn’t it too early?”

“Let’s just go.” I snatch up her bag of pills and rattle it so hard she
flinches.

Out on the highway the Omni sputters and I pull into the dirt. “Out of gas,” I
tell her, and she accuses me of doing it just to rile her up.

I light a cigarette, and one for her, even though smoking is the last thing
she should do. She takes it and we breathe hungrily, thankful for these little
pleasures that will kill us slowly.

After a while, the truck grows in my mirror. I know he’ll have gas, and will
save us. For as long as he has a heart, I have a chance.