Edward Adrift

down at the gas gauge and realized we were nearly empty. I remember the storm that kicked up between Kit Carson and Limon, where we got onto Interstate 70 and headed for Denver. I remember the snow flying sideways across the windshield and I remember not being able to see. I remember growing impatient at our pace and deciding to drive through the swirling flurries, thinking I could get ahead of them. I remember pulling into the passing lane.
    “I remember you, Dr. Banning,” I say.
    I remember him because I remember not being able to breathe. I remember Kyle looking into my face and asking me what happenedand what was wrong. I remember another man—I don’t know where he came from—opening the door on my Cadillac DTS and saying “Oh, shit,” and running off. I remember gasping for breath and not making any words come out. I remember the other man coming back and saying, “They’re on the way, buddy, so just hold on.” He grabbed my hand and held it, and Kyle cried, and I couldn’t tell either of them that I couldn’t breathe.
    I remember waking up, my back stiff on a board, staring into yellow lights. I remember Dr. Banning—not in a white shirt but in a blue smock like the one Donna wears when she goes to work—telling me that they needed to take some scans to see how badly I was hurt inside. I remember being able to talk at last and saying that I needed a drink.
    “Soon,” the doctor said. “Let’s see what’s going on first.”
    I remember waking up. I remember Sheila Renfro talking to me and telling me to close my eyes and stroking my hair.
    I don’t remember anything else.
    “What happened?” I ask.
    “You drove into a snowplow,” Sheila Renfro says. “Remember how I told you that? You broke your ribs.”
    “Three broken ribs on your left side, Mr. Stanton,” Dr. Banning says. “Probably from the seat belt when you crashed. Your lung got punctured. We fixed that. The ribs will take a couple of weeks, maybe a bit longer, but they will heal. You have a concussion. Do you understand what that means?”
    “My brain got hurt.”
    “Yes, that’s it. You’re very lucky, all things considered.”
    I turn to my friend. “Kyle, are you—”
    “I’m fine,” he says.
    He squats beside the bed and he sets his head on my right shoulder. Donna reaches across me to stop him, but I shake myhead to let her know it is all right, and my side hurts when I do. She pulls back. I pat Kyle on the head.
    “What happened to my Cadillac DTS?”
    Sheila Renfro makes a slashing motion across her throat, crossing her eyes and flopping her tongue out of her mouth. It’s very funny, and I laugh, which hurts really bad, and I yell out in pain. Donna looks annoyed with Sheila Renfro.
    As the pain diminishes, I regain my breath. “How am I supposed to get back to Billings so I can fly to Texas?” I ask.
    “I don’t want you on a plane for a while,” Dr. Banning says. “It puts a lot of stress on a body, that pressurization at thirty-five thousand feet. You’ve been through a trauma.”
    “But I have to go to Texas on December twentieth. I’m going to see my mother.”
    “You’re going to be here for a couple of days yet,” the doctor says.
    “Edward,” Donna says, “don’t you think maybe you should just concentrate on getting better?”
    I have to concede that Donna is a very logical woman and that she’s probably correct about this. And yet I am disappointed, because I was looking forward to going to Texas and seeing the Dallas Cowboys play in their new stadium.
    “Does my mother know I’m in the hospital?” I ask.
    Sheila Renfro holds out my bitchin’ iPhone. “She’s waiting for you to call,” she says.

    I have an audience as I make the call to my mother, with Kyle holding the bitchin’ iPhone to my ear so I don’t have to lift my arms and aggravate my broken ribs. It’s not a fun phone call. Nottoo many phone calls are fun; I don’t like to talk on the phone. This one is especially difficult. I’m happy to hear my mother’s voice, but almost immediately she begins crying and telling me that her world would end if something bad happened to me, and that I must be more careful.
    “Stop crying,” I say, and that makes her cry even more. I look helplessly at Donna, and she’s crying. I look at Sheila Renfro, and she’s not crying. She’s just watching me. Her look is intense, as if something bad will happen if she lets me out of her sight. I guess that’s reasonable, even