Chapter 18
I wrecked the Thunderbird,” I blurted when Claus answered his cell phone after what seemed like twenty rings. “Can you come get me?”
“Are you okay? Where are you?”
“I’m two blocks from the nursery.” I struggled to sound calm. “I was buying mums.” Stupid mums. “I’m okay. Nothing happened to me. I’ll probably be sore come tomorrow, but I’m fine.”
“Oh, thank goodness.” He exhaled hard. “You’re sure?”
“Positive.” I touched my neck where I could feel some stiffness, but I wasn’t in pain. It was just a little tight. “Can you come get me? I’m at a bakery.”
“Do you know the name?”
“I’m not sure, but look for leftover dirt and trampled mums baking on the road.” I dried a tear and took a deep breath. “I’m inside hiding behind the Financial Times.” I picked up the oversized pink newspaper from an abandoned pile on a small table next to mine.
“I’m on my way.”
“Thanks.” My chin quivered against my will. Opening the paper, I pretended to read the latest UK news, but my mind drifted to the job I’d planned on finishing that afternoon and now couldn’t.
A young couple, newlyweds from the ground floor, had asked Jutta, my German teacher and neighbor, about her flowers, and she’d mentioned my name. They’d offered me five hundred euro, in addition to the cost of the plants.
I took a sip from my creamy cappuccino. I’d finished most of the work and was just waiting for mum season to wrap up the project. Now my mums were in pieces, half all over the road and half with the tow driver who’d tried hard to clean up my mess.
When Claus arrived, I showed him two business cards. One for the shop where the Thunderbird was, and one for the person whose car I’d hit.
The guy from the garage said he’d looked at my car and couldn’t fix it, so Claus arranged to have it towed to our building.
“I will go by one of the Army kasernes tomorrow.” Claus put away both cards. “I think they have a garage and mechanics at the Mainz-Kastel Kaserne or maybe at the airfield.”
Not knowing when or how the Thunderbird would be fixed made me feel worse. It was just a car. I shouldn’t be so bummed about it, but I was—that car was special to me and was my last connection to the U.S. Everything else was going so well. We were one month into the Praha rehearsals, and the piece was looking beautiful. Classes were going great too.
But now this. “I could never have everything be just right. Something always has to be wrong in my life.”
“It’ll be okay. We’ll get it fixed.” Claus kissed my forehead gently. “I’m so glad you’re not hurt.”
Me too. Thankfully, no one was hurt. The accident could have been much worse. I’d thought I had the right of way. Good thing I wasn’t driving fast. Priority to the right is such a ridiculous right-of-way system that most intersections in Germany are controlled with priority signs—or traffic lights—so people are not constantly stopping to give way to cars approaching an intersection from that direction.
But I’d failed to notice that the intersection where I crashed didn’t have a priority sign—obviously. I assumed I could keep going since my road was bigger, but then the Thunderbird hit a Mercedes that came from a smaller and almost deserted road—but who cares? The August Diehl lookalike I hit approached from the right.
“Do you want to go back to the nursery?” Claus opened the bakery door for me. “We can get a plastic bin for the plants. I don’t mind.”
I shook my head. “Not today. I just want to go home.”
It was the first week of September when my mom called, her ragged breathing evident despite the distance between us. “Ana … Ana, your dad is fine, but—” I placed my hand over my heart as I listened to her take a breath. “Sweetheart, he had a heart attack.”
“No, Mom…”
“He’s okay now, but it was bad, honey.” Her voice faded, and I waited for her to continue. “He had to have an angioplasty, and we will be in the hospital for a few more days before I can take him home.”
“Mom, I’ll go see him.” I wrote down ‘angioplasty,’ so I could look it up later. “I’ll call you when I have flight numbers and dates. Is Mike there?”
“Yes, your brother arrived this morning.” Her voice was calmer now. “Are you sure you can come?”
“Yes.” There was no way I wasn’t coming. “I’ll call back soon, Mom. Hang in there, okay?” I wouldn’t leave Mom and Dad to deal with this without the whole family there. No way.
Two days later, Claus and I were on a flight to Atlanta to stay a week and then fly back five days before the audition.
As we waited for the plane to leave the gate, I pulled a tin box with a few sunflower seeds out of my purse.
They were seeds of the sunflowers we’d watched germinate and grow. Our graceful giants had followed the sun across the horizon, turning back and facing east every morning. They had climaxed fast, and then the heads had slowly bowed.
It was still too early to harvest them, but Claus went to the field shortly after my mom had called and found a dozen plump seeds for me to take home.
As Lufthansa 444 taxied to the runway, Claus caressed my cheek with his fingertips and watched me as I touched the seeds in the small tin box one more time.
“I could swear you were wearing your scarf.” He cocked his head, his hand gentle on my bare neck.
“I was going to.” I held his hand as the plane gained speed on the runway. “I draped it around Barysh’s picture. I didn’t want to leave him alone. I’m silly, I know. I hope you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind.” He kissed my hand before closing his eyes. “I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t lost.”
“Nope, it’s not lost,” I said as the nose of the plane tilted skyward, and the chaos of tires speeding against hard cement became peaceful blue skies that matched the strange stillness of my heart. Dad’s situation was still critical, but the doctors were happy with the results of the surgery, and I was happy to be Georgia bound. I was where I needed to be—taking care of family with my ballet bag in the suitcase and with Claus by my side. Everything would be okay.