Sitting down, I ran a bitten-down finernail on the coffee mug’s handle. I didn’t think it would ever get much worse than this. Well, maybe that was an exaggeration. This wasn’t as bad as a year ago, when I was hanging off a cliff in the middle of nowhere. No, not as bad. But, frankly: it was bad enough.

I waited in that smelly lobby, wincing each time another stretcher was brought in, carrying another hurt victim. I don’t think my heart calmed down from the moment I stepped in this hospital to the moment the doctor stepped out of the emegency room.

“Sherry,” the doctor said, sighing as I walked up to him, demanding he tell me what was going on behind those doors. “The outlook on his life isn’t very well…the train accident was brutal.”

My life was about to go downhill from here.