On the Way To the Wedding

“Mom, tell Claire how you guys met!” Lily exclaims while reaching across my plate for the lasagna. Her friend Claire had come over to our house to work on a European history project, and they were gotten hungry enough to take a break to join us for dinner. At sixteen, Lily usually only asks if she can borrow the car or take money out of my purse, so her sudden interest in listening to me tell a romantic story is quite unexpected.

“Trevor broke up with her last week,” Lily explains, cheese dripping off her hovering fork. “We can’t figure out if he just freaked out or if it’s really over. She needs to hear a good story about something that actually worked out.”

Claire nods, blushing. “I’d love to hear it. God knows my mom isn’t exactly the role model I need for this stuff.” She rolls her eyes in that way perfected by teenage girls. As far as I know from the parent rumor mill, her mother is on her third husband, each one slightly older and richer than the last.

I smile across the table at my husband and begin…

It was October of my fourth year of medical school and I was on the Pennsylvania Turnpike driving from Cleveland to Philadelphia for my friend Aparna’s wedding. I hadn’t gotten a weekend fully off from clinical rotations for a few months, and it was the most perfect fall weather. I was so excited to see all of my college friends and just be away from the hospital, but I was also going to see Max, my college ex-boyfriend. My history with Max was complicated.

Max and I met at a welcome party in the grimy basement of a fraternity house during orientation week our freshman year at Drexel, and almost immediately became inseparable. He was confident and fun, and it made me feel mature to be in such a serious relationship. Our friend groups became totally intertwined, and everyone was shocked when we broke up right before graduation.

He had accepted an entry level position with Suisse Bank in New York City, and I had applied broadly but only gotten into medical school at University of Toledo. Neither of us could handle the pressure to commit to each other once it meant compromising an aspect of our own dreams. We probably could have tried to make it work, but I was scared that I wouldn’t be able to trust him in New York City without me after he had drunkenly kissed someone else at a sorority party while I was studying abroad my junior year. Now in retrospect it sounds dumb because I did really love him, but at the time I knew I had to bet on myself, and it felt easier to just break up and start over with our new lives.

Of course, because nothing was actually wrong between us, I started second-guessing the decision to break up almost immediately. Four years of half-hearted attempts at dating “normal people” and casual flings with my medical school classmates that went nowhere made it worse. I saw Max a few times and he never seemed like he was with anyone else either, and it felt like we still had a connection.

When Max texted to ask if I was coming to the wedding, I was so excited because I knew it might be a chance to consider getting back together before I had to make my final decision about where I wanted to go for residency. Maybe the charm of New York had worn off and we could start over somewhere new together, I was thinking, scaring myself with the possibility.

So anyway, I was driving along the Pennsylvania Turnpike, feeling nervous and excited. I was running through all of the things I had packed, trying to figure out what I had forgotten, and Cascada “Everytime We Touch” was blaring on the car stereo when it happened.

That Cascada song and the warm sun on my face are the last things I remember before waking up in the hospital a week later. Apparently I was in the middle lane, and an SUV behind me was trying to change lanes to get around a car that had slowed down in right lane. The SUV hit my back passenger’s wheel and my car flipped multiple times. I had a brain injury, a bunch of broken ribs, and a terrible pelvic fracture. I was definitely lucky to be alive, and it was probably only because I was wearing my seatbelt. The car was obviously totaled.

When I started to emerge from the fog afterwards in the ICU, my mother was at my bedside, saying over and over again, “Oh thank you Lord, I prayed for this, I prayed for Him to give you a second chance.”

Just as I’m getting misty-eyed, Raul jumps in, “I could not believe it when I saw you in physical therapy the first day. I had been going daily for three weeks since I had gotten out of the hospital, and had never seen anyone younger than 50 there.”

I continue, “I noticed Raul right away too, seeing another person in their 20s right when I was wheeled in made me feel like less of a freak, before I even talked to him.”

“And I was so handsome,” Raul interjects, prompting Lily to make a gagging noise. “I was trying so hard to get her attention, my therapist got annoyed that I wasn’t paying any attention to the exercises she was trying to do with me.”

“He asked me out for coffee, said he could wait until I was finished with my session. Except of course my mother had driven me there and was picking me up because I couldn’t drive myself yet, wouldn’t be able to for another few months. It was a whole ordeal, I had to text her to see if she could pick me up later, and explain why.” I add for Lily’s benefit, “It was like being a teenager again. But she was just happy that I was alive and out of the hospital, she would have agreed to anything.”

“And the rest is history!” he concludes. “I’m so grateful for that tree I hit with my mountain bike, otherwise I never would have met your mother.”

“And if it weren’t for that other driver, who knows, I’d probably be married to Max, and live in New Jersey or something,” I say with a chuckle.