I’m still paying off the lawyer who absolutely failed to keep my son out of prison. There’s no way I can afford one for myself. Not a competent one in any case.
A honking horn startles me out of my increasing panic, and I turn in my seat, seeing that the rear of my vehicle is still inconsiderately sticking out into the traffic lane. I wave, pulling the door closed with a slam, and manoeuvring farther onto the berm, out of harm’s way.
I could leave the vehicle here. Cut across the fields and get lost in the woods, curling into a foetal position in the forest where nobody can harm me.
And meanwhile your son will be shanked in his cell.
Joshua is the one who doesn’t have a choice here. He can’t run, can’t escape if I decide that being a good citizen is more important than taking this extreme chance to save his life.
When I close my eyes, I don’t see the five eleven man who rants and kicks against the guardrails of society. I see the frail baby boy who grabbed hold of my finger from his incubator in the NICU while the doctors and nurses frantically worked to keep him breathing. Too impatient to wait his rightful turn, he’d come along a full six weeks early.
He’d fought and won. An early lesson that he took to heart. He’s still fighting, forever destined to pick the wrong battles.
I flick on the indicator and pull into the lane behind a four-wheel drive so shiny it looks like someone drove it straight off the showroom floor.
My vehicle is a Honda Civic that I bought second hand five years ago and it already had a lot of mileage on the clock. It’s tiny and old, like me, though at forty-five, I probably shouldn’t feel as beaten as I do.
But that’s life. At least, that’s my life. Always looking for the opportunity to stamp me down. I try not to take it personally.
I wriggle on the seat, a cramp hitting my lower belly. Fear spikes adrenaline into my blood stream, sending a horrific sense of doom to wrap around my shoulders like the world’s worst weighted blanket.
Is this it? Has a package split? Am I about to receive a dose of meth so strong that I float away on a magic cloud of death and pixie dust?
My one and only time being high?
The easing muscle spasm says no, but even when the twinge passes, the sense of impending disaster remains.
Probably because you’re walking into a prison full of corrections officers with fifty thousand dollars’ worth of crank shoved up your hoo-hah.
It’s hard to argue with that thought. That thought is so truthful, it’ll soon be broadcast on the midday news. Along with my mug shot.
The turnoff is next on my left. Straight ahead, then turn right, would take me to the police station instead.
I indicate left, still unsure if I’ll actually turn until the moment I do, the narrower side street making my destination an inevitability. My car wheels bump over the train tracks before I make another left-hand turn towards the prison entrance, having to tilt my head back to open my airways because my chest is too tight to breathe.
Perhaps that’s the reason I don’t see the corrections truck headed towards me. Not until it’s too late.
There’s the squeal of braking tyres, the shriek of rending metal, the tinkle of flying glass. A roar. My foot slams on the brakes until they hit the floor. I hear a dull crump as reinforced metal meets reinforced concrete and the former cedes.
Most of all, there’s the rush of blood in my ears, the erratic thump of my heartbeat, the high whine as my eardrums rebel against the onslaught of noise. The prison van slams to a stop, its front end crushed by the concrete bollard of the outer perimeter fence.
The brakes finally grab purchase on the heat-oily tarmac, jerking me to a halt as my fender kisses the rear bumper of the van. My body careens forward until the seatbelt engages. A thin line of intense pain forms where it catches me and flings me back into my seat. My internal muscles clench and the large packages squirm inside me.
I tense, waiting for the airbag to explode in my face, but it doesn’t come. Hopefully because I didn’t hit anything hard enough, possibly because my car is a piece of crap.
A second after my awareness comes back into focus, nausea floods me. For the second time, I wrench the door open, ejecting a thin line of acidic drool onto the road.
A deep male voice calls out, “Miss? Are you okay, Miss?”
Like I know.
Then the world jumps back onto its normal tracks. My brain compiles everything into a narrative.
I’ve been in a car accident. I’m alive.
“Miss?”
I turn towards the voice, assurances that I’m okay at the ready. Then the words dry into dust and blow away.
