I choked on my French toast and clutched my throat. Luke stood up and slapped me on the back, hard, and I spat the food back on to my plate, then sucked in a gulp of air and coughed.
“All right? Are you all right?” Luke asked anxiously, while Charlie stared.
“Fine,” I wheezed. “Thank you.” Oh, sweet Jesus. I was going to kill Charlie. “I’m going to run and get dressed.” Still coughing, I put my plate in the sink and bolted upstairs, staying up there as long as I could, then dashing down to say we had to hurry or I’d be late to work. “Is it because you love her?” Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
“Why are you driving so slowly?” Luke asked when we were on the road to town.
I wasn’t looking at him. “I’m just trying to drive safely.”
“It’s the car,” Charlie informed him. “Emmy said it makes her freak out. I’m not allowed to touch anything except the seatbelt and door handle and she wipes it down after we drive it.”
Luke was staring at me. “Are you serious?”
“I’m not very comfortable driving this,” I admitted. “I’m very appreciative that you loaned it to me—it’s a really nice car. It’s the nicest car I’ve ever driven. Or touched. It makes me a little nervous.” Luke lightly tapped my knuckles on the wheel, and I saw they were white.
“We have insurance,” Luke said. “You’re on it.”
“I am?”
He nodded. “What kind of car are you comfortable driving?”
I thought. “Well, we were doing pretty well in the Bronco.”
“That didn’t make me very comfortable.”
“Why?”
“I was afraid it would break down and strand you somewhere.” He rubbed my knee and I momentarily dropped my death grip on the steering wheel to squeeze his hand.
“I like...well, I like big cars, I guess. Room for all our gear. Good in the snow.”
“Practical,” he said.
“Annie has a nice car,” Charlie remarked from the back seat. We were veering into dangerous territory. I didn’t want to talk about Annie and cars.
“Uh, Charlie—”
“Annie’s crazy about her cars,” Luke remarked. “If they get a scratch, she goes wild.”
“It would have gotten a big scratch if she had hit us on the bike!” Charlie said.
“Charlie!” I exclaimed. “Aren’t you hungry or something? Let’s talk about snacks.”
But Luke turned around to stare at him. “What do you mean, if she had hit you on the bike?” he asked.
“Luke, it’s not a big deal,” I told him. “Annie misjudged distance a little while we were biking and got a little too close, and we fell.”
“Then she ran over the bike and smashed it!” said the blabbermouth in the back.
“Start from the beginning of this story, please.” Luke’s voice was deceptively calm.
Charlie filled him in, from Annie’s high-speed approach, to our swerve into the weeds, his scraped knees, and her inability to read the road sign with her terrible vision.
By the time we get to the NGS, Luke was furious, and I was doing my best to mollify him. “Why did no one mention this to me?” he asked.
“I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d react like this,” I explained. “We’re fine. And the great news is that Annie is wearing her glasses to drive now, so everyone on the road is a lot safer.”
Luke glared at me. “Don’t keep things like this from me, Emmy. I don’t like finding out by accident that my sister almost killed you.”
