Perfect Strangers

Or good brakes.

At first, I think that bump is the recycle can. It was trash day, and for some unknown reason, the garbage collectors always left the garbage cans in the middle of the driveway when they were emptied. I hadn’t looked when I’d opened the garage door, and the Bronco sat so high I probably wouldn’t have been able to see the cans, anyway.

But when I heard our next door neighbor Beth’s scream and looked over to see her white-faced and horrified at the edge of her yard as she stared at the ground behind the car, I knew what I’d hit wasn’t a garbage can.

Then, when I threw the car into park and jumped out, I discovered the worst. The impossible.

I ran over a child.

Mychild.

I thought she was taking a nap inside. Chris was home, it was a Saturday afternoon, he was supposed to be watching her. But he was drinking beer in front of the television and didn’t notice when she wandered out.

Her small body was crushed under the Bronco’s big rear wheel. She was dead long before the ambulance arrived. She was cold by the time they loaded her onto the gurney and closed the doors.

Emmie’s eyes were wide open when she died. They were hazel, like her father’s. A gorgeous, deep green-brown flecked with gold.

This time when I start to scream, the nice African-American orderly has to give me three shots before he can get me to stop.