A Burden of Truth

Copyright © 2013 by Chris W. Potter.

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This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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ISBN: 978-1-4759-9416-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-9417-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-9418-6 (ebk)

iUniverse rev. date: 06/07/2013

Contents

Snowcrash

Dreamland

Burn Unit

The Morning News

NDE

A Visit from Claire

Redstone

Reading Caroline

A Mother’s Love

Tiburon

Caroline Plays

Fate Knocks

A Burden of Truth

Snowbound

Past Lives

The Agreement

Published

Acknowledgements

Author’s Note

To Lauren,

May you always know love

With the Innocent heart of a child;

May you see life

As a wondrous gift from God,

And may you find your place

In this world with devotion,

Understanding,

And above all, joy.

We are such stuff as dreams are made on;

And our little life is rounded with a sleep.

William Shakespeare

Snowcrash

NOVEMBER brought the first major snowstorm of the season. Ethan and his parents were on their way back to Denver after a tense weekend in Aspen. Ethan was now angry with himself for agreeing to come along with his parents. As usual, they all had good intentions. The fact was they had grown apart since he had left for college and the chasm between them continued to widen. Ethan’s life was a triangle of piano, books and girls. His parents’ lives were money, meetings and getting ahead. The dark sky Ethan saw outside the car window reflected his mood. He checked the time on his smart phone and knew that they had a long drive ahead. Unfortunately, he wouldn’t make it to the airport. Ethan Parks would be dead by noon.

They had left the condo in Aspen at 5:00 am leaving plenty of time to make an afternoon flight back to Miami. The drive from Aspen to Glenwood Springs was a long slow slog, like trying to run in a dream when your legs won’t move. A thick, wet snow was falling heavily and creating an eye straining whiteout. Reaching the Interstate at 7:00 am, the early commuters joined them on the now icy interstate. It always seemed that the locals were eager to show tourists how to drive in mountain weather. Trucks were the worst. They got a thrill out of tailgating and passing everyone they deemed an inferior driver.

Ethan’s stepfather, Don, had rented a black Range Rover for the trip. The interior was leather and wood grain and created a false sense of security against the miserable driving conditions. The windows kept fogging up and Don was white-knuckling the steering wheel. He toyed with the defroster changing it from hot to cold and front to back. Nothing seemed to work and the windows remained coated in the shiny fog. Like a kid, Ethan took his finger and scrawled HELP on the condensation.

Ethan’s mother, Edie, sat in the front passenger seat, picking at her face in the lighted visor mirror. Her menthol cough drops smelled like medicine. His mother had really pushed his buttons on this trip, treating him like a child and ruining each meal by her constant complaining. Getting sick in the mountains was just one more of her regular dramas that he despised. He couldn’t wait to get back to the independence of his dorm room. Ethan was finishing up his first year at Julliard. He was an accomplished classical pianist and couldn’t wait to get his fingers back on a Steinway and wrap his ears around real music.

An eighteen wheeler passed them and sloshed the windshield with wet snow. Don tried to set his coffee in the cup holder and missed, spilling most of it in his lap.

Damn, he cursed through clinched teeth. "Edie, can you get me a napkin or something? Edie rummaged through the glove box and found four yellow Wendy’s napkins.

Those were new khakis, Don, she said with an irritated look and started dabbing at the spill in his lap.

Don’t you think I know that? he answered, glancing angrily at the stain on his pants.

Just keep your eyes on the road, Edie spat at him. She kept dabbing the napkins at the coffee soaking into his pants.

Don was usually a patient driver. Today, he was jumpy. His eyes kept darting from the steep drop off just outside the window, to the tailgating truckers behind and the braking taillights ahead. He hated being pushed to drive faster than he was comfortable. After hours on the road, his frustration with the drive was peaking. Given a fight or flight situation, Don would always choose flight. On this morning he wasn’t given that choice.

This is crazy, Edie. I’m going to pull over before one of these idiots run us off the road.

Don! We’ve got to catch our plane. I’ve got meetings tomorrow. You KNOW that, Edie yelled.

Her hand gestures were like a lawyer in a courtroom. Edie always argued and always got her way. Don responded by tightening his lips and reinforcing his vise grip on the steering wheel. He always did exactly what she ordered.

The Range Rover climbed higher and was reaching the summit of the pass. The view out of the window became rockier as the interstate wound its way above the tree line. Cars started braking and slowing down, forcing Don to tap his brakes as well. Ethan was startled by the sudden jerks and noticed that they were about to enter Eisenhower Tunnel. He read the green highway sign, Eisenhower Memorial Tunnel Elev. 11,158 FT. It soon came their time to enter the round black hole in the side of the mountain. Ethan never liked going through the tunnel. His eyes adjusted to the light. The scene magically changed from whiteout to black hole, then came the artificial white light of the tunnel, their tires began to echo off the walls and the wipers started screeching across the drying windshield. Drivers were now speeding through, dropping muddy chunks of snow and frozen slush behind them. Don was being pushed to go with the flow and increased his speed with the other vehicles. The SUV in front of them was piled high with luggage wrapped in black plastic and bungee cords. The license plate read, Stars Fell on Alabama. Reading it, Ethan thought it more likely that luggage fell in Colorado.

He squeezed his ear buds back in and scrolled through his phone’s playlist, stopping at a Bill Evan’s Very Early. The tune had just started when they came out of the tunnel and back into the blinding white of the blizzard.

Shit! Don screamed and stepped on the brakes.

The screech of rubber on pavement was a terrifying but recognizable sound, almost like fingernails on a chalkboard. Ethan’s phone hit the floor as his seatbelt locked. He was thrust forward and given a view of the swiftly approaching Alabama taillights. Then came his mother’s scream.

NOOOO!

She and Don threw their arms up in a reflex to shield their eyes from the coming impact.

The blunt force of the impact was terrifying beyond belief. Both the front and back windshields shattered as the Range Rover’s front end slammed into the SUV. Don and Edie plunged forward into exploding airbags. Ethan had no time to react to anything. He couldn’t grasp what was happening or respond fast enough to react. The split second event of crashing was too much to take in, simply too overwhelming. The seat belt knocked the air from his lungs. He struggled to refill his lungs and spit something hard out of his mouth.

Glass? Teeth?

For some reason, he wanted to reach for his phone on the floor mat when his terror was renewed by the deafening screech of brakes approaching from behind as a new driver came out of the tunnel. Ethan was powerless to do anything but wait.

Why weren’t his parents screaming anymore? Were they dead? Was he now alone in the backseat of the car?

It was a Subaru that hit Ethan from behind. The wedge shaped car was forced under the back of the Range Rover, raising the vehicle into the air and sending Ethan a second jolt of pain and confusion. Instead of finding its way back to earth, the Range Rover twisted sideways on the icy highway toward the guardrail. The driver’s side of the car went up in the air while the passenger door landed against the barrier separating them from a free fall down the side of the mountain. Ethan felt the howl of metal on metal, followed by a brief moment of weightlessness as the Range Rover went airborne and gravity began to pull it down the gravel slope. Slamming around in the back seat, Ethan had no doubt this is how his life would end.

Why do I keep looking at that damn phone on the floor? All my contacts are in there!

The roll started over the guardrail and he went upside down. Gravity was pulling him toward the roof of the car. The thought entered his mind that this was not going to end quickly and before he died this was going to hurt like hell.

Ethan remained in a kind of hellish purgatory as the car rolled end over end five times while plummeting down the slope. Snow and rocks crashed through the broken windshield. Each revolution of the car sent new waves of fear through Ethan’s mind. The side airbags exploded and more windows shattered. The undercarriage slammed into a boulder and he felt the hot pressure of the floorboard snap his left ankle. His door flew open and a suitcase from the back jetted forward and crushed his hand.

The car finally slammed home in a stand of trees. It landed upright, two wheels on, two bent underneath. If he had doubts before, his parents were most certainly dead now. He could see their silent bodies, slumped and twisted. He saw blood. The SUV was now completely silent and his ears were ringing. He could hear shouts and screams from back up on the highway. What had just been a warm cabin was now cold and packed with snow. Ethan’s vision was blurry and he tasted blood. He tried but couldn’t move his legs. Ironically, his mind was calm and started to work the problem. He thought of the car in the tree from Jurassic Park and the little boy trapped inside.

Come on Tim. I won’t tell anybody you threw up.

Tim, the human piece of toast.

Ethan knew his body was full of adrenalin and he had some natural defenses working for him. He had to react quickly before these brief moments of survival mode abandoned him and the dreaded reality of pain, trauma, shock and all the demons of hell came for him with a vengeance.

Ethan. Get the hell out of the car! NOW!

His right hand found the seatbelt release. His left hand would not answer his brain and hung loose at his side. The door had been flung open and torn off in the fall. He tried to move and felt a jolt of pain across his midsection.

Broken ribs?

His legs were dead weight. He would have to push himself out using only his right arm. It would be a dead fall into the snow. Ethan pushed against the driver’s seat in front of him and tumbled headfirst to the ground. He was now facing the underside of the car and heard the cracking and popping of the cooling engine along with the hissing of steam. More distressing, he could see gas dripping from underneath the rear tires and the smell filled his nostrils. Don had filled the tank in Glenwood Springs so that they could make it to Denver without stopping. The car still held a lot of fuel.

Another dose of adrenalin kicked in and he struggled to move away by crawling on his right elbow. He managed twenty feet of hard won distance over snow and rocks before falling into exhaustion. He didn’t see the gas ignite. Twenty feet was not far enough to escape the flames. Ethan had sustained a broken ankle, four broken ribs, a crushed left hand, a punctured spleen, and a dislocated shoulder. The fire would deliver fourth degree burns over both legs. It took an hour for Ethan Parks to die. He would wake up in two days with a story to tell.

ETHAN NEVER KNEW his father. He was a rock and roll groupie that didn’t wear a condom, just another dead beat that traveled with his mother’s band. He guessed that his mother was too drunk at the time to care. Garth, his first stepfather, stuck around for two years before Edie broke it off. Then Edie Parks married Don Dyson, the year Ethan started third grade. Don was a composer who had written some songs for Edie early in his career. He tried hard to make the marriage work and took a lot of crap from his mother in the process. He got Edie cleaned up and together they were able to build a life on her success as a second rate 80’s rock star. Don became a good role model and taught Ethan how to listen to music and tell the good composition from mediocre attempts at songwriting. He treated