“Do you want me to?”
“They’re still kind of noisy at night. They run on that wheel as soon as it gets dark.”
“That’s because they’re nocturnal.”
She looked at me like I was crazy. “Of course they’re not turtles. They’re hamsters.”
“Nocturnal,” I said, slowly enunciating the word. “That means they like to sleep during the day.”
“You mean so that they don’t miss me while I’m at school?”
I smiled. “Exactly.”
She was quiet for a few seconds. “Hey Daddy?”
I loved the way she said those words when she was about to ask me for something, and I wondered how old she would be when it finally stopped. Or if, by then, I’d even notice.
“Yeah, sweetie?”
“Can we go for a bike ride?’
Between my workout that morning and redecorating efforts, I was already exhausted, but Hey Daddy won out, as it usually did.
For the first time, I remembered to slather sunscreen on my daughter.
It was, however, the end of September and relatively late in the afternoon, so it probably fell into the category of too little, too late.
London donned her helmet and as soon as I helped her get going—she still couldn’t do that part on her own—I hopped onto my bike and pedaled quickly to catch up to her.
While the roads near our house offered wonderfully flat, long stretches, the streets on the far side of the neighborhood had hills. Not big hills, mind you; in my youth, I probably would have considered them boring. I preferred racing down the steepest hills, the kind that made me squeeze the handlebars so tight I’d lose feelings in my fingers, but London and I were different in that regard. The thought of going faster and faster, without pedaling, made London nervous, and so far we’d avoided the hilly roads.
It was the right thing to do, especially early on, but I felt that she’d reached the point where she could handle a shallow downslope, and we rode in that direction.
Unfortunately, the mosquitoes were out in force, and I watched as London slapped at her arm. Her bike wobbled slightly as she temporarily released her grip on the handlebars, but she didn’t seem to be in danger of falling. My little girl had come a long way since that first bike ride, and I sped up, pulling beside her.
“You’re such a good rider now!” I called out.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Maybe we could bring Bodhi for a bike ride sometime.”
“He doesn’t know how yet. He’s still using the training wheels.”
As soon as she said it, I remembered Emily telling me the same thing.
“Do you think you’re ready to try some hills?”
“I don’t know,” she said, giving me a sidelong look. “They’re kind of scary.”
“They’re not too bad,” I said. “And it’s kind of fun to go even faster.”
Letting go of the handlebar again, she reached over and scratched at her opposite arm. Again the bike wobbled.
“I think I got stung by a mosquito.”
“Probably,” I said. “But mosquitoes bite, they don’t sting.”
“It’s itchy.”
“I know. When we get back home, I’ll put some hydrocortisone cream on your arm, okay?”
We eventually made our way to the hillier section of the neighborhood, pedaling up a gradual incline. The opposite side was shorter and slightly steeper, and when we reached the top, London slowed her bike to a stop and put her feet down.
“What do you think?” I asked.
“It’s kind of big,” she said, an anxious tremor in her voice.
“I think you can do it,” I said encouragingly. “How about we give it a try?”
As a kid, I barely would have considered the slope a hill. Of course, I was remembering something from a quarter century earlier, and in my mind, I had always known how to ride a bike. Perhaps I’d forgotten the uncertainties of being a beginner.
I say this now because of what happened next; I’ll also say that had there not been a specific chain of unpredictable events—one leading to the next in a domino effect—then most likely, everything would have been fine. But it wasn’t.
As soon as London got the bike moving again, she wobbled and swerved from the middle of the road to the left-hand side. It was a bigger wobble and more of a swerve than I’d seen in a while and she probably would have righted herself, were it not for the car that began to back out of the driveway twenty yards up. I doubted the driver had seen us; hedges surrounded the yard and London was small. Furthermore, the driver seemed to be in a hurry, based on his speed, even in reverse. London locked on to the sight of the car and swerved farther left; simultaneously, she slapped at another mosquito bite. Directly ahead of her loomed a mailbox mounted on a sturdy base.
Her front tire hit the shoulder where the asphalt met the dirt.
“Watch out!” I screamed, as the bike wobbled hard. London tried to get her other hand back on the handlebars but it slipped off the grip. By then, I knew what would happen, and I watched in horror as the front wheel suddenly jerked. London catapulted over the handlebars, her head and upper body smashing into the mailbox with a sickening thud.
I was off my bike and racing toward her, screaming her name even as her front tire continued to spin. I vaguely noticed the look of surprise on the driver’s face before I crouched beside London’s limp form.
She was facedown, unmoving, utterly silent. Panic flooded every nerve as I gently turned her over.
So much blood.
Oh God, Oh God, Oh God…
I don’t know whether I was saying the words or hearing them in my mind as my insides turned to jelly. Her eyes were closed; her arm had simply flopped to the ground when I’d rolled her, like she was sleeping.
But she wasn’t sleeping.
And her wrist looked as though someone had stuffed half a lemon under the skin.
In that instant, my fear was as all consuming as anything I’d ever experienced. I prayed for a sign that she was still alive, but for what seemed an eternity, there was nothing. Finally, her eyelids fluttered and I heard a sharp intake of breath. The scream that followed was ear shattering.
By then, the driver was gone, and I doubted whether he’d even seen what happened. I didn’t have my phone so I couldn’t call 911. I thought about rushing to a house—any house—to use their phone to call an ambulance, but I didn’t want to leave my daughter. Those thoughts raced through my head in the blink of an eye and she had to get to the hospital.
The hospital…
I scooped her into my arms and began to run, cradling my injured daughter in my arms.
I tore through the neighborhood, feeling neither my legs nor my arms, hurtling forward with single-minded purpose.
As soon as I reached our house, I opened the car door and laid London on the backseat. The blood continued to flow from a gaping wound on her head, soaking her top as if it had been dipped in red paint.
I raced into the house to grab my keys and wallet and rushed back to the car, slamming the front door of the house so loudly that the windows rattled. Jumping behind the wheel of the car, I turned the key, my tires squealing.
On the seat behind me, London was no longer moving and her eyes were closed again.
My senses sharpened with adrenaline, I had never been more aware of my surroundings as I edged the accelerator higher. I flew past houses and rolled through a stop sign before gunning the engine again.
Hitting the main road, I passed cars on the left and right. At a red light, I came to a stop, then rolled through, ignoring the sounds of honking horns.
London lay silent and terrifyingly inert.
I made the fifteen-minute drive in less than seven minutes and slammed to a halt directly in front of the emergency room. Again, I cradled my daughter in my arms and carried her into the half-full waiting area.
The intake nurse knew an emergency when she saw one and was already rising as she called out, “This way!” directing me through the double doors.