Home Before Dark by Susan Wiggs

happened?”
    Dr. Martinez settled back on a wheeled stool and tucked the clipboard under his arm. “Mrs. Benning, do you know what hill-hopping is?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œIt’s also called ramping and launching.”
    Numb, she shook her head.
    â€œIt’s the latest craze in joyriding. The kids pile into a car or SUV and launch themselves at high speeds off the tops of hills. Like in the movies. Only what these kids don’t understand is that professional stunts are completely different from launching. According to the preliminary DPS report, the Jeep went eighty feet through the air, then rolled another forty yards on impact. Lila was in the front passenger seat, still strapped in when the EMS arrived.”
    â€œI thought she was in bed, asleep.” Luz shut her eyes, but quickly opened them again, forcing herself to look at her daughter. “Why would you do that, Lila?” she asked in an agonized whisper. “Why would you do such a crazy thing?”
    Lila smiled a little. “I wanted to fly.”
    â€œAre you here by yourself, ma’am?” Dr. Martinez asked her in a sympathetic tone.
    What he was really asking was, Are you all alone, did your husband dump you, is there no one here to pick up the pieces when you fall apart?
    â€œMy husband is out of town, but he’ll be here as soon as he can,” she said. “What happens next?”
    â€œThe highway patrol might want to interview her. She’ll be discharged, barring any unforeseen changes in her condition.” He handed her a clipboard and pen. “You’ll need to fill this out.”
    Luz took the forms, and her teeth chattered as relief rolled through her. Then she forced herself to ask the dreaded question: “What about the other kids?”
    â€œFour of them are being treated here.” His dark eyes were thickly lashed, and soft with sympathy and secrets. “Another one of the victims was life-flighted from the scene to Brackenridge.”
    â€œWho?”
    â€œI’m not at liberty to say, Mrs. Benning.”
    The constriction in her chest unfurled into ribbons of pain. She had read it a thousand times in the paper—The victim’s name will be released pending notification of the family…. And then she dared to think the unthinkable. Thank God it was someone else’s child and not mine.
    Dr. Martinez’s pager vibrated against a rolling metal table. “Would you excuse me a moment?”
    Luz nodded, lost in her daughter again. Lila seemed to be dozing, or perhaps hiding behind closed eyes. It struck Luz to the core, how close Lila had come to dying or perhaps losing a limb, injuring herself permanently.
    I wanted to fly. All her life, she’d sought things Luz couldn’t give her. Flying was only one of them.
    Forcing herself to concentrate, Luz worked her way throughthe lengthy, detailed forms. Medical history. Her hand shook as she began filling in the blanks.
    Luz used to dream, too. Growing up, she imagined herself traveling the world, taking pictures of things most people would never see. The Taj Mahal, the caves of Lascaux, the Plains of Nasca. A husband and kids had never figured into that dream. But Luz had put her own dreams away years earlier to embrace a life she’d never anticipated for herself.
    She had never believed in love at first sight until the day it had come knocking in the form of an earnest law student, smiling at her across a crowded library study table. In that moment, the color of her dreams had changed. They decided to get married right away. Luz would work while Ian finished his law degree, then she’d complete her own schooling. There was never any question but that she’d put his education first, as she had Jessie’s. Luz had a talent for waiting. Maybe her mother had trained her to do that—to wait. All through her childhood she had waited—for a bus to pick her up, for her mother to notice her,