CAN I COME HOME NOW? A true story of childhood trauma

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Chapter 10 pages 1–8

Chapter 10

A strong odour awakened me. I felt as if the insides of my nostrils were burning. I lifted my head, unsure where I was. The silence around me was deafening. Then a vision flashed through my mind. A vision of the car going off the road and banging into, and over, things.

I looked to my left, but I couldn’t see Richard. I turned the other way to find Jan slumped over the dashboard.

“Jan, wake up.” I shook her. “We must have been in an accident.”

She lifted her head and looked around in confusion.

There was scarcely any windshield left, so it was easy to climb through. We slid down the front of the car. The hood was so mangled that it pointed towards the ground.

I looked for Mary. I stumbled to the back of the car and peered through the back window. Gary, half on the seat and half on the floor, was trying to pull himself out through the side window. Mary was lying across the seat, flat on her back, unmoving. Her stillness scared me.

“Mary! Mary!” I shouted. Gary had pulled himself out. I ran around to the side and reached my hand through the broken window to try to wake her. Suddenly, she started to moan. “Mary, are you okay? Mary, it’s okay, you’re alright.”

The awful moaning sound continued through my words.

“Mary,” Gary said. “Mary, can you hear us?”

She kept moaning. Gary and I looked at each other, scared. “Where’s Rick?” Gary’s voice was desperate.

We searched around the car. The driver’s door was completely torn off. Richard was lying on the ground beside the car, a cloth or blanket covering his head. I pulled back the cloth. He didn’t move. His face looked peculiar. Jan, Gary, and I stared at him. In the distance, the sound of sirens grew louder and louder.

I headed to the back of the car to Mary again. I didn’t get very far before I fell. My leg felt like rubber. I looked at my blood-soaked hands and screamed.

Jan rushed over and put her arms around me. “It’s okay, it’s okay.”

Then she touched her face. It was covered in blood. I could not see where it was coming from.

“Oh no, my face, my face, my father is going to kill me!”

Two ambulances arrived, and a wide circle of people gathered around us.

A police officer bent over Richard. “It’s too late for this one,” he muttered to no one in particular.

“Get the girl out of the back seat first, she’s pretty bad!” someone else shouted.

As they carried Mary past me on a stretcher, the horrible moaning became louder and louder. The back of her head was covered with blood. She was put into an ambulance. Gary got in the front seat of the same ambulance, and they sped off with screaming sirens.

I was scared for my sister.

By the time the attendants had brought stretchers for Jan and me, my leg felt as if it were not attached to me anymore. Our ambulance, too, raced to Leamington General Hospital.

I couldn’t believe what had happened since the afternoon. When I got home after school, Mary had been anxiously waiting for me.

“Barbara, remember that favor you owe me?”

I looked at her blankly.

“Oh, never mind. Do you remember Gary’s friend Richard?”

“Yeah, vaguely, why?”

“Well, he broke off with his girlfriend and wants to go out with you tonight, isn’t that great?”

I wasn’t sure if it was, or not — I could barely remember what he looked like.

“We’re going for a drive to Point Pelee,” Mary said.

“We have to see if Jeanne will let us go,” I said. “Besides, I thought your friend Jan was coming over tonight?”

“She is,” Mary replied impatiently. “Barbara, do you want to go or not?”

I thought about it for a moment and shrugged. “Sure, why not?”

Jeanne said we could go if we were home by 10 o’clock.

Jan arrived after dinner. She was tall and thin and always dressed very stylishly, like a model. Tonight, she was wearing brown leather pants, and Mary and I oohed and aahed over them.

At 7:30, Gary came to the door for us. Gary and Mary got in the back of Rick’s car while Jan and I slid into the front.

“Hi,” Rick said, grinning at me.

As soon as I saw him, I remembered seeing him around with a girl named Pat. I was glad I’d come; he seemed like a nice person.

Gary introduced Jan and Rick to each other.

I could smell the alcohol on Richard’s breath as he leaned his broad face in front of me to say hello to Jan.

On the way to Point Pelee, Richard pulled a bottle of beer out from under his seat.

“Anybody want a drink?”

He passed the bottle back to Gary.

“No thanks, you know I don’t drink.” Gary pushed the bottle away. The rest of us refused to.

Richard was driving fast and recklessly, and we were laughing and joking. We enjoyed the excitement, the quick turns, and being gently tossed around inside the car.

“Oh no, I’m going to be sick.” Richard pulled the car onto the gravel on the side of the road, squealing the tires as they left the pavement. He jumped out of the car. We all laughed as he staggered away.

“That feels better,” he said when he returned. He started the car again. “Is everybody ready?”

“Yeah, let’s go! “Jan and I cheered.

Richard threw his empty bottle out the window. He stepped on the gas so hard that the car sped around in circles on the gravel.

“Hey, watch it, Rick, take it easy, eh!” Gary called from the back seat.

“Mary, keep him busy back there, will you?” Richard joked.

The car swerved, almost went off the road, and swerved back again. I began to be frightened. Jan was giggling.

The car swerved again. I could hear the crunch and spray of gravel as the car left the paved road. Richard turned the wheel hard left, jerking us around inside. I put my hands on the dashboard to secure myself.

“Don’t be scared,” Richard said. “I’ve been through the park three times today, and at higher speeds than this.”

“I bet!” Jan piped up.

Her words were exactly the challenge Richard was looking for. He stepped down so hard on the gas pedal that I felt myself being thrown hard against the back of the seat. Within minutes, I could feel the car banging and bumping over things, and my body being thrown around. Then everything went black.

The Leamington Newspaper of February 19, 1969, read: YOUTH DIES IN PELEE CRASH

One Mersea youth was killed, and four others were injured, one critically, when a car hit a tree in the park shortly after 8 p.m. Tuesday.

DEAD IS RICHARD Shafer 17, R.R.# 5, LEAMINGTON

In the hospital is Mary Rose Bennett, 16, who is critically injured and suffering from massive lacerations to the head and possible back injuries. Also in the hospital is her sister, Barbara, age 15. Both sisters are from R.R. # 2, Kingsville.

Two other passengers in the car were Jan Devitt, 17, of R.R. # 2, Kingsville, and Gary Beetham, also of Kingsville.

Miss Devitt is suffering from lacerations to the face and arms and shock. Gary Beetham has possible back and leg injuries. Barbara Bennett is also suffering from back and leg injuries.

Police said the car was headed north on the Point Pelee Road when it failed to make the first curve on its way from the end of the Point to the gate. The car left the road, bounced over a shallow ditch, sheared off underbrush and small trees until it hit a tree about 2ft in diameter.

The roof of the car was completely peeled back by the impact, and the seats in the interior of the car were jarred loose from their fastening.

Dr. James Taylor of Leamington, coroner, pronounced young Shafer dead and said the cause of death was likely a fractured neck. The four passengers were taken to Leamington District Memorial Hospital for emergency treatment.

“God must have been watching out for you,” the doctor said as he examined me. I had a broken kneecap, with fluid on the knee, and a few minor cuts.

“What about Mary?” I asked anxiously.

“Your sister is unconscious, and her leg is broken in two places,” he replied evasively. “We’re keeping close watch over her.”

Jan had a large cut over her top lip and a very deep cut on her inner arm. Her leather pants had protected her legs from the broken glass. Gary had pulled a few muscles in his back but had no cuts and needed no stitches.

Jeanne, Ray, Mom, and Dad spent most of that night at the hospital, as did Gary and Jan’s parents. I couldn’t get anyone to tell me anything about Mary.

The next day, Aunt Alice and Uncle George came to see me. Aunt Alice tried to smile. “Well, Barbara, you’re lucky,” she said, tapping the temporary cast on my leg.

“Hello Barbara,” said Uncle George.

Aunt Alice pulled up a chair.

“It’s such a dreadful thing, your sister — .”She caught herself, then rushed on as if she couldn’t help herself. “If you had stayed at our place, this never would have happened.”

I listened with indifference. Uncle George stood in the corner and said very little.

I wished they hadn’t come. I could barely look at them.

Jeanne and Ray came most days to visit.

“I’ve got a lawyer starting proceedings for us to sue Richard’s insurance company,” Ray said during one visit. I was surprised. I didn’t know anything about lawsuits or even that I would have a case. “I don’t know if we’ll get very much, but…” He spread his hands.

“When you get out, you can come and stay with us until you recuperate,” Jeanne offered. “I asked the doctor, and he said they want to keep you a few more days.”

“How’s Mary?”

Ray and Jeanne exchanged a look. “She’s coming along,” Jeanne said vaguely.

“Will she be able to leave when I do?”

“No, no, I don’t think so,” Jeanne said. She looked at me. “Barbara, it’s pretty serious. They weren’t sure she would make it through that first night. But she’s progressing — there may be the possibility of brain damage. The doctors aren’t sure.”

I felt numb. “I want to see her.”

An Excerpt from my memoir “Can I Come Home Now?: A true story of childhood trauma” — Barbara Godin