The impact had folded the front of the car into an origami of metal. The windshield was a spiderweb, the airbag hung limp from the wheel. The entire street reeked of scorched plastic and copper when I pushed the door open.
The second car was a Lexus and had its rear smashed but not as bad asMargaret's car. I spotted a man in a suit, surrounded by two officers, probably taking a statement. I didn't care about his damages. It didn't seem that serious.
I ran.
At first, the only thing I saw was the color of her cardigan. Blue. As I got closer, I saw that she was arguing with a police officer.
"I told you," she was saying, her hands up like she was in a musical. "I take blood pressure pills. The new ones have side effects. I told you that already. But my doctor has cleared me for driving."
"Ma'am, I hear you," the officer replied, tone neutral and a little loud, "but we have to follow protocol. Your behavior at the scene suggested impairment, and the sobriety test was not within normal range."
"My behavior?" Margaret's voice ticked up an octave. "I'm bleeding, my car's in the gutter, and you think I'm behaving erratically, young man?"
I called out. "Mom!"
Her head snapped toward me, and her whole posture dropped, like the tension holding her together had just let go. There was a tiny trickle of blood on her face, from the forehead, across her cheek and down to her neck. "My daughter is here," she told the officer, then turned to me. "Kimmy, I don't understand what's going on. They said I failed a sobriety test."
"What sobriety test?" I looked the officer right in the eyes. "She needs a hospital. Can't you see?"
"We're simply following protocol."
"What protocol? She's a senior and she needs to be seen by a doctor, and you had the audacity to subject her to some test?" I was fuming, ready to punch the inconsiderate asshole.
"We're taking her in for evaluation. She failed the roadside, and she's making inconsistent statements."
"She doesn't drink," I said, as flat as I could. "And she doesn't take any medication that would cause a DUI."
He barely flicked his eyes at me like he was afraid that he'd give away his incompetence if I looked at him long enough. "It's standard procedure."
Margaret was shaking now, her fingers twitching against my sleeve. "Kimmy, I think I have to go with them or they'll arrest me and add some bogus charges. Can you tell them I didn't do anything wrong? It's just a misunderstanding."
I tried to hold onto her, but she let go, arms slack at her sides. The officer led her to the rear of the cruiser, where a second officer stood by withthe door open. As Margaret folded herself inside, she looked at me one last time. Her eyes were wide, terrified.
The doors closed with a brutal clunk. I watched the cruiser pull away from the curb, my feet stapled to the concrete.
I didn't understand what was going on either. Margaret hadn't gotten a single ticket in the forty years she'd been driving.
Three days later, I stalked the rug in Margaret's living room with a phone pressed to my ear, trying to keep my voice level and reasonable.
"I'm telling you, we've had auto-renewal for the past eight years," I insisted. "The account number on file is correct, the address is the same, and I know the premium came out because I check her statements every month."
"Miss Holt," the insurance rep said, "we have no record of a payment processed this past December. The policy lapsed at midnight on the twentieth. We mailed three notifications to this address. I'm sorry, but that's what I see in our system."
"That's impossible," I snapped. "She checks her mail every day, and we haven't received those letters."
The rep's silence was almost smug. I could picture him, a thousand miles away, clicking on something irrelevant as he waited for me to either escalate or give up.
"I'd like to speak to a supervisor, please," I demanded, but my voice was paper-thin.
After what my mother had to go through on the day of the accident, and now this!
"Certainly. Please hold."
The line dropped into some poppy hold music. I wandered to the window, which looked out on a yard. A pair of squirrels bickered on the tree branch, then vanished into the canopy of leaves.
Margaret was seated on the couch behind me, her hands clasped tightly in her lap, her knuckles pale. Beside her lay a letter from a legal firm. The other party, whose Lexus had been scratched, was threatening to sue if the repair costs weren't paid.
This was fast, I thought to myself. Way too fast. As if the Lexus owner knew that we had insurance issues. Or maybe even prepared in advance.
