Tough Cookie by Diane Mott Davidson Page A

bathtub with soapy water and the dishes were soaking. "You hardly ate a bite."
    The aspirins weren't kicking in. "No, I'm not all right. But I will be soon. Thanks for asking." I wiggled my unfeeling fingers, rubbed my rapidly-blackening elbow, then tried and failed to move - my neck from side to side. If I hadn't broken anything, how come everything hurt so much? Tom came over and gave me a healing kiss.
    Just before eight o'clock, a state patrolman knocked on our door. Into our kitchen Tom ushered a tall, corpulent man with black hair so short and thin it looked like someone had ground pepper over his scalp. His name was Vance, and he wanted me to write down all I remembered about the accident. I scribbled what I remembered of the blur of events: cars skidding every which way, my inability to see what happened, being hit: from behind, skidding, being smacked again and again and again. I'd hit another vehicle, crashed through the guardrail, and sailed down the hill. I begged for information about the truck's driver. The cop announced glumly that he'd died. My heart ached.
    Officer Vance read what I'd written, put down the pad, and tapped the tabletop. "Tell me again what happened on the way up to the tunnel. Before the accident."
    Patiently, I tried to visualize, then articulate, the happenings of those few minutes. The snow had been falling in sheets. Visibility had been wretched. What vehicles I could see were sliding haplessly on the ice. Then something had hit my van. All around me, cars were honking, thudding, spinning out of control. I'd careened down the hill, crashed into the truck, sunk into deep snow. I'd truly believed, I told the officer, that I was going to be buried alive in the white stuff.
    As I related my story, neither Tom nor Officer Vance interrupted me. When I'd concluded, Officer Vance mused, "As far as you could see, then, there was a white pickup truck about ten yards in front of you. There was also a vehicle behind you."
    "And one behind that, and one behind that." I waved my hand in a gesture of ad infinitum. The movement made my elbow howl with pain. "The noise of the crash was like books falling on your head. Thud, thud, thud, thud."
    "But you couldn't see the cars behind you very well," the policeman asked, "because of the poor visibility, right? Are you sure you didn't hear that thud, thud, thud; and then your mind just supplied the image of books falling?"
    I frowned and thought back. I knew this cop was trying to get at something. There had been a vehicle directly behind me. And yes, one behind that. That was all I could remember seeing. When I announced this, Tom pursed his lips. Officer Vance didn't blink.
    "Right," Vance murmured. When Tom sat down at my side, Officer Vance slid the salt, pepper, and three unused serving spoons into a line. His thick, carrot-like fingers moved the salt cellar. "This is the white pickup." Then the peppermill: "This is you." The first spoon: "This is the guy behind you, another van." The second spoon: "Then there's another vehicle behind that van." He placed the last spoon in place. "Then here's somebody quite a bit farther back."
    I concentrated on the objects, then moved the first two slightly to give the right scale of distances. But I had not seen a fourth vehicle, somebody quite a bit farther back. It had been snowing too hard.
    Vance pointed to the last spoon. "The driver of this car farther back, a woman from Idaho Springs, was in a Subaru station wagon. Only she didn't skid into anybody. She was right behind another Subaru wagon, and the two of them were ten car-lengths behind you. Just before the accident, she swears that other wagon sped up wildly and rammed into the van behind you." Officer Vance moved the next-to-last serving spoon up toward the first spoon. "Then she heard the noise of cars colliding. She braked, and skidded. Ahead of her, the other Subaru sped up and rammed the van twice more. The snow made it hard for her to see exactly what had