Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Sabrina
An awful thing happened at the Herzogs’ when Mimi Truang appeared at their door that humid August afternoon.
All Sabrina could think about was getting away.
She wanted to put as much distance as possible between herself and this woman.
She didn’t know where she wanted to go. And she didn’t know how to drive.
But she had to remove herself. The music blasted out of the speaker at a volume that assaulted her eardrums as she turned on the ignition.
She could hardly remember the things that Dave had taught her during those few driving lessons he had given her on those empty roads.
She put her foot on the brake, she released the hand brake.
Then she stepped on the accelerator without taking her foot off the brake.
The car made a strange noise and jolted forward and then stopped.
Sabrina could see Mimi behind the car. She needed to get to Lee Lee.
She needed to get to Eva Kim. She needed to get to somebody who could tell her what to do.
She saw Dave running in the rearview mirror.
Where was that woman who had the same face as her?
She shifted the car into drive and prepared to steer herself out.
But when she pressed down on the accelerator, she went the wrong way.
She felt her body jerk forward against the wheel as she reversed.
She felt a thud against the back of the car.
The thud was muffled and deafening—it sounded like it was coming through her headphones.
But after that she could hear nothing, just the mumble of Dave’s voice, and the leaves and birds among the trees that lined this house on Gravers Lane.
Had she backed into something she hadn’t seen?
She couldn’t remember seeing a boulder as she drove out.
She couldn’t remember ever seeing a boulder in all the times she had come in and out of the Herzog driveway.
What was that? she thought to herself, and saw Dave sprint faster down the driveway, and then he was out of view as he reached the car and squatted down to the ground.
A cold sensation ran through her stomach, and she felt like her bowels might give way.
Where was Mimi? She hadn’t caught up with the car, had she?
She stared into the rearview mirror, at the oak trees and their branches swaying slowly in the breeze. She wanted to scream out WHERE IS SHE?
Sabrina turned off the ignition. This is what she recalled.
For the rest of her life, this moment came to her in fragments.
She couldn’t always arrange them in the order in which they happened.
The shape of Mimi’s body as she lay on the ground.
The look in Dave’s eyes as she stepped out of the car.
The smell of the hot summer day in the air that lingered.
The memory of what happened on the driveway at the Herzogs’ appeared out of nowhere like flashes of a freak storm in the distance for the rest of her life.
But as time passed, she wasn’t swept away by the howling winds and began see those moments with glimmers of clarity.
Sabrina had driven Dave’s Jeep into this stranger who had appeared at the Herzogs’ front door.
This was the end of her world as she knew it.
She was at the edge of her most terrifying dream, staring down a sheer vertical precipice.
She found Dave kneeling beside this small bird of a woman.
This woman was lying on the ground, her shoulders slumped against the stone wall, and a dark terror swirled violently inside Sabrina’s stomach.
Was Mimi dead?
She could be.
Did she hit her head?
A concussion?
What had she done?
What should she do now?
The initial fear of who this woman was evaporated the moment she saw her on the ground.
Sabrina stared at the body. She couldn’t move. She felt the blood draining from her own face.
Dave was beside Mimi, his finger pressed down on her wrist, checking her pulse.
“Her pulse? Is she?” she heard herself ask Dave. She felt her body starting to move toward them.
Yes, she has a pulse; she’s breathing. She’s conscious.
Good , thought Sabrina, yes . She put aside her fear for a moment and the rational part of her brain took over.
Here was a woman who had been hit by a car.
She needed attention. She might have a concussion.
They needed a doctor. Sabrina had always been good in a crisis, Lee Lee had always told her that.
And then she could hear the same words that swept her into a black terror again, like a silent sea monster who came to the surface of the violent riptides.
Ngan, my Ngan. The way Mimi said the name, Sabrina couldn’t get her mouth around it, the nasal sound of the letters clicking in Mimi’s throat.
It could have been the most foreign-sounding name she had ever heard in her life.
In that moment, it was the most alien, most terrifying sound.
Somewhere inside of Sabrina, even years later, she blamed Kit, and her return from her summer away from everything.
This woman had come to Kit’s house, and now she lay on the ground with her eyes darting around, while she and Dave frantically tried to figure out what to do next as her life started to disintegrate at a pace she had no control over.
Sabrina noticed Ryo and his father were standing by, with expressions of concern over their handsome faces, arms reached out to Mimi, to her. Mr. Buchanan crouched beside Mimi, and Sabrina felt Ryo’s hand on her shoulder.
“We should call an ambulance. Or I can drive us to the ER. I’ll call 911,” Ryo said.
“No, that’ll take too long, it’s close, the hospital is right there. Can we move her?” she heard herself say again.
“I’ll take her, it’s faster,” Dave said.
“Is her head okay, Sir? Mr. Buchanan? How can we check? Is there a way to know now? Can we move her? Or should we wait?” Her own voice again.
“Her head. There’s no blood. I don’t see anything, she’s alert,” Rick said, holding Mimi’s hand.
Ryo stood, his head moving back and forth between Sabrina and Mimi.
He turned to his father for direction. He looked as though he were ready to start a race, ready to do whatever he was ordered to do.
Sabrina looked at him for the first time and saw kindness in his eyes, rushing to help two women he had never met. He ran back to the house to get ice.
Sabrina looked back and saw two figures huddled against each other by the house.
Kit and her mother. Sabrina wondered where Mr. Herzog was.
She couldn’t see the expression on Kit’s face.
She turned back to Mimi. She looked alert, and her eyes stared back at Sabrina, taking her in.
Sabrina crouched down beside her and Dave.
“I think she’s okay,” he whispered to her. His hands shook.
“Ma’am,” Sabrina said it, and stopped. “Mimi…Miss, are you hurt?”
Mimi took Sabrina’s hand and squeezed. She nodded, tears in her eyes.
Terry Herzog appeared as Ryo disappeared into the house with Kit. “Is she hurt?” Terry demanded from halfway down the drive.
The afternoon sunlight had started to dance in golden-dappled droplets on the gravel path and lawn.
“Her foot is a little swollen, maybe a sprain,” Mr. Buchanan responded, now crouched by Mimi’s side.
“How many fingers am I holding up?” Terry Herzog asked and thrust his short fingers in front of Mimi’s bewildered eyes. Three. Mimi said nothing, but her eyes stared back at Sabrina.
“Now Rick, I’m sure you understand my concerns here, and they are of course with this woman’s welfare, but you know I’m a belt and buckle kinda guy. I need to ensure there is no room for damages, lawsuits. I know it’s…”
“Not now, Terry.” Rick’s words cut through Terry’s like a cleaver. A blunt silence fell between them.
“I hear you. But these things need to be covered up front. In my years practicing law…”
“That’s enough. We need to get this woman to a hospital.”
Ryo reappeared alone, pressed the ice against Mimi’s foot and told her kindly to keep it in place.
He stood and started to examine the car and mumbled to his father in Japanese as Mr. Buchanan spoke to Mimi in English in a hushed, slow, deliberate tone so she would understand what he said.
“You’re going to be fine, Miss. We will get a doctor. ”
“I’ll drive,” Dave said. Sabrina heard the distant rattling of keys.
Mimi’s shoe had fallen off, and Sabrina noticed blood—a small stain soaked through the flesh-colored pop sock.
It was the kind that Lee Lee wore. And every day when she returned home, she’d sit back in her La-Z-Boy, rubbing the soles of her feet, flexing her toes back and forth.
Dave helped Mimi up and lifted her into the rear passenger seat and buckled her seat belt.
He carried her as though she weighed nothing.
This fragile woman with the same face as her own.
“Are you okay?” Dave asked. She felt his cool fingertips grasp her forearm as she clicked her seat belt. Nobody had asked after her yet, and she was quickly jolted out of her haze.
She nodded and exhaled. “Is your car okay?” she asked, even though she knew it didn’t matter.
“Sabrina, who cares. Are you okay?”
“I don’t know,” she said. She looked at the woman in the back seat. “I just don’t know.”
Mimi looked worse when they arrived at the emergency room.
Her face was gray and clammy. Her eyes barely shifted from Sabrina’s face.
Sabrina could see the resemblance between them.
The soft curve of their cheeks. The way their top lips dipped and created a pink petal-like shape.
Sabrina’s hair fell in exactly the same way over her shoulders.
She couldn’t erase the resemblance from her mind.
It cut through her with savage violence.
She pulled her fingers up to her mouth, seeking a loose piece of skin to chew, then cupped her nose and cheek as if somehow covering the features would make the resemblance disappear.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a woman in the waiting room retching into a bucket. “Someone, please help me,” she pleaded while expelling whatever was in her stomach. The acrid smell reached Sabrina’s nose, and she covered her face again with her sleeve.
The receptionist sucked and clicked her tongue as she looked at her cell phone, typing a message noisily with her acrylic nails tapping against the screen.
“Excuse me, ma’am. We have a woman here who needs to be examined right away,” Dave said.
The woman looked beyond Dave, and her eyes settled on Mimi.
“Ma’am, what seems to be the problem?” she asked. There was a lag in her speech, as though she couldn’t find the motivation to get to the end of her sentence. The name tag on the lapel of her shirt hung precariously .
Mimi was fully alert now, but she hadn’t spoken since falling.
“She fell. Possibly hit her head—and there is a cut or something on her foot,” Dave offered.
“Does she not speak English, son?” She slowed her speech, said, “Do-you-understand-me-ma’am?
” and Sabrina felt a sudden anger flare the way it would when people shouted and slowed their speech to Lee Lee.
She looked at Mimi, searching for a reaction, and at that moment, she could see this was how she expected to be spoken to.
As though she were hard of hearing, the expectation was that she wouldn’t understand and what a generous act of charity it was that they slowed their speech to help her along.
But Mimi was resigned—unlike Lee Lee, who still demanded not to be treated as though she were an imbecile.
Mimi was accepting, while for Lee Lee, an offensive stance was always the best strategy.
Sabrina looked around and saw Mr. Buchanan rush through the automatic doors with Ryo beside him. She wondered when the Herzogs were coming. Mr. Herzog said he was getting his car. She messaged Kit. Is your dad coming?
The message was delivered but not read.
She started to send a message to Eva Kim. She would know what to do.
She wished she could talk to Dave without Mimi there. She didn’t know how much English Mimi understood.
“Ngan…” Mimi’s voice ventured, and Sabrina felt that cold terror sweep through her again.
“Ma’am, this is Sabrina,” Dave said in a voice that was laced with kindness.
Mimi nodded and looked at Sabrina again.
Sabrina opened her mouth but no sound came out. She wanted to reassure this woman, who looked so bewildered and lost. She tried to find the same kindness as Dave, but nothing came out of her mouth. The words just disappeared into a fine mist.
Kit never replied to Sabrina’s message, and Terry Herzog never appeared.
Mr. Buchanan paid Mimi’s medical bill and remained with Dave and Sabrina, who finally had a moment to sit alone while Mimi was examined for a concussion, taken for an MRI, X-ray, and finally given a support bandage for her swollen ankle.
Eva Kim arrived. She stood with Ryo and Mr. Buchanan, where they spoke in hushed voices.
“I’m gonna need a hot minute to get my head around everything, kid. But don’t worry. We are going to get through this together.”
It was all Eva could say as she put her arm around Sabrina.
Later, Sabrina sat beside Dave in his car in the parking lot as Eva Kim spoke to Mimi in the waiting room.
“Rina…”
“Don’t ask me anything, Dave. I don’t know anything, I don’t know any more than you.”
“But…do you…is it…”
“Do I see it? Of course I see it.” Her body felt an unlocking as she said the words. They were out. It was better to have them out.
“I do too.”
Hot tears started to fall down Sabrina’s face. And before she knew it, she couldn’t properly catch her breath. She felt his arm around her shoulder and leaned into him. His hand stroked her hair.
“Hey, just breathe through your nose, and out through your mouth. We’ll figure this out. We will.”