Chapter 14

"Home Again, Home Again"

By the time I got back on the highway and away from the city, there was no longer the canyon of buildings surrounding me and keeping the car from being buffeted by strong winds and lashing rain. The skies were dark and scowling and most oncoming traffic was using headlights and fog lights and windshield wipers on "high". I pulled on the Volvo's lights and ran the defroster full-tilt just to combat the humidity. It was angry and dark out there, even though it was still barely past 2:30 p.m. I had a sneaking feeling that this wouldn't be a pleasant drive home.

I was stuck in a long line of slow-moving traffic that included a passenger bus, a string of tractor-trailers, and a heavy-duty dump truck hauling some kind of huge industrial digger with a boom at each end. Two of the big rigs were in the passing lane, trying to go around the slower-moving vehicles, but didn't seem to be making any headway. The mush they were throwing up across my windshield gave me the sensation of running along beneath a waterfall laced with debris. The Volvo's wipers were struggling just to keep up.

Two cars ahead of me, and over in the passing lane, a fancy silver Corvette was slewing back and forth, looking for an opening to put the pedal to the metal and leave this plodding herd of metal buffalo far behind. The guy wasn't having much luck, and I gave him a wide berth. Behind him, also in the passing lane, other drivers of faster cars, big pickups and SUVs were also looking for a way to get out of the bottleneck, and most of them weren't being very patient about it. I sighed, determined to remain calm. Rather them than me!

My Bonnie Raitt CD finished and I removed it from the player. Dug in the center console and found the score from "Phantom of the Opera". Loaded it, and pressed the "play" button.

I adjusted my hands on the steering wheel and leaned forward to better see beyond the slop that cascaded down the windshield and across the car's hood. The red taillights of the tractor-trailer ahead of me gave me a point of reference to stay in the lane directly behind him. The sludge he threw backward in his wake obscured everything else. The Corvette in the passing lane still wavered in and out, but he was blocked from the front and the right, and had no choice but to remain in line. I watched him warily and hung back in case he did something stupid.

And so we rolled along.

My thoughts wandered, in turn, between the session with Dick Dickinson and a mounting concern about whatever might be happening back in Princeton with Cuddy and House. At least my thoughts were diverting me from the returning pain across my shoulders, my wrist and my hip from the cramped driving position, and the constant need to be wary of my surroundings in the Congo line of snail's pace traffic.

I was still a little anxious about Dick's total permission that I allow House to witness the strong emotions I experienced at his suffering and pain. The idea of allowing Greg to see me actually break down and shed tears in front of him was a little scary … not only from my own reactions to it … but from my giving him the perfect opportunity to make fun and lay on the sarcasm six inches deep in order to not let himself fall into the same trap.

The concern about what might have taken place at 221B Baker Street while I was away from there, ran a little deeper than my skepticism at letting myself bawl in front of Gregory House.

Something told me that we hadn't heard the last from the recent problem of recurring spasms in House's left leg. I tried to think back to the day he had returned home from the hospital … his fall in the bathroom … the violent nausea he had experienced later … any occurrence I could bring to mind that would explain an acute injury to the opposite leg which could cause him such palpable misery. Something that would send him, just short of screaming, to a hospital all the way across the city for tests that would produce even more pain. House couldn't possibly take much more!

That was the trigger.

The combination of my fatigue, the physical pain that was gaining on me again, and the impossibility of doing anything about it, pulled me in like a whirlpool. The sudden return of sorrow for my best friend's misery that I could do nothing about, hit me hard, and I could feel the convulsing in my diaphragm that told me I was about to lose it yet again.

I could almost count the seconds to the moment my sinuses became congested and my eyes filled to the brim. All I needed now was for my own waterworks to flood the inside of the car in the same manner the weather was flooding the outside.

Damn!

That was the moment the cell phone rang with muffled insistence from inside the pocket of my briefcase.

Cuddy! Oh God … House!

I clung grimly to the steering wheel with my throbbing left hand and made a dive for the pocket of the briefcase with the right. Scrabbled the cell phone out and hit the "talk" button with my index finger.

"What's the matter?"

I was too harsh; my words loud and desperate. The world outside the windshield was closing in on me and my attention was divided dangerously between the internal and the external, with no maneuvering room between.

If I ceased, even for a split second, to pay attention to the reality around me and swerved in this snarl of traffic, I could kill myself, and perhaps innocent people as well.

If I did not pay attention to the female voice in my ear, its lapse into panic, controlled only by an icy edge of reason, I was in danger of losing my best friend … and as Dick had hinted an hour or so ago … perhaps the most important person in my life.

Cuddy was reciting a litany of difficulties with Greg's increasing leg pain that was overwhelming her better judgment and giving her cause to doubt her own professional acumen. He had locked her out of his room, relenting only after she'd threatened to call the fire department and paramedics to the scene. He would not allow her to allay his pain with morphine, and instead lay writhing in his bed, wet with his own perspiration and teeth clenched against the screams she knew he would not hold back if she were not right there next to him.

I had never heard Cuddy come unglued before. I found that my body was shaking uncontrollably, shivering with cold, even in the close humidity of the car. I could feel the fear clenching my guts and my bladder constricting with an overwhelming urge to urinate.

I couldn't help it … I cursed angrily into the phone. Why wouldn't the world just stop for a moment and give me a few moments to draw a deep breath?

Cuddy's voice changed in a heartbeat. "James … I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to lay this on you. You've got to be dead on your feet … the weather is crappy … and you're trying to get home. Please forgive me! We can hang in until you're home safe …"

"And I'll be there soon."

We exchanged apologies and hung up. I was still shaking, still had to go, still frightened out of my wits for Greg. And Cuddy couldn't "unsay" the words that made my heart almost stop beating in my chest.

I fumbled with the dead cell phone and reached out to tuck it back into the pocket of the briefcase.

At just that moment, a flash of bright red lights slid from left to right across my peripheral vision. The Corvette had finally found his opportunity to make a break for it, and was veering across behind the trailer truck to do … God knew what … along the right hand berm of the road.

Too late, I jerked the steering wheel around and slammed the injured wrist against the dashboard as my hand slid off the wheel. I cursed again in pain, and slammed on the brakes to avoid hitting his rear bumper, coming to the terrible realization that the lights I'd seen were merely reflections of the truck's brake lights rippling in multiple layers across my hood by the cascading water and the action of my laboring windshield wipers. Also too late, I sluiced the steering wheel in the opposite direction with my right hand, trying to compensate for my error of judgment.

The Volvo skidded as the brakes locked, and crossed over, miraculously accident-free, over the center median, rabbit-hopping in front of three lanes of traffic, toward the opposite berm. I felt the driver's side wheels lose traction in the mud, and the car started to tilt dangerously as though about to go over a precipice. I braced myself and held my breath for impact. There was nothing I could possibly do to prevent whatever was about to happen.

The tires lost their grip and I felt the undercarriage hit as the car continued to slide. I didn't see my entire life flash before my eyes, but I did think of House and Cuddy and wondered how they would get along without me.

Even at the brink of possible death, I discovered I still had an ego!

I closed my eyes and waited for the inevitable.

For a moment I felt nothing, and wondered if I'd crossed over into another dimension. If I had, then the experience had left me wondering if that's all there was. Slowly I opened my eyes and looked around.

The Volvo was stalled out and I was completely off the road. I was wedged against the driver's door and my hand was screaming with pain. When I pulled it away from where it was pinned beneath the armrest, however, the pain diminished. I reached up and turned off the headlights and then peered ahead through the driving rain. The lack of glare from the lights made it easier to see.

I was sitting in a field, pointed in the opposite direction from the way I was headed. Traffic was sweeping past directly to my right, oblivious of any incident that might have caused them to be sitting in stalled bunches, waiting for state police to clear debris from an accident scene. An accident scene from which I may or may not have left alive …

I sat still for a few minutes, catching my breath and wondering if it might be possible for me to drive out of there. I tried turning the key, and the tight Volvo engine purred to life. I tried moving the gearshift into "drive" and grasped the wheel again, wincing at the pull of the injured tendons that I seemed to keep abusing even more as the day grew older. Maybe my body was trying to tell me something!

The wheels spun on the wet turf at first, so I moved the shifter into low range and eased onto the gas. In inch at a time, the tires gripped. The field was rough, cultivated, not meant as a freeway. Inch by inch, then foot by foot, I eased the car out of the field and onto a dirt lane that led to a farmhouse about a half-mile to the left.

When the tires hit solid ground, I put on my sport jacket and got out, walked around to check for damage. There was some. The front fender was bent toward the tire, but not enough to scrape it during a turn. There was a furrow along the driver's door that continued all the way to the rear bumper, and the rocker panel was bent and pushed all the way beneath the car's undercarriage. Both hubcaps on that side were missing, and the rear bumper was pulled away from the body. Mud and grass and field debris, like chunky chocolate pudding, spilled from beneath the undercarriage. I was looking at extensive bodywork that my insurance company wasn't going to like!

I got back behind the wheel again and removed my jacket. Two minutes outside and it was soaked. I decided not to look for the hubcaps. I needed to get back and take care of Greg … and Cuddy. I guessed I needed them right now, a lot more than they needed me.

I turned the car around at a wide place down the road, and started back toward Princeton. The wheels were out of alignment and the steering wheel shimmied at any speed over fifty mph, so I kept it down, but steady. Even in this bad weather, traffic buzzed around me like the Volvo was up on jacks!

My car was probably like an old horse … on its way to the glue factory … but I heaved a sigh of relief when I finally pulled up in front of Greg's place. I was still shaky inside, and my heart was still in my throat. I said a silent word of thanks to whatever powerful entity had allowed me to live long enough to get home …

… and I grabbed jacket and briefcase tightly as I walked up the steps, bound for House's front door.

It was 4:30 p.m.

Oooo0oooO

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