I didn't learn until after college that my parents worried I might have been brain damaged from a car accident we were in when I was nine. My brother and I were discussing what we remembered from that night a Chevette had spun out on the snowy road and crashed head-on into our Ford Econoline van. You'd think the van would have won, but both vehicles were totaled. This was back in the day when it wasn't mandatory to wear your seat belt, and my brother and I were loose when it happened.
I remember seeing the oncoming headlights, but nothing of the crash. I was behind the driver's seat, and I hit my head on the metal window divider. My brother was flung to the center console and hit his knee and nose, but didn't break anything. I opened my eyes to my brother crying and my mom comforting him; my dad was already out of the car and seeing to the other driver. I turned to ask what had happened, and when my brother saw me, he screamed. He thought my face had been smashed in, but it was the front and side of my head that had instead swollen out. My mom launched herself out of the sliding door to grab snow for my now giant noggin.
Little did I know that my parents would suspect my less than stellar grades in 11th grade chemistry might be attributed to that accident seven years before. Even worse, though, when my brother and I were reminiscing, I wondered aloud if Mom and Dad had worried I had suffered brain damage. My parents, who were listening to the conversation, didn't laugh like I had expected. They exchanged looks. Looks. Significant looks.
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