I am trying to restrain myself, but it's difficult to stifle my attitude about drunk driving. That man was convicted on all counts, including reckless driving and nonappearance (bail jumping); he paid court costs, and got a suspended sentence. Chances are that by the time this sees print, that driver will have forgotten this episode; with luck he may already have notched another pedestrian on his bumper. Who can measure the grief brought to innocents because this soused burro-sphincter couldn't wait his turn?

Jenny's folks scrambled to get to the hospital, where they learned that Jenny was in critical condition and comatose. The doctors worked on her for several hours to get her stabilized. Then she was flown by helicopter to the emergency ward of another hospital, where they worked on her for another several hours and transferred her to a children's hospital. At this point Jenny's folks were told that she would probably die; she had only a 15 per cent chance of survival. Her father had a heart attack, which he survived; her mother hung grimly on, helped by the support of good friends and family, but months later she was suffering things like bleeding ulcers and staying out of the hospital herself more by defiance than sense.

Jenny made it through the critical period of seventy-two hours. After those three days they increased her chances to 50 per cent, but not much was said about the state of her brain. The specter that can haunt such cases is brain damage, which the surgeons can't repair. Physically she was in a sorry state. Her lovely waist-length hair had been cut short and half her head shaved. Perhaps it was just as well that she remained unconscious, for her awakening would have been a horror at this stage.

About three weeks later she was transferred to another hospital, still in a coma. She remained there six more weeks, barely responsive to outside stimuli. Occasionally she would wiggle her big right toe, lift her head a little, and track with her eyes on request. Her mother showed her pictures of her cats—Jenny rescued every homeless cat she encountered, and there were eleven cats at her home—and read notes from her friends to her. Jenny's eyes widened and she sighed heavily. This suggested that her nervous system was there and that her mind remained. But that was all. They had tried to tell her what had happened, and perhaps then she had spoken her only word, if that was the meaning of the sound she made: "No!" She did not cooperate with therapists. It was as if she was deep in a pit, and only the most evocative things could reach her at all, and then only briefly. She did not seem to want to live. What was the point, with her body paralyzed? Weeks passed without change.