country surveying, but where was Mom?
"What happened?"
"You were in a car accident. Do you remember?"
Of course I remembered. How could I ever forget the last seconds of my life? Or what I thought were the last seconds.
"The other driver..." I couldn't finish the sentence.
"Is gone," Melcher answered.
Suddenly the steady smile on his lips was too much. I looked at the door beyond his shoulder.
"Don't worry, Aurora. We've taken care of everything - the surgery and organ transplants. Thanks to the blood transfusion we performed your bones are healing quickly. You'll be better than new in no time."
The smile in his voice made me distrust him at once.
"Why am I here?"
"Because you have very special blood, Aurora."
No one ever referred to my blood as special. Doctors called it unique and rare - the rarest of all blood types. Less than one percent of the population had AB negative blood. Maybe that's why I was on base. Maybe the government had the only supply of AB negative for my blood transfusion. But why would they help me?
I looked at Melcher for further explanation, but he kept smiling and said, "I'll send in your mother now."
Melcher's calm, calculating tone was replaced by my Mom's own hysterical outburst as she flew into the room. "Oh, my God! Aurora! Thank God! Thank God!" She grasped me by the shoulders and lowered herself over my chest, pressing me into the bed. She pulled back. Tears streaked her cheeks. "Thank God," she said again. "My baby. It's a miracle."
She dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. "How are you feeling?"
I squinted at her. "Why am I on base?"
Mom's face screwed up funny and it looked like she might start crying again. Then she took a deep breath and returned to patting my hand.
"You look like you're feeling much better," she answered for me. "Agent Melcher said I can take you home in another week."
The agent, not the doctor.
"How long have I been here?"
"Two weeks..."
"Two weeks!" I cried.
Tears started pooling in Mom's eyes once more. "They had to put you in a medically induced coma."
My eyes darted around the room frantically looking for a clock or a calendar - a window even. "What month is it?"
Mom hesitated before answering, "December."
"But my exams. My assignments."
Notre Dame might have accepted me, but that didn't mean jack if I didn't graduate.
"I spoke to all your teachers and they're giving you extensions. You'll be able to go to school the week before Christmas then use the holiday break to catch up."
Mom placed a hand on my face. "Don't worry. Just rest and we'll get you home."
My stomach twisted into knots. Going home meant getting in a car and I was never getting into another moving vehicle as long as I lived.
I'd just have to walk back - all fourteen miles.
A young man in a white lab coat and crew cut burst into my room early the next morning. I pulled my bed sheet instinctively against my chest.
"Alright, Aurora, up and at 'em."
The possibility of a car waiting outside made me wince. "Where am I going?"
"Not far...next door."
"What's next door?"
"The treadmill. It's time to start physical therapy."
I waited for him to laugh and say he was joking; he really needed to take my blood pressure and check my vitals. But he frowned when I didn't leap out of bed and do something peppy, like a hundred jumping jacks.
"Um, I just woke up from a coma yesterday, and it sounds like I had some pretty major surgery."
If there was ever a reason to get out of physical anything, surviving a head on collision should rank top.
"Yes, but you have special blood."
I was starting to think it was mutant blood the way everyone talked about it in this place.
Physical therapy guy nodded at a neatly folded stack of clothing on the chair beside my bed. "I'll wait in the hall while you get dressed. You have five minutes."
Five minutes, I grumbled after he left. I was no doctor, but this wasn't how you treated trauma patients. I peeled the sheet aside and took a tentative first step onto the cold linoleum floor. My hand gripped the mattress in case I was unable to hold up my own weight, but I felt sturdy once I got the second foot down.
After removing the hospital gown, I glimpsed a first look at my body. A line of stitches zipped up my chest over a four-inch scar. Nice. At least nothing was crushed beyond repair. My