I drummed my hands on the steering wheel of my black 1993 Volkswagen Jetta, squinting to see through the thick sheets of rain that my windshield wipers could only keep away for mere seconds. The road beneath me was quickly becoming a small river which kept my speed down well below the limit for fear of hydroplaning. There were three voice mail messages from my mother on my cell phone in the cup holder beside me, missed calls that I'd refused to take my hand off the wheel or eyes off the road to answer. She'd be worried, but at least I'd be safe.
I don't know why I agreed to drive all the way from Jordan, Montana to Tulsa, Oklahoma during the worst storm of the season to date. It wasn't like Abby Adderson and I were best friends anymore or anything, but it was her father's wedding – his first marriage, since the birth of Abby had been an accident – and I promised I'd be there for her, since she hated the whole idea of it.
"I can't drive in this shit," I sighed, my shoulders slumping. I was out in the middle of nowhere, thick forest on either side of me, not a gas station or roadside motel to be seen. If I pulled off now I'd just run the battery dry to keep the heat on, and then what? Hope that someone else came along before I froze or starved to death?
"Or drive the car off into a tree 'cause I can't see anything." Finally I decided that it might be worth it to stop and wait for the storm to pass me. I had blankets in the backseat, and some junk food in my backpack. I could listen to my mum's messages too, even though I knew exactly what they'd say: "Why don't you come home, sweetie? It's too stormy out to drive. Tori, pick up your phone and talk to me, be careful, don't crash!"
I put my signal on and began to steer myself to the shoulder. It felt like a dream – a nightmare – when the wheel suddenly became light and useless, and I felt the back end begin to slide. I was hydroplaning.
"No!" I shouted, trying in vain to remember what you were supposed to do in a situation like this, as the car careened closer to the edge, where it would drop off a small cliff and smash me right into the forest floor, and probably a few trees along the way.
Brakes? Probably not, but I slammed my foot down on them anyway, which just made it worse, and the last thing I could do while my car was flung off the road was to cry out prayers to a God I didn't believe in.
"She's coming to, Mrs Dunn," were the first words I heard in what felt like forever. My whole body ached and I was scared to open my eyes. How mangled was my body? Was my face scarred, burnt, and bruised? How long had I been lying in the wreck before someone came to help me?
"Oh, my baby girl," said a voice with a southern accent. My mother didn't have an accent at all – we lived in Montana, not Alabama. "Oh Victoria, I was so scared. I told you not to walk through the Negro community, oh honey."
I forced my eyelids open to the face of a woman with short, dark brown curly hair and thick, long, fake eyelashes. She looked vaguely familiar, like someone I might have seen in town before, but she certainly wasn't my mother.
"Who are you?" I croaked. My throat was so dry it felt like it was on fire, but I had no saliva in my mouth to swallow.
Her jaw dropped and she threw her gloved hands up in the air. "Oh lord, my baby's lost her mind!"
A nurse led the harried woman out of the room while another helped me to sit up against a thick pillow. A doctor was on my other side, in an old uniform, surrounded by out of date hospital equipment.
"Hello, my name is Dr Carpenter," he introduced. "May I ask you a few questions, just to see how you're doing?"
I nodded nervously, my brain rattling painfully in my skull.
"What is your name?"
That was easy. "Victoria Esther Dunn."
He smiled encouragingly. "Victoria, when were you born?"
Even better. "The twenty-third of April."
"Perfect," he complimented. "Now, what year is it?"
I was about to get one hundred percent on the few things I was sure of since waking up in this whack job hospital. Maybe if I got them all right he'd see I was sane and okay, let me go, and I could get away from the crazy woman and find my real mother.
"It's 2010," I said. "October 2010."
His brow creased. "Would you like to try that again?"
"Uh ... no?" I was sure my face mirrored his look of blatant confusion and concern, and for good reason. Had I been in a coma or something? Had I really been out that long? Maybe I did have brain damage.
"Victoria," the doctor said, slowly and calmly, "it's April, 1965."
