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and was comforted by the sight of her. “Dios Mio! It’s you again. What have you gotten yourself into now?”
    “I missed you. What’s it been, a month?”
    “I don’t like repeat customers,” she scolded. “You need to stay out of trouble.” It would have been funny if there hadn’t been such a hard ring of truth to it. My only consolation was that at least nobody was
trying
to kill me this time. It was an accident, pure and simple.
    “Well,” Dr. Sanchez announced after examining me, “you’ve suffered a mild concussion and your chest is going to be sore for a while, but the good news is nothing’s broken. All things considered, you’re fine.”
    Johnny and I met out in the lobby. He’d gotten five stitches over his right eyebrow.
    “Does it hurt?” I asked.
    “I’ll let you know after the Vicodin wears off. By the way, I’m telling everyone I was in a bar room brawl and they should see the other guy.”
    “Speaking of big fat lies,” I said, “don’t tell Paul about this, okay?”
    “You don’t think he’s going to notice the entire right side of his car has a guardrail attached to it?”
    “You’re exaggerating.”
    “Not by much.”
    “All the more reason not to tell him. Look, John, you know how Paul is. He’s going to blame himself for the brakes messing up. He’ll say he should have had them checked out before he started letting me use his car. Paul’s really happy right now. I don’t want anything to take away from that.” Miraculously, the car wasn’t totaled. All it needed was a new set of brakes and some cosmetic surgery. With any luck, I’d have it back in no time.
    “It’s your call, toots.”
    We took a cab back to my house. “Do you want to come in?” I asked. “I could make some grilled cheese sandwiches.” Dr. Sanchez made me swear I wouldn’t be alone. It was the only way she’d agree to release me.
    “Thanks,” John said, “but I think I’ll take a rain check—unless you need me to stick around for a while.” He looked exhausted.
    “No, I’m fine.” I tried to give him cab money but he swiped my hand away.
    “Are you kiddin’ me? You saved my life today. I guess all that drag racing we used to do at Front and Delaware when we were kids finally paid off.”
    Somewhere in my mind, John’s words hit home.
We could have died in that crash.
The realization was overwhelming, and I reached out and hugged him to me. We stayed that way for several minutes, until the cabbie interrupted in a thick Russian accent. “Okay, lady, in or out?”
    I pushed open the door and climbed out of the cab.
    It took me ten minutes to negotiate the three steps up to my front door. The initial adrenalin rush and my natural instinct to fake being brave for Johnny had finally worn off, and I was left with a major headache and rubbery legs. Mrs. Gentile found me kneeling on the top step. She paused on her way out to the trashcans, scrunching her unibrow into half its original size. “Are you drunk?” she demanded.
    “Rip roarin’, Mrs. Gentile.”
    “You’re going to Hell,” she said, with smug satisfaction. She should know. The woman has a direct pipeline to Satan.
    While I was gone, one of the animals had gotten into a vicious brawl with my mother’s plastic statue of the Virgin Mary. For as long as I can remember, it sat on her bedroom windowsill, overlooking the street below. When I bought the house, I’d left it there. I just sort’ve liked the idea of someone watching over me when I came home late at night. Now, she lay at the bottom of the stairs, tiny teeth marks embedded in her head.
    I picked it up and looked around for the culprit. Adrian was lounging on the couch, eating the TV remote. Rocky sat beside him, clawing at a cushion with her tiny paws.
    “Okay, which one of you ate Grandma’s statue?”
    Adrian wagged his water fountain tail and rolled over onto his back. I sat down between them and rubbed his tummy. Every bone in my body ached, so when the