Page 31 of The Logic of Loyalty

Seeing the turn for Piggies coming up, I decide to turn into our grocery store for a couple of ginger snacks and lemon drop goodies to help keep my nausea at bay. I flip on the turn signal and turn my wheel, waiting for the person pulling out to move since they’re taking up the whole entrance to the lot.

A sharp screeching penetrates my concentration, and I look around for the origin of the sound when the impact of a car slamming into mine sends me jerking forward against my seat belt.

Time moves equally at a crawl and faster than the blink of an eye. Reflexively, I wrap my arms around my belly. Immediate, visceral, overwhelming images come too quickly for me to fully comprehend—breaking glass, screaming, the ground, the face of someone in the car in front of me—it’s all garbled and mixed in an order that doesn’t make any sense. I close my eyes as I feel my body go weightless, then crash into something.

A whimper gets trapped in my tight throat when my car rocks to a slow stop. I blink my eyes open from where I hang from the confines of my seatbelt to visions of glass, a deployed airbag, debris, concrete, and a jarringly inverted world from the unusual vantage of looking down at the ceiling of my car. The violent sounds of metal twisting, crunching, and glass breaking are now an eerie quiet. My ragged, panicked breaths are the only thing I can hear.

Then, chaos.

The world around me begins to react to the carnage of my car and whatever and whoever else was involved in what just happened. Only the screams, cries, and shouts don’t penetrate.

My baby.

“Oh, God, my baby!”

My head starts to swim from hanging upside down, so with shaking fingers and a prayer that I’m not making a huge mistake, I press the button to my seat belt and brace myself for impact. I hit the roof with a crunch, but I’m able to prevent myself from getting hurt or landing on anything funny. Now on the roof, I freeze and am overcome with absolute, crippling terror.

What if something happened to my baby?

“Ma’am? Ma’am? Can you hear me?”

“My baby, my baby.” A voice repeats those words while I sit on the ceiling of my car, my hands protectively cradling my belly.

“Ma’am, I need you to respond—Oh, shit. Paige! Motherfucker. Hang on! I’m going to get you out of there.” The voice becomes clear, then familiar, but I can’t place it when every inch of my awareness is centered on the life beneath my hands.

The life I can’t feel because he or she is so tiny.

Or because they’re already gone, a horrible voice in my head whispers. I choke on a sob and stop my chant. That’s when I finally realize who is helping me get out of here. It’s Billy Saul, my husband’s close friend and my prior employer. He volunteers with the EMTs in our tiny towns on the weekends. He once told me it’s how he escapes the quiet of his empty home when his children are with their mother.

Of course he’s here. His shop is just around the corner. I can’t decide if it’s lucky or unlucky that my husband’s friend is the one to pull me out of the wreckage.

“We have the car steady, but we want to get you out, Paigey-Girl.” His deep rumble tries to soothe, but I grow more rigid. I eye the crumpled car surrounding me, then glance at him.

“Trust me, Paige. I won’t let anything happen to⁠—”

“I’m pregnant. Very early.” I interrupt him with the most important information so he can also focus on what’s necessary to keep us both safe.

His eyes grow wide as saucers as he takes in my current state. Then, he reaches out to me again. “Come here, Paige. I’ll take care of both of you.” I nod and reluctantly release my belly and hold out my hands. Grasping my hands in his, he carefully guides and pulls me out of the door of my totaled car and into his massive, comforting arms. Racking sobs echo, but I can’t tell if they’re from me or the woman being led to the other ambulance. I can’t recognize her, but I don’t have the capacity to try too hard to do so. Billy carries me and sets me on the back of another of the ambulances.

He mutters something to them, and they nod. After doing a preliminary check, they let me know it’s best for me to go in for additional tests to make sure everything is as it should be. Somehow, I have no visible injuries beyond a couple of scratches on my palms and forehead. The safety ratings of my car are more than believable after the results of this accident.

The drivers in the other two cars are being rushed to the hospital, but Billy is able to convince them that a trip is not necessary, and that he’ll get me where I need to go. I squeeze his hand in a silent thank you and return to my car to get my phone. He ends up crawling in and grabbing it from the roof of the back seat. With shaking hands, I call Trevor, but it goes straight to voicemail.

He broke his phone. “Dammit.”

“What is it?”

“Trevor broke his phone. I need to call him.”

“Do you want to swing by the house⁠—”

“He’s at work.”

“Oh, you don’t want to swing by⁠—”

“No. I can’t handle all of that right now. I’ll try calling his office phone.”

I have to search forever for the number, but I dial it once I find it. However, when it rings, it’s not Trevor’s voice on the other end. “Hello, Mr. Whitaker’s office, this is Krista.”