Remember tomorrow, p.20
Remember Tomorrow, page 20
But by Tuesday afternoon, the storm was gone, the sky blue, and although the temperature didn’t reach freezing, the day was fine by Colorado mountain standards. Crews would be working through tomorrow to clear streets and sidewalks, but this extra day off was perfect for hanging out with Mike and Laura. Finals were coming up the next week, so this was a nice breather. School wasn’t the only thing weighing heavily on my mind. I’d also been stressing over my upcoming accident, which was only a couple days away.
Our street dead-ended at open space, the same land that wrapped around behind Laura’s house. That spot provided a steep yet smooth slope, with good spacing between the trees before they got too dense. It formed a sweet incline down to the street below. With as much snow as had fallen, we could hop onto our pair of inner tubes and, with enough speed, sled all the way down to the intersection, a journey of a full block. It was awesome.
Mike gave an excited whoop the moment Laura dropped her arm, the signal to start our race down to her at the bottom of the hill, right at the end of the street. We both pushed off to gather speed and accelerated down the slope on our tubes, the snow already packed by a number of trips up and down over the past hour. A mischievous thought came to mind, and right when we were picking up some serious speed, I abruptly nudged my tube sideways, grinning like a fiend, and bounced into Mike’s as though we were playing bumper cars. He skidded off the snow-packed section and into the slower powder.
“Hey, you prick!” He gave me the finger.
I laughed and saluted as I cruised down alone, leaving Mike far behind. Laura was grinning below as she watched our antics. The blast of cold air turned my face numb, and I gave a yell of sheer joy. I was coming up quickly on Laura and didn’t know if she was planning on trying to stop me or what, but she froze in my path for an instant too long before trying to get out of the way.
“Watch ou—”
My shout was cut off when I crashed into her. Laura fell on top of me with a squeal. We both bounced right out of the tube and slid a few yards through the snow, the empty tube rocketing off down the street. The two of us ended up in a tangle, laughing and grinning like idiots.
“You okay?” I asked when I could finally get my breath.
“Yeah, but you’re awfully bony, man. Not a very good cushion.” She gave me a scowl that she couldn’t maintain for more than a couple seconds before we were laughing again.
Mike shot by on his tube, only a foot or two away from hitting me, dousing me with a spray of snow to the face. I spat it out and wiped my eyes while Laura giggled. Mike roared with laughter as he kept going, eventually retrieving my abandoned tube down by the intersection at the end of the block.
That was a great day, and I was determined to make the most of it with my accident looming, terrifying and unavoidable. Perhaps it wasn’t actually unavoidable, but I was hesitant to do anything dramatic to change the course of events at this point without any do-overs, knowing Mom would pay the price.
We rode the tubes down the hill countless times, getting our workout in by trudging up the slope through the snow each time. Races were won and lost, collisions frequent, and laughter and joy plentiful. By the time darkness fell and we headed back home, all of us had a few bumps and bruises, but we wouldn’t have wanted it any different.
We went inside and kicked back in Laura’s basement to drink some hot cocoa and shoot the breeze. Laura showed us Zelda, which her dad liked playing. The game was cool but was only single player, so after a while, we gravitated back to Street Fighter II. Mike suggested we all chip in and buy Mortal Kombat II sometime, which was an awesome idea. I was up for it since I had a little money coming in from my job at the store, more after that much-appreciated fifty-cent raise.
When Mike and I were leaving, I paused on the porch. I hadn’t planned on saying anything, but my mouth overrode my better instincts. Autopilot urged me to just go home, but I wasn’t having it.
“Hey, guys…” I cleared my throat nervously, not sure what I meant to say.
They both looked at me, sensing my earlier levity gone and some heavy thoughts about to be articulated.
“Um, just wanted to say today was great, and I want you guys to know how much I appreciate everything… uh, being friends and all. Means more to me than you could know.” I managed to rein in my tongue before I could say more, such as “If anything should go wrong in a couple days and you don’t see me again…”
They both looked at me funny a moment, and I felt my cheeks burning with embarrassment. Luckily, the porch light was dim in the darkness outside, so they didn’t notice.
Laura was the first to react. “Yeah, today was awesome. You guys are the best of friends.”
“Yeah, same,” Mike said, obviously reluctant but sensing a response was required. “Nice having people to hang with on days like this, you know?”
We all nodded then mutually decided that was enough awkwardness and called it a night. Mike and I waved bye to Laura and walked home. Safer subjects quickly took over on our brief walk, such as our newfound mission to acquire Mortal Kombat II.
-66-
Dec. 12, 1996
This was it, the day I had been dreading most—the final replay of the worst day of my life. And this time, I would get no do-overs.
I’d had plenty of time to reflect on what had gone wrong when I tried to erase my accident from earlier timelines. Both times I’d gone back to meddle, Mom somehow ended up dead shortly thereafter. The marshal had once told me I might have to simply accept the price associated with the optimum outcome—and that price was high indeed.
“1979” began playing on my boom box, and the shouting downstairs intensified. A part of me wanted to rush down there and attack Dean, sparing Mom from the beating, but I resisted the urge and let the autopilot guide me.
The more I deviated from the original timeline, the less I noticed the autopilot sensation, as no truly predestined outcomes existed since I was creating a new future for myself. Yet today, I was feeling it especially powerfully, which I chalked up to this being a defining moment in my life.
I finally knew what I must do.
I had come to the conclusion that my nearly dying in the accident was what caused Mom to finally give the boot to the string of loser boyfriends. She wouldn’t be sufficiently motivated to do that until she realized how close she came to losing her only child, presumably the most important thing in a mother’s life. Sadly, it took this tragedy for Mom to build up the fortitude to regain her independence, as she had done after Dad passed away when I was a young child.
Finally, the moment arrived, autopilot tugging at me noticeably. I went downstairs just as I had in other timelines, other lifetimes. I arrived just as Dean punched Mom in the face and she hit the floor. As before, I came up and delivered that incredibly satisfying kick to Dean’s balls, and he again made the hurk sound that would have been quite comical in another situation.
My eyes met Mom’s for a brief moment, and I nodded at her, feeling the sting of tears building. This is for you, Mom.
“You little cocksucker!” Dean screamed. “I’ll fucking kill you.” He swung at me, but I leaped away, my back hitting the counter. I dodged aside as he came at me, and my elbow sent Mom’s car keys skittering across the counter. I snatched the keys up just as Dean connected with a glancing punch to my shoulder.
“Fuck you, Dean!” I shouted.
Dean came at me with the switchblade an instant later, face nearly purple with rage and a vein popping out of his forehead. I ran out the back door and around the house, slipping and sliding through six inches of remaining snow, and reached Mom’s little Hyundai.
Oh, yeah—one other thing. I went behind the car and kicked over Dean’s Harley.
He was roaring unintelligible curses by that point and, in his drunken state, took a spill in the snow.
I got behind the Hyundai’s wheel and cranked the ignition. The engine turned over reluctantly then caught. I put it in reverse and stomped on the gas, sending snow and pebbles flying. The windshield splintered from the stone Dean hurled, but I kept going. A jolt and crunch of metal sounded as the car slammed the Harley out of the way, then I was into the street. Dean was still coming, but I popped the little car into drive and took off with a chirp of the tires. The neighbors were probably already calling the cops by that point.
I gave Dean the finger as I shot down the street.
Autopilot urged me to hit Highway 50, so I did. A couple left turns and three miles later, I reached Highway 50 and took a right.
Autopilot also wanted me to floor the accelerator, so I did that as well. I dug through the cassettes in the console bin and popped one in at random. Testament’s “Return to Serenity” came on, so I cranked the volume until the speakers were about to blow. No reason not to—the car would be totaled in under ten minutes, I was guessing.
I barreled down Highway 50 at seventy miles per hour even though I knew about the icy patch coming up on the right-hand curve. Those unwelcome twins, fear and dread, were my passengers as I drove.
Through all my past timelines, this awful night had stuck with me in crystal clarity—whether from the previous jump attempts or because it was seared into my subconscious, I didn’t know.
The highway grew dark when I reached a remote stretch, trees close on either side. The car’s headlights wouldn’t reveal the black ice, but I saw the familiar right-hand curve just ahead.
This is it. “Love you, Mom.”
Tears streamed down my face as I clenched the wheel with a white-knuckled grip. At the last moment, a flash of inspiration struck, and I reached up to pull the seatbelt around myself. Click.
The tires lost their grip on the patch of black ice, and the car slewed sideways into the oncoming lane. Just at that moment, Ed Briggs’s wrecker truck came around the curve and plowed into me. The heavy steel bumper punched right through the Hyundai’s door like it was an aluminum beer can. An explosion of pain overwhelmed me as my hip was pulverized.
A sickening motion followed as the car spun back the other direction then went off into the ravine. A maelstrom of shattered glass, cassette tapes, loose change, and other debris rained around me as the car rolled over and over. The airbag grudgingly deployed and punched me in the face.
I blacked out before hitting the bottom.
-67-
Dec. 13, 1996
For a brief moment, I came to in the back of an ambulance. My sight was bleary, and I had the vague impression of an oxygen mask strapped to my face. Someone leaned over me and spoke, but I felt as if I were underwater, their words and features both distorted and nonsensical.
I tried to hold on to consciousness but failed, slipping back into the welcoming darkness. My one coherent thought was that this was new. I’d never woken in the ambulance previously, certainly an improvement over rousing in a hospital bed after a month in a coma the previous time around.
***
“Jason, can you hear me?”
My eyelids fluttered, and an impressionistic swirl of drab colors eventually coalesced into a hospital room. I was lying in a bed with sensors attached to me and a machine monitoring my vitals. An IV protruded from the inside of my right elbow. A TV facing me was tuned to CNN, the channel muted with a freshly reelected Bill Clinton giving some speech.
“Oh, thank God!” Mom’s face filled my vision. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She was smiling broadly despite a black eye.
“Hey, Mom,” I croaked.
“Honey, I was so worried.” She squeezed my hand so hard that I might’ve felt bones shift if I hadn’t been so doped up.
I vaguely recalled how much I’d relied on Percocet in my original timeline to cope with pain, and I currently felt as though I’d just popped an extra Perc.
“What do they have me doped up on?” I asked. Either my ears were plugged up, or my words were slurred.
“They put you on a morphine drip for the pain,” she replied.
Ah, the tried-and-true, centuries-old wonder drug.
My next question was “How bad?”
“Good thing you were wearing your seat belt, Jason. Your hip is badly shattered, but that’s your only major injury. Otherwise, just bumps and bruises.”
“No traumatic brain injury? Cracked vertebrae?”
Mom shook her head. “Jesus, no—this is bad enough.”
Thank goodness for that. I let out a long, relieved breath as my memories slowly returned. “Denver?”
“St. Mary’s Hospital in Grand Junction.”
Another change. “What happened to Dean?”
Mom’s face darkened. “He’s gone now and won’t be coming back.” The determined look she wore was new… and very welcome. “The police came and arrested him. When he’s released, he won’t be returning home except while escorted by a deputy to get his stuff and get the hell out. I’ve had enough of his bullshit. After they hauled Dean away, they went out looking for you. That half hour not hearing anything from you was one of the longest and worst of my entire life. Then they told me you’d been in a bad accident. Vernon personally drove me to the accident scene, but you had already been taken away by ambulance, so I got a ride with a state trooper up here.”
“How long has it been?” The clock on the wall showed eleven fifteen in the morning, judging by the sunlight slanting through the blinds.
“It’s the next day. I guess you woke up for a little while in the ambulance shortly after midnight then fell unconscious again.”
“What about my hip?”
“Surgery is scheduled for two o’clock. They’ll have to do a full replacement… Recovery is going to be hard, honey.” She looked as if she’d cry again.
Things were turning out much better than they had in the past. First of all, I wasn’t as messed up as I had been before. Second, I had signed up for the health insurance offered through Fleet’s, another change from the past. The coverage wasn’t great and was fairly expensive, but I was insured, and they should pick up the tab for the majority of the bills, which would no longer wipe us out financially. And third, Mom was giving Dean the boot.
“Jason?” A young nurse came in, Asian and pretty. She reminded me a little of Mei. “Ah, you’re awake. How are you feeling?”
“High as a kite.”
She smiled. “You busted up your hip pretty badly, but you’re in good hands. Dr. Weiss is the best surgeon in town, and he’ll get you fixed up. Anything I can get you?” While she talked, she checked the monitor showing my vitals, then she nodded, pleased.
“I’m a little hungry. And thirsty.”
“I’m sorry, but you won’t be able to eat before you go into surgery. I can get you a little bit of water, though.”
“Thanks.”
The nurse filled a tiny cup with water from the sink, and I drank it down immediately.
“I’ll let Dr. Weiss know you’re awake, and he’ll be in to speak with you shortly.”
When the nurse departed, I glanced over at Mom, who looked as if she hadn’t slept at all the past night, and I realized she probably hadn’t.
“You should take a nap, Mom. Everything should work out okay now.” For the first time in a long while, I actually believed that.
-68-
Dec. 21, 1996
Surgery on my busted hip went as well as I had hoped. Dr. Weiss was forced to totally replace the hip joint itself with titanium connectors. That part of the surgery went well. However, some of the muscle and connective tissue was torn pretty badly, which would cause me a lot of pain and require a couple months of rehabilitation. I was relegated to a two-week hospital stay involving daily physical therapy, then they planned to release me. After that, I would attend outpatient therapy three times a week at a facility in Montrose, half an hour from Pinehaven.
By not getting ejected from the car, I hadn’t cracked any vertebrae or received the traumatic brain injury. All because of the seat belt—what a wonderful invention. Who would’ve thought a good reason existed for all those Buckle Up campaigns?
During those first few days after the surgery, I managed to convince Mom to quit her second waitressing job at the Roadhouse. The place was bad news all around, and I was afraid she’d end up meeting another loser boyfriend. She reluctantly agreed since she would have more time, once I returned home, to help care for me and take me to physical therapy and doctor appointments. I felt a little bad for playing up the “helpless me” part, but the fact that she quit the Roadhouse made it worthwhile.
Mike and Laura paid me a visit the day after finals. I had just finished the grueling morning rehab session and was lying in bed resting when they arrived. They had sent get-well cards, but seeing them in person really cheered me up.
“Jay!” Laura rushed in and gave me a big hug, burying her face against my chest. “We were so worried! We wanted to come sooner, but with finals and everything…”
“It’s all right. Man, it’s nice to see you guys.” I smiled and hugged her back, enjoying her warm softness and the scent of her hair filling my nostrils. She pulled away, smiling and wiping away tears. Mike gave me a handshake and a bro hug as best he could with me lying back in the inclined bed.
“We were pretty freaked when we heard… Damn, that was crazy, man,” Mike said. “Glad you’re on the mend.”
“Yeah, thanks.”
“I talked to your mom, and she said surgery went well,” Laura said.
Mom had returned to Pinehaven in a rental car since she couldn’t afford to take much time off work, having already stayed three straight days after I was first admitted. Plus, having her just hovering around while I was recovering was pointless. I had assured her that I would be fine on my own and she should go back home. She would be back to visit again on her next day off, which was tomorrow.
