Trouble in Mind

Here's one fuh yah: "You Gore Girl!" Joe Miller's 2002 story for on running with bulls in Spain:

Women should always go with their instincts. That's Ruth Saint's motto from now on. When her daughter Lindsey announced this past spring that she'd be spending her summer studying and traveling in Spain, Ruth's gut turned a somersault. "I have a feeling something's going to happen to you, and I won't be able to get to you," she told her daughter, who was just finishing her first year at the University of Kansas. "Mom, nothing's going to happen," Lindsey replied. "Give me a break."

There was more evidence to support Lindsey's point of view than Ruth's. The nineteen-year-old might as well have responsible tattooed on her forehead. Every year during high school, her name topped the honor roll at Blue Valley High School. She gained membership to the National Honor Society and the National Spanish Honor Society. She was a National Merit Scholar and co-valedictorian. She had nabbed a package of scholarships to attend KU. Plus, she'd worked a part-time job since she was fourteen, even socking away some of the money. During the school year in Lawrence, she serves meals to homeless people.

Though Lindsey is anything but a reckless, disaffected youth, Ruth couldn't shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen. Her mind zoomed back to almost a decade earlier, when Lindsey was in fourth grade and the family lived in Stillwell, Kansas, a few miles beyond Johnson County's southernmost cul-de-sacs. It was Labor Day weekend. Ruth was shopping at a wallpaper store in nearby Stanley when a clerk tracked her down and said she had a phone call. A neighbor on the other end of the line said, "Lindsey's been in an accident. We've already contacted the emergency team."