Maid - Stephanie Land Page 0,80

all I could think to say, and I buried my face again in Mia’s hair.

Another car had stopped, too, idling behind her black Suburban. The driver was on the phone. I could do nothing but clutch Mia. I couldn’t stop crying. My car. My car was dead on the side of the road. My irreplaceable car. The car I couldn’t afford to lose. The car I was required to have in working condition, to keep my job, to survive.

The police arrived first to direct traffic and assess the scene. They asked me what happened, listening patiently between my huge gasps for air. A few policemen started examining the skid marks my car’s tires made when it was bumped at least a foot to the left. The rear right tire jutted out to the side, the metal behind it twisted and smashed. Everything inside my car had shifted in the crash. The tape cassette in the player hung out of it, ready to fall at any second. But I couldn’t stop staring at the back seat where Mia had been, at her car seat so incredibly close to the shattered window, to the floor that had been pushed up to meet her toes. In the impact, her car seat had moved to the side, away from the window, and somehow, she wasn’t injured.

One of the policemen pulled out a small tape measure.

“What are you doing?” I asked, a new wave of panic crashing against my chest.

“We need to try to determine fault, ma’am,” he said. “Please step aside.”

Fault. My fault. Of course it was my fault. I was the one who had pulled over on a fucking highway, who had gotten out to look for a freaking doll and left my child in the car, in harm’s way.

Two paramedics jumped out of an ambulance, one rushing over to the other driver and the other toward us. Another ambulance arrived, then a fire truck. Traffic crept by on the road, and I tried to ignore the gawking, the rubbernecking, the feeling like we were in a fucking fish bowl.

When I sat Mia on the bench in the back of the ambulance, she let her arms loosen from my neck for the first time since I’d unbuckled her. The paramedic asked her questions, asked to look at her bare chest. He handed her a teddy bear dressed in a nightgown and sleeping cap, its eyes closed and hands together in what looked like prayer.

“See how she does tonight,” he said, his brown hair, eyes, and olive skin reminding me, for some reason, of my brother. “If you notice any bruising, or if she seems in pain for any reason, take her in immediately.” He looked over at Mia again. “Or you could take her to the emergency room now if you want her to have X-rays.” I looked at Mia, trying to register what he’d said, now seeing the entire scene had it been worse, had she been bruised, broken, bleeding, rushed to the hospital in that ambulance instead. I shook my head. The logistics were too confusing. I didn’t know if Medicaid covered an ambulance ride, and I pictured a bill I couldn’t afford for thousands of dollars. And I couldn’t leave my car—that was almost family to us; it had the cleaning supplies in the back that provided our entire income. I’d have to pay to replace them if something happened to them, and I couldn’t afford to. I couldn’t leave without knowing what was going to happen next.

Mia hugged her bear, staring at the equipment in the ambulance. My mind flashed again with images of her eyes staring wildly at me while she breathed behind an oxygen mask, her hair caked with blood, her neck in a brace. She raised her arms for me to hold her again. I carried her back to our car, got the camera from my purse, and took several pictures while I waited for the police to decide our fate.

One of the cops approached me: the shortest one, bald, with a belly hanging over his belt. He asked me the same questions I’d already answered: why I’d stopped, how I’d stopped, how far I’d pulled over, and if I’d immediately put my emergency flashers on.

“Ma’am, we’ll continue our investigation and report it to your insurance company,” he said. “It’s unknown if the male who hit you has insurance.”

My knees momentarily felt like they were going to give out. Did I have uninsured-motorist coverage? I must