“What the heck,” I say. “You’re drunk, map lady!”
He stares at the screen. “I think we lost signal.”
Not super surprising, since this is basically the middle of nowhere. “Well, am I still going the right way?”
“Yeah, I think so. It should come back soon.” Hollis glances up from his lap. “Jesus, Millicent, turn on the high beams so you can see more than a foot ahead of you.”
“I’ve beentrying,” I say. “But every time I do, a car comes from the other direction.”
“Well, there aren’t any cars coming now.”
“Yes, thank you, I can see that,” I say, flipping on the high beams again. Just in time for the light to bounce off a large, glowing pupil. My foot slams on the brakes, and their loud screech joins the horrifying sound of a scream and shattering glass. Something hits my forehead with the force of a hurled rock. Everything is dark—so, so dark. I’m dead. I must be dead. Oh wait. No, I just have my eyes closed.
Hollis’s panicked voice fills my ears. “Mill, are you okay? Are you—”
“I’m fine,” I say, fluttering my eyes open. “I’m, I’m—” staring into the eyes of an incredibly freaked-out deer.
8
•••••
“There’s really nothing you could’ve done to prevent this,” Officer Shonda Jones from the Gadsley, South Carolina, Police Department reassures me for the third time in the last five minutes. “Nothing at all. Just remember: The deer hityou. You didn’t hitit.” She pats my shoulder through the Mylar blanket that isn’t keeping me warm so much as making me look like a baked potato that could feed a family of eight.
The police arrived within minutes of the accident. So did the local veterinarian, who hastily introduced himself as Dr. Gupta before injecting the deer in its hindquarters with a sedative. With a bit of help from Hollis and Officer Jones’s burly partner, Deputy Anders, Dr. Gupta oh so carefully removed the deer from where it was trapped inside the car and laid its conked-out form in the bed of his pickup truck.
“We havin’ venison steaks for dinner tomorrow?” Officer Jones jokes when Dr. Gupta approaches us.
He scratches his graying temple. “Well, I won’t know for suretill I can check her out at the office, but I don’t see anything obviously fatal. I’m a bit shocked, considering the damage to the car, but I think she’s likely to make it.”
“Great news. Thanks for coming out this time of night, Dev,” Officer Jones says. “Really saved us the hassle of trying to get someone from Nat Resources on the phone.”
“Always happy to help. After all, I am an animal doc, all ’round the clock.” Dr. Gupta chuckles and holds up both hands in farewell as he climbs into his truck. I adjust the cold pack Officer Jones gave me for my forehead, pull the Mylar blanket tighter around my shoulders, and watch as the veterinarian and the unconscious deer disappear into the darkness.
A hand lands on my shoulder, and I ready myself for Officer Jones to repeat the script. Nothing I could have done to prevent this, yadda yadda. But then my leather backpack dangles in front of my face.
“Found this in the back seat,” Hollis says.
I drop the cold pack and grab for my bag. Inside, the wooden box that holds the baggie of Mrs. Nash’s ashes as well as the bundle of letters nestled beside it appear undamaged. “Thank you,” I say.
“How’s your head?” His fingers brush against the giant lump above my right eyebrow. The pleasure of his touch almost makes me forget the throbbing pain.
“I haven’t had any complaints yet,” I quote dutifully, even though my heart’s not really in it.
“Huh?” Hollis pauses as he drops to sit beside me on the police car’s hood. I can almost see his mind rewinding and replaying the exchange, trying to make sense of it. He runs his hand throughhis hair, not out of exasperation this time, but to shake some of the glass pebbles from it. “Oh. Cute.”
I dip my chin toward my chest and whine, “I can’t believe a deer punched me in the face.”
“It could have done a lot worse. I felt its hoof while I was helping haul it out of the car. Sharp as a knife. Surprised you’re only bruised and not sliced and diced.”
“Maybe she didn’t punch me then. Maybe she like... elbowed me. Do deer have elbows?”
Hollis doesn’t answer—and, I mean, I doubt he knows much about deer anatomy, so that’s fair. He stares at his car, pulled off to the side of the road. It’s definitely not drivable. Shattered windshield and a cracked window. Side mirror dangling from its wires. Broken headlight. And a massive dent on the hood that makes it unable to fully close.
“I’m really sorry about your car,” I say softly.
Hollis shrugs.
“I think this is where you’re supposed to say, ‘Oh, it’s not your fault, Millicent.’ ‘There’s nothing you could have done, Millicent.’ Maybe even ‘I’m just glad you’re okay, Millicent.’ ”
