Storms (63 page)

The rain and wind pounding against the windshield unwillingly brought back memories of another rainy day seven years before. My mind flashed back to Producer's Workshop and the image of Mick Fleetwood dropping sheets of glass in the parking lot for the background on “Gold Dust Woman.” The shards of breaking glass against wet pavement lent an eerie sound quality that was brilliant. The stark contrast between that happy day before
Rumours
hit the airwaves and this one was so shocking that I began to sob.

A chill went through me as the song played in my head. It was a song about digging your grave with a silver spoon; about heartless lovers shattering your illusions of love and tauntingly asking if you can pick up the pieces and go home. Was I the pale shadow of a woman facing the darkness? In my heart, I knew I was.

Twenty minutes later I was climbing a long stretch of hill into my sister's suburban neighborhood. It was pitch black, and as I eased to a stop at the stop sign I breathed a sigh of relief that I was less than a mile away from Tommie's house. The rain was coming down harder now, slashing against the car as though heaven itself had unleashed its fury. All I could think about was pulling into my sister's driveway and feeling her arms around me. I'd cried myself out on the long drive to her home and now I was numb.

In life there are moments when one can look back and clearly see when one decision—one seemingly meaningless act—changed your destiny. For no apparent reason, I glanced down at my lap and realized that my seatbelt was undone. Reaching down, I clasped it shut, feeling foolish about doing so when I was only minutes away from my destination. Turning right, I hit the gas on the two-lane blacktop, thinking of nothing but seeing my sister's face after a hellish day. Within seconds I realized that something was terribly wrong. I was no longer on the paved road. Instead, I was
somehow on the flooded grass embankment next to it. And I knew I was going to crash.

I saw a huge tree haloed straight ahead in the glare of my headlights and as I desperately hit the brakes nothing happened. Instead of slowing down, my car accelerated, hydroplaning on the rain-soaked grass. As the tree rushed toward me I felt not panic but a sense of inner peace, for there were no decisions to be made. My fate was sealed. Whether I survived or not was in God's hands. As my car hit the tree with a loud crash of twisting metal and breaking glass, time stood still. Thrown forward with a force unlike any I'd ever felt, my head hit the dashboard as I heard a scream and with a surreal feeling I knew the voice was mine.

And then silence. Stunned, I sat in the wreckage of my small car, listening to the storm raging outside. I didn't know if I was hurt. I couldn't feel anything. I stared at the shattered windshield, knowing that if not for my seatbelt I would have been flung through it. Terror washed over me. I pushed hard on the driver's door and clumsily climbed out of the car, shivering in the cold and wet as I looked up and down the road for headlights. There was only darkness. No sign of life anywhere. I managed to walk a few steps and then doubled over as nausea coursed through me.

Nobody's coming
, a small voice said in my mind as fear threatened to send me into hysterics. Suddenly it was replaced by a stronger voice of reassuring reason.
You're going to be fine. Just get back in the car. You need to get your purse and try to walk to Tommie's. You can make it to Tommie's, but you need to do it now. You need to get out of the storm.

Without hesitating I climbed back into the wreckage and closed the door against the rain. The contents of my purse were spilled everywhere and in a daze I looked for my wallet and phone book. Encumbered by my neck brace, I slowly and painfully searched the floor of the car. Finding them under the seat, I clutched them to me as though they could pull me back to reality and wake me from a bad dream. Pushing on the door to once again climb outside, I struggled with the handle. It wouldn't open. I sat back and looked at the passenger door, only a few feet away. I started to crawl over to it clumsily but stopped as sharp pain pierced my palm. A shard of shattered glass was sticking out from it and I cried out as I wrenched it free. Wary of the climb now, I renewed my efforts on the driver's door and finally managed to wrench it open, leaving smears of blood on the handle.

Grateful to be outside, I pulled my overcoat around me and started walking. Twenty minutes later I pounded on Tommie's door and fell into her arms, incoherently trying to explain about the car crash through my tears. After putting me to bed and bandaging my hand, she drove to the accident site with my brother-in-law. I could hear them talking worriedly in the living room as I drifted off to sleep, exhausted.

The next day I learned that my rental car was totaled. It wasn't a surprise. What was, however, is that if I hadn't hit the tree head-on, then my car would have continued for another three feet. And those three feet would have taken me over the edge of a fifty-foot cement drop-off into an empty reservoir below. I would have died. And even more chilling, if I had gone out the passenger side door, I could have stepped over the edge in the darkness and fallen to my death.

It was too much for me to take in. But as the days passed I tried to come to terms with the miracle of my survival: my inexplicable fastening of my seat belt and the old tree that had not taken but saved my life. I'd escaped death at least twice in one night and what was I going to do about it? What was I going to do with the miracle of my second chance?

Lindsey's persistent phone calls over the past week for me to come home had become so urgent that I knew I had to go back. He seemed badly shaken over the accident and wanted me home. So I left despite my family's objections. I'd told my sisters about my life now in Fleetwood Mac's world: about the drugs, the lifestyle, Lindsey's frightening anger, the aching loneliness, and my desire for a career of my own. I couldn't bring myself to tell them about what the kindly doctor had said to me. I couldn't bear to think about it, much less repeat those words out loud. But even without telling them this dire warning, they wanted me to stay in Tulsa, safe and sound, until I made life decisions that were, in their view, cut and dried. They thought that I needed to leave Lindsey, or at least ask for a separation. And I knew they were right—but I loved him. So for me, it wasn't so cut and dried.

If I separated from Lindsey and it became permanent, I would also be saying goodbye to my Fleetwood Mac family—at least for a good long while. I readily admitted that as a family we were incredibly dysfunctional, but I had grown to love each and every member of the band and the inner circle that surrounded them. And unlike Stevie, whose breakup with Lindsey had resulted in constant contact for almost eight years now, I wasn't in his band.

I realized, of course, that this was the kind of pain that every person must go through in the event of a “divorce”, but it filled me with a sense of loss and incredible sadness. My time spent with these brilliant, creative people had been some of the happiest of my life—and also some of the worst.

Upon my return Lindsey welcomed me with open arms. No mention was made of the reason why I'd left for Tulsa. It was like it had always been after he flew into a rage at me—only this time I no longer believed that it would never happen again. I knew that the doctor at Century City Hospital was right. I knew that it would happen again—maybe next month or six months later, but it would happen—and knowing that, believing that, was worse than anything I had gone through so far. Because how insane is it when you have to leave the man you love because you can no longer deal with the fear?

Worried about my soft-tissue back injuries from the car accident, Lindsey hovered over me, bringing back memories of Paris, when I'd been so ill with pneumonia. And it felt so good to once again be the center of his loving attention that it was easy to forget how upset I'd been when my car went off the road—and I was too exhausted, weak, and injured to deal with the reason I'd been there in the first place.

Lindsey in Bel-Air.

Over the next two weeks, I grew weaker as the pain increased in my back. Finally, my doctor insisted that I spend at least a week in the hospital where I could have complete bed rest, intravenous painkillers, and intense physical therapy. Five days before Christmas, I was admitted into Cedars-Sinai Hospital in West Hollywood. Lindsey didn't want me to check in. He wanted me to go with him to Palo Alto to spend the holidays with his family. My doctor was shocked that I would even consider a trip, so despite Lindsey's insistence I did what I knew I had to do. I went to the hospital.

Hours after I checked in, Lindsey left for Northern California. I felt a bit sorry for myself, but I completely understood his wish to not disappoint his mother and brothers.
No one wants to spend Christmas in a hospital room
, I told myself, as I stared out the window wishing I were anywhere but there.

The days passed tediously, but I got much needed rest and on Christmas Eve, I called Sara. She, too, was spending the holidays alone. Mick had left for England to spend Christmas with his daughters and Jenny, and she was feeling as forlorn and lonely as I. We talked for hours and at precisely midnight, Sara opened her Christmas present from Mick. With the crinkle and rip of wrapping paper, we made countless guesses over what could possibly be inside the large box that he'd left for her.

“It's from Maxfield Bleu!” Sara laughed breathlessly. “I know that's your favorite store now, Carol, and I love their clothes too! I hope it's something by Armani!”

“Open it, Sara! I'm dying to find out what it is. I'm already jealous!” I said as I laughed with her.

“It's a … it's a blue something … a blue … what the hell?”

I heard a clunk of the phone and the sounds of a box being dropped onto the floor. I could here a faint “Oh my God, are you kidding me?” as I shouted, “Pick up the phone! What is it?”

Sara's stunned voice answered, “Well, it's a dress, Carol. It's a friggin'
huge, huge, ugly dress!”

“What do you mean,
huge?”
I asked, thinking that perhaps the dress was long, or had lots of fabric to it.

“I mean it's a
giant
dress! It's got to be at least a size twelve and I wear a four! You could get three of me into it, and it's the ugliest dress I've ever seen. I'm not kidding. I didn't even know that Maxfield's carried anything this ugly!” And we both began to laugh and we couldn't stop. We laughed until we choked and I had to drop the phone myself for a drink of water.

“What was he thinking? Did he mean for this icky dress to go to his sister Sally or something? I mean,
jeez
, you'd think he'd at least know my size by now, Carol. Dammit!” Sara screeched.

“Well at least you got a present, Sara!” I said and we both began to giggle all over again. Sara was well aware of the fact that I never, ever got a Christmas present from Lindsey. Lindsey hated to shop for gifts. It just wasn't something he enjoyed and as a result, I'd gotten used to never having
a Christmas present from him. He was incredibly generous to me all year long and was always happy to send me off shopping. But if I wanted a Christmas present, I had to go buy it for myself. Sometimes I
would
buy a dress or a pair of shoes. But most years, I just forgot about it.

Lindsey and I always bought gifts for everyone else and I would get one for him, for I loved to buy him presents. I didn't have a problem spending hours inside stores because like a lot of women, I loved to shop. I would spend weeks and sometimes even months planning his birthday and Christmas gifts—and to me, that was more fun than getting anything from him. The year before, I'd shopped for hours in art galleries, and I'd found the perfect gift: a piece of art that was composed of three different photographs of Elvis encased in one beautiful, stark frame. It had a piece of chicken wire under glass across all three eight by ten rare photos and the effect was incredible. He'd loved it. This year, I'd not been able to do anything and it made me sad.

“Well, at least you'll never have to open a big box and find the world's ugliest blue dress inside of it, Carol … Mick must have been so high when he bought it that he was hallucinating or something. Or did he get me mixed up with someone else? Maybe this is for the Blob! I bet it is!” Sara squealed, and we were hysterical as we remembered Mick's embarrassing phone love affair with the very large, strange woman. By 2
A.M.
, we were still giggling and gossiping and the night nurse had to make me hang up the phone. I needed my rest, she said primly. With a heartfelt “Merry Christmas”, Sara and I finally said goodbye. It had turned into a great Christmas Eve for both of us after all.

On December 28, I was finally discharged and I gratefully went home. Lindsey arrived late in the afternoon and found me propped up on the living room couch. He'd had a nice Christmas, he told me, talking happily about his young nieces Amy and Laura as he showed me the children's books that they each had given him as presents. He handed me the books and I flipped on the TV as Lindsey flopped down beside me on the couch. The news was on and a cold wind seemed to blow through the room as we struggled to comprehend what was playing out before our eyes on television. There were pictures of a small yacht anchored in Marina Del Rey and a bodybag lying on the wooden boards of a pier. We listened in horror to the newscaster's voice.