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Author Insight
The Call No Parent Wants to Receive
A car wreck in the middle of the night on a back country road. Every parent's nightmare. A young, inexperienced driver, a drunk driver, a tractor-trailer out of control at the bend of the road. All things we imagine and fear and dread. One night in the pre-dawn hours our phone rang. It was my daughter who was away at college. She told us she had been in an accident. "How bad?" my husband asked. "Are you okay?" She bravely told us that perhaps she was indeed not okay, because they were taking her to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). The emergency responders had to cut the roof of the car like a tin can to get them out. They were broadsided by a pick-up truck. The details rolled out, horror after horror. We were dressed and on the road to the neighboring state in a flash, anxious to arrive and dreading what we would find. The happy ending is that she recovered from a broken pelvis and damaged liver, but the terror of the phone call in the night lives on.
Book Excerpt
Dream Horse
I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting in the car, motionless, but now I’m cold. I try the engine. It starts, so I roll up the window. My purse is on the floor of the passenger’s side, the contents spilled across the mat. Where’s my phone? I grope around in the dark until my hand touches its case.
When I swipe it open, I see the old thread of messages from Sarah. A breathy whimper echoes in the silent car. I push the green button—I want Sarah to help me.
“Hello, Cory?” she answers. Her voice causes a tear to run down my face. I wipe it away, listening to the sound of a horse whinny and buckets banging in the background. She’s still up. She’s in the barn. “What’s the matter? Did you get home all right?” The sound of her voice slows my breathing.
“There was an accident.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No, I think I’m okay. But the truck driver went over the guardrail. He might be dead.” The words sob out of my chest.
“Are the police there? Did they call your parents?”
“No. I haven’t called them…”
“Hang up and call the police. Now. Tell them where you are. Where are you?”
“Cliff Road, you know where the bend’s in it?”
“Call 9-1-1 and don’t move. I’ll be right there.”
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