Here is the story of how one time we all survived what turned out to be slightly less than certain death, but one of us came closer to dying than the others.
The girls are six and four.
We are at the park, and the girls are playing on the play structure, and Mark and I are sitting in the grass. Mark does not want to be at the park and Mark does not want to stay long and Mark does not want to sit in the grass and we have things to do and he needs to get back home and so how long are we staying because we have to get going because there will be traffic if we stay too long and traffic over the bridge is a bitch sometimes and so maybe he will just stand at this park because there is no need to sit at this park it’s not like it’s a requirement or anything and he can see the girls better from a standing position anyway so yeah he will just stand.
OK, that’s weird.
Have we not just spent most of this beautiful Saturday touring shitty industrial areas, looking for deals on shit for which other people just pay full price when they buy the keg?
I glare up at him.
He sighs, “Or, I guess I could sit for a few minutes.”
He sits awkwardly, trying to minimize body-to-grass contact.
He pushes his face into a smile shape, “You’re right! This is great!”
Annoying.
Alright, then. I will just demonstrate how insanely tense and foolish he looks by relaxing sensually into this moment. I recline a bit, arching my back. I close my eyes and let the sunlight greet my upturned face. I bring my hands back behind my body and place them in the grass, palms down. I arch my back a little more, my eyes still closed.
I open my eyes just a tiny to see that he has taken advantage of my inattention to move from sitting to crouching.
Annoying.
As I consider shoving him with my foot so that he falls over into the grass, there is a bolt of agonizing pain across the inside of my right wrist as though I have somehow brought my hand down on a perfectly placed razor blade and I make a little mental note to not ever commit suicide by slashing my wrists because oh my god this hurts so fucking much and I think back on every movie I have ever watched in which a woman calmly slices her wrists in the bathtub and I want to find those movie people and testily inform them that those scenes are sadly lacking in verisimilitude because there would be screaming and crying and moaning and anguish at the devastating pain of the injury and I wonder how much I am bleeding and how quickly the ambulance will be able to get to us and whether Mark even knows the name of the park and I should tell him the name of the park now before I lose consciousness and I say “Mark?” and then I lift my hand and extend it palm up into the space between us so that he will immediately grasp the severity of the situation.
He stares at me, “Yeah?”
OK, that’s weird.
I stare at my seemingly uninjured wrist.
I look down and to my right, where I see a yellow-jacket struggling to free itself from where I have pressed it down into the grass.
Really?
My wrist is swelling and throbbing and I am in serious agony. I have been stung by yellow-jackets before, and those bastards hurt, but this is a whole new level of pain. Maybe the poison hit a nerve or something?
Something . . . because this is insane pain.
Insane.
OK, so it’s time to go.
We gather up the girls and explain that Mommy got stung by a wasp. I clench my face into a semblance of a reassuring smile, because Maj is terrified of bees and wasps, and I do not want her to panic on my behalf, “Time to go! Mommy is fine. Mommy just needs some ice.”
I leave out the part where Mommy may need for her hand to be amputated.
Fuck, this hurts.
So then we are in the car, and Mark stops to get me some ice, and I just stare straight ahead and hold the ice to my wrist and let the tears flow silently.
It hurts so much.
We have one big bridge to cross and the traffic is light.
Mark changes lanes as we start to cross the bridge, and suddenly the car is rocked by an enormous THUD of impact.
I go rigid, staring straight ahead as Mark keeps the car in our lane. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Please let that thud be the end of it. Please don’t let us be shoved off the bridge to our doom. Please, please, please.
There is no second thud.
Adrenaline coursing through my body, my wasp sting forgotten, I turn to the girls as they start to panic and flail about, “Ladies, it’s OK. We got hit from behind by another car but we are all safe and so Daddy will pull over to the side of the road after we get across the bridge and we will talk to the other driver and everything is OK. Nobody’s hurt. It’s OK.”
I stare into their huge round eyes and speak soothingly, “I know that was scary, but it’s over. Everybody is fine.”
OK, that’s weird.
I stare past my daughters at the empty stretch of lane behind us.
Who hit us?
There is no time to look for the other driver, because in that instant, our car starts to fill with smoke. Huge billowing clouds of white smoke explode from the back of the car and within seconds, all I can see is white.
More adrenaline pumps through my veins . . . the car is in fire!
The car is on fire and we are on a bridge and we can’t see anything because everywhere there is smoke and we are going to die we are going to die we are going to die and oh my god Mark can’t pull the car over if he can’t see and we were going like 60 miles an hour when the smoke filled the car and we are on a bridge Mark is just going to drive us right off the fucking bridge and then we will fall and we will be on fire and then we will drown and oh my god we are all going to die!
Maj and Kallan and I all scream our heads off.
AIIEIEIEIEIEIEIEEEEEEE!!!
Wait.
OK, that’s weird.
This smoke is cold.
I hear the small mechanical noise of all of the car’s windows being opened at once.
The smoke starts to clear.
Mark speaks calmly and apologetically as he slows the car and waves other curious drivers past us, “Ummm . . . we didn’t get hit by a car and our car is not on fire. I think that thud was the sound of the pressure-relief valve blowing on the tank of CO2 we bought. This smoke is CO2 gas. No fire. Carbon Dioxide. Fog more than smoke.”
I stare at him.
He laughs nervously, “I guess they overfilled the tank with gas. Sorry about that.”
I stare at him.
I look back at the girls, who are silent and wide-eyed with terror.
We make it across the bridge and Mark pulls over to examine the tank.
I climb into the back of the car with Maj and Kallan and wrap my arms around them. I explain what happened and about how it was a silly accident and how Daddy made a mistake and how Mommy got scared but everything is OK.
Mark gets back into the car and laughs, “Daddy is silly. He filled the car with ice smoke!”
We continue on our way home. Surprisingly, both Maj and Kallan recover quickly, and they are soon giggling along with Mark. Ice smoke? Whoever heard of such a thing? Daddy is so silly.
I take a few deep breaths.
My wrist hurts so bad.
“Hey, Mark?”
“Yeah?”
I hold my injured wrist in the air, “You are lucky, babe.”
He glances at me, “Because the CO2 valve blowing scared the crap out of you and you blame me for that and you somehow blame me for the wasp sting as well and now we have no CO2 for the keg I bought so you won’t even get to have a beer and I have wasted your entire Saturday and you would kill me with your bare hands for all of these offenses, but you can’t because you only have the one working bare hand?”
“Exactly.”
Mark gets me.
Love that.
