If/Then

Charlotte’s career is built on theoreticals. As an operating room nurse, she has a protocol for every tragedy — a “then” for every “if.”

That all changes one night when, on her way home, Charlotte encounters a teenage girl on the wrong side of a guardrail on an overpass above a highway.

Charlotte wasn’t this girl’s mother, or sister, or best friend. She didn’t even know her. But Charlotte was the last person who spoke to the girl before she died. She was THERE. And now, she doesn't know how to get back to the way her life used to be.

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Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

Charlotte: OK picture this... you're driving down the road... and... it's just this great night you're with your sister. You know you're just going to hang out and have fun and... and then...  then you see someone and... something really scary... and you realize that it's it's a person, OK... you have been put in this place and you need to help this girl. This is your reality right now. What are you going to do? [snaps fingers] Make a decision.  

I’m Nora McInerny. And this is Terrible, Thanks for Asking.

If you’ve ever laid in bed, wondering about a situation from your past, this is the episode for you.  Laying in bed rehashing the past is actually one of my favorite pastimes, and i’ve been doing this since i was a child. 

When I was a worried child, consumed by “what if’s” … my father would say, “well, Nora...what if the moon were blue?” I think that he was trying to quiet my anxiety… but it had the opposite effect.  It was a very cerebral and also dismissive way of saying, “it is what it is, and worrying over it isn’t going to change reality.”

Now… “It is what it is” happens to also be one of my least favorite sayings, even if it’s true… it’s only technically true. It’s just true because it’s so vague you can’t dispute it. Yes, it is what it is, I suppose.... but you’re still allowed to think about what is, or what could it have been or what could have happened.

Show me a person who hasn’t worried over the many possibilities and hypothetical results of their life decisions and I will show you a baby...who is lying.

Charlotte’s career was built around hypotheticals. As an Operating Room nurse, she chose to spend her days working with people in trauma. For every IF, she had a THEN. It was a semi-controlled chaos that gave her energy and adrenaline. She was saving lives. She was at her best when helping people through their worst. No matter what happened, she knew exactly what to do. She was trained to anticipate what was next, and act accordingly. Swiftly. Decisively.

Charlotte: I love the technical stuff in the OR and and like the rushing around and getting things and... really just the structured chaos. You have your checklist of things even if... you know it can be complete... craziness chaos that you're going through but... You are just doing that checklist of... you know what you need to do as fast as you can to get it done. 

That sense of structured chaos was an illusion, of course. The world is out of our control, which is easy to forget because we’ve done a good job of hiding the chaos with functional roads and indoor plumbing and Netflix. We give ourselves routines. Routines so predictable that... I don’t know about you, but I can easily drive home from these studios in Saint Paul to Minneapolis, where I live...  and have no recollection of my entire drive. As if my brain and body just went on autopilot for a 40 minute commute. 

But, regardless of all we’ve done to tame this unruly universe of ours... every so often... a big, huge, IF happens. An IF that we’re not prepared for. An IF that is not on any checklist.

You make one different decision -- you stay at home, you go out, you leave five minutes early or late, you drive new route -- and everything changes. Everything is different. 

Suddenly, you’re on your own. No checklist. No protocol. No best practices. 

That’s what happened one night to Charlotte.

It was a Wednesday. And it was beautiful. Unseasonably warm for November in Kansas. It was her little sister’s birthday.

Charlotte: We had planned to... just chill out get a pizza... and hang out. We're pretty much homebodies so... we ordered the pizza. and we decided we'd go pick it up just to... you know get out the house. And... so I went I drove there we got the pizza It was fine. And on the way back... I drove a different way back then when I normally would. So on the way back I took the little shortcut through the town… and we were just chatting and whatnot and came over… it's just a small overpass. So when we were driving over that and...

Maybe she wouldn’t have noticed if she’d taken her normal route, but... she saw it. 

Charlotte: Just out of the corner of my eye... I just saw like a glare of light. It was a very very dark night. like it look like a white light is what it looked like. And..I remember just immediately... knowing... that that was a face.

A girl, a teenage girl. On the overpass.

Charlotte: And there is a fence. And it's not a tall fence or anything but she was on... the other side of that fence.

So… imagine this… you see a girl, a teenager... on the wrong side of a guardrail on an overpass above a highway.

What do you do? You’re driving. You will be off the bridge in a matter of moments. You could just keep on going. You could just... head home. Maybe you didn’t see what you thought you did. Maybe it was just a light from the highway. Maybe it was just a trick of your eye. Maybe you’d just rather not think about it.

So… what do you do?

For Charlotte, there isn’t a choice.

Charlotte: And I just knew... that it was a person. .. so I just flipped the car around it took like... 30 seconds to turn around and go back. I mean it was really quick. 

The overpass is one lane each way. There is a small sidewalk, and then that low guardrail along the edge...

Charlotte: It was obvious that she was on the other side of that guard rail for one reason. she was facing me and she was holding on... with her hands and she would kind of lean back and then pull forward. And she did that a couple times. So... I opened my car door. and...  I got out of my car... I just left the car door open and... I stood there like in the middle lane and...the first thing I said was.. "you are NOT going to do this." And... you know looking back I really thought that this was something I could handle.

Charlotte is an OR nurse. She’s used to emergencies. But she sees her patients after a trauma. Not when there’s still a chance to prevent it.

Charlotte: She was looking at me and said "Go away." She just flat out said "go away". that's when I turned to my sister... and I said call 911 right now. She takes off down the street to look at the street sign. And... so I'm standing in the other lane. My car's on it still running. doors open. 

If this were the OR, Charlotte would know what to do next. She’d have a protocol to follow. But right now... she’s just making it up. 

Charlotte and this girl are only about 10 feet away from each other.

Charlotte: And… I just said “think about the people that love you.” And... she she said "Nobody loves me" and I just kind of lost it. And I said “no…” you know “I love you. I don't even know you.” You know “what-- what do you need? What do you want?” you know. “Do you want my car?” You know I was just thinking “get in my car I'll take you wherever you want to go.” But she was just a little girl. you know... she... 16 17 at the time so… I thought if I got closer then... you know maybe she would... just do it You know just let go. My next thought was "I'm going to have to grab her." There's just no other way.

But what if the girl is startled, and she lets go before Charlotte can get to her? Where are the police? Where is anyone else?

Charlotte: At that point I mean I don't know how much time passed long enough for me... to realize that... there is just... like 20 cars behind my car. And there's a car like right... like a foot away from me with the lights blasting. Nobody gets out of their car. Nobody says anything.

Charlotte’s a little closer now… and she’s got a plan. The plan is to grab this girl, to pull her over the fence, back to safety, to call this girl’s parents, get this girl some help, and then... go home to her own family, eat cold pizza and celebrate her sister’s birthday. And as soon as Charlotte thought she had a plan -- as soon as she thought that things were in control... 

Charlotte: She said... to me "here comes the Semi". And... you know... I I took that as a positive sign. because she was-- had such a flat affect. like nothing... like she barely noticed anything... really around her except for... me talking. She never looked around or anything. Just straight ahead. and when she said that I turned and looked and I saw the semi... and I was like "yes. there is this semi" you know. Good. We're getting maybe somewhere... but when I looked back she wasn't there. 

Charlotte: At first I... was like oh good she's off. She's off the bridge. She went back to where the bridge meets the land and there's grass. And I looked there and she wasn't there. And then... I looked... over the bridge and at first I didn't see her. And I was like oh go-- you know... hopeful. And this is on a matter of seconds so... and then... I look back over the bridge... and I see her.

And then a car like in front of... her body had stopped. The semi... was down the road. and it was pulled off on the side of the road and there was another car down there that had pulled off...

The person that... was just... like a foot away from me but their headlights shining on me... they rolled down the window and said "Did you know her?" And I just... I didn't even respond. I think I just said "No" and then ran down there. The car directly behind me... she got out and yelled down over... the... guardrail. And she yelled "check her pulse" and… that makes me very angry. that... that person sat there... and didn't do anything when that could have. you know they couldn't have helped me, helped her. They wouldn't. they didn't... try to help me or help her. And then after the fact you're going to yell...

 Nora: Now you got advice.

 Charlotte: ...to check her pulse and I'm like there's no. Well... I ran down there and a car had stopped. and a man... like just out of nowhere jumped in front of me and like put his arm out. he said “it's done it's done it's done.” And I was like... crying couldn't catch my breath. He wouldn't let me go to her. That man... he said he was off duty police officer and they actually checked her pulse and… she was just laying on her side and she looked like she was asleep. I remember turning around and looking up and seeing my sister... on her way down. And... I was just like No. no no no no no. no. you can't you can't see this you know. I just stopped her and I just screamed at her do not look. DO NOT look.

The man told Charlotte it’s over, it’s done. And once the police DID come, and took Charlotte’s statement, it WAS done. But it was not over.  Charlotte and her sister had told her husband and her kids they were stepping out to get a pizza, they’d be right back. This was not the plan.

Charlotte: So... we get back in the car and... I have to go back the way that I drove there in the first place and I remember being like... "why didn't I drive back home this way? That is so weird. Why didn't I do that you know?" And... we both were just... at this point where... we didn't even know what to say to each other. We get back to my house... and my husband knows at this point because she called him and... we just sit there. We have this pizza. We open the box. She like picks up a piece and... I do too. And then she takes a bite. And Nobody's talking. And then she puts it down and she says "I'm going to go home now." And I say "OK." And then she leaves... and... I go into the bathroom and I'm in there and I'm in there and I'm in there forever and... just sobbing and... I just remember saying "no no no no no... NO." And even now I'm like "no. Why did that happen? No, that shouldn't have happened. You know this... no." 

So… we are back. And… Charlotte just witnessed a young girl’s suicide. She’s crying in the bathroom and...we get it. Right? Like, of course this is what happens. Of COURSE you cry. But, at some point... that level of understanding stops. At some point... we expect each other to go back to normal. Even though everything is different. And for Charlotte, everything IS different. 

Charlotte: I just couldn’t take it as... "just a coincidence" I felt like... there had to be something more to it than that. Good God it changed me. It changed my life. I couldn't sleep any more. I wake up in the bathroom at the toilet thinking I'm going to vomit. I can't breathe. I can’t swallow a pill to help me sleep because I'm so scared I'm going to choke to death on it. You now... screaming in my sleep. Waking up my husband every single night screaming. 

Everything is different, but also… nothing is different. Because this is a different kind of trauma. Charlotte wasn’t this girl’s mother, or sister, or best friend. She didn’t even know her. But she was THERE, Charlotte was the last person who spoke to the girl when she was alive. Charlotte is the emotional collateral damage. And that’s not really something that the world stops to acknowledge or make space and time for. I mean, the world barely makes time for any grief… like most American companies give you like, five days if you lose a kid. If you SEE a kid die? There’s not an HR policy for that. There isn’t a card for this! There’s not a social norm for it! And Charlotte’s friends and family do not know what to do with it.

Charlotte: The first few months was just trying to get through life like trying to do things like... dress the kids and get them ready for school. And... clean the house. I was just so lost in my head that it was hard to concentrate because it was just... had so many questions and I just didn't understand why this happened and... there's just so many layers to it. 

Charlotte is peeling the layers... even months later. Even a year later. There are too many unanswerable, agonizing unknowns. There’s the huge one -- why?? Why would this girl have done this? And then, a million ifs.

Charlotte: What if I didn't stop? Would she have done it? Was she waiting for someone to talk to her? I mean I don't know. Was she waiting for someone to beg her not to? Was she just waiting for the right moment? Did I... did I do it? Did I... did what I say to her just make her even more upset? Because no matter how many times someone tells me that her mind was already made up and you couldn't have changed it... that will never be my reality of what happened that night. Because... that night could have ended differently. I'm not saying it's my fault. but... there are like a million possibilities that just the fact that... somebody... and it just happened to be me... saw her and turned around. I mean what are the chances of that?

Now, we have all done this. You will do it tonight. You will stay up tonight and replay... something. The way I did as a child. The way that annoyed my dad. It annoyed my dad because it wasn’t a matter of life or death. But for Charlotte, it is!

That’s what people don’t understand. People who know her and love her, who are spending their own nights replaying whatever they’re replaying...they just don’t get it, why Charlotte is still thinking about this night.

They weren’t there that night. They didn’t almost save that girl. So they don’t have these same questions, and they don’t get why Charlotte DOES. 

They want to know why she is so obsessed with it...why she can’t just stop thinking about it already...it happened. It’s done. 

Charlotte: Because it's all I wanted to talk about. And I wanted to know... I wanted to know what they would have done you know? And so I would just straight up say "OK picture this... you're driving down the road you're going this--" you know and I would just start to lay out the scenario because I wanted to know what they have done? They would just say "no stop just stop. I know what happened to you Charlotte. I know it is hard but you just gotta let this go." You know I kept saying "hey I didn't ask for this. Hey wait. No I'm not obsessed with this because I choose to be obsessed with this. don't you think that I want to put this all behind me you know? Of course I do. But you know I never will be-- that is not going to happen. It's just something that happened in my life... changed everything and my life changed me changed... my relationships changed the way I looked at everything and... I just have to accept that my life as it is now with that having have happened.

The only people Charlotte can think of who might be able to  understand … are the girl’s parents. So Charlotte reaches out to them. Maybe it will help them to know someone was there -- that Charlotte was there -- maybe meeting them will help Charlotte.

Charlotte: I wanted to tell them how it happened and… `I can't imagine the pain. And mine it's not the same. It's totally different. It's... you know they lost a daughter… I can't imagine that. So... you know yeah I wanted them to know that someone was there and that.. hey I tried to stop her. I talked to her. They asked me... “what was she wearing?” And you know things like that that moms would want to know, dads would want to know about their daughter...

Charlotte stays in touch with the family for a while but... it doesn’t last. They have all been traumatized in totally different ways. They may have similar questions -- at one point, meeting the girls’ dad he asks Charlotte WHY Charlotte couldn’t save his daughter -- then acknowledges that she couldn’t have. So… similar questions but… no answers.

Even Charlotte’s job is different. Charlotte had gone back back a few weeks after the girl’s death, and it’s not the same. the job that had given Charlotte a sense of control over the chaos? Being an OR nurse? Now, it just feels like...chaos.

Charlotte: I was just really... kept to myself really quiet. I was very distracted in my head. But I didn't make any mistakes. Nobody said anything to me. I just...

Nora: Did you still love the work?

Charlotte: No. No I didn't. [choking up] I I kind of went from being like... you know... just loving... that kind of environment to... needing something that was much much more calm and less things to think about or worry about. [choking up] [pause] these were all traumatic experiences and I just I had one really big bad one and I don't need to know that there more, I don't need to be a part of that anymore I just... I mean I know that I can if I needed to. But I choose not to. 

This girl’s life just barely intersected with Charlotte’s, but her death changed EVERYTHING. Charlotte’s job doesn’t fit. Her friends and family don’t fit. Her town doesn’t fit. She feels emotionally isolated, having gone through this thing nobody can relate to...so what now? Where does Charlotte go from here?

Charlotte: I came home from work and I said "I've got this great idea." He was like "OK what?" And I was like... "listen I'm just going to pull all my money out and we're just going to move." And he was like...  "you know this isn't going to fix anything" and I'd be like "well that's not why I want to do it" you know... he hesitated because he he knew why I wanted to move. He knew that I was just trying to get away from all this... and that it wasn't going to go away. But I didn't... you know I denied that that's why I wanted to move at that time. "I-- no... that has nothing to do with why I want to-- What are you talking about?" He was like "you know what. OK… let's do it. Where are we going to go?"

Where they went is a town of about 1500 people. They moved. They packed up their kids… left her sister and their families… let their their big town in Kansas to a little resort town in Arkansas. It’s small and rural. It’s beautiful -- I definitely looked at vacation homes there… after out interview. But… it’s different. She gets a new job as a nurse, but she doesn’t go to a hospital anymore. Instead, she goes to see to each of her patients. 

Charlotte: It's like intimate work. Because before I didn't even talk to my patients. I just took care of them while they were asleep you know. And so now I work in their home. They left me in their home. And allow me to... you know provide nursing care. I mean that-- you can't get any more intimate than that you end up being a part of their weekly life… you end up knowing... all kinds of stuff and they tell you all kinds of things and... like you really take the time to get to know this person and everything they do and say all of that matters and it's... just you know like an honor to be let into their home and it's very different it's definitely not the person I was before this happened. No more no more tragic emergency accidents.

This sounds like everything turned out well, she’s accepted everything! She has closure. But...this is not a life that Charlotte would have chosen. This is a job she’d have never done in a town she’d never have moved to. Even her FAMILY is different. If that night hadn’t happened, if she’d only driven another way, EVERYTHING would be different. 

Charlotte: I think I think I would have had another baby for sure. We would have stayed... definitely, we would never moved.. We'd still be... probably in the same home and... the memories of that home and the town. And yeah I think it would have been... totally different... maybe better. But on the other side… maybe not.

Maybe not! Because… there are a million other things that could have happened, that could have altered the course that Charlotte was on. We don’t get to pick what wrecks us, what changes us. We don’t get to pick what it is, or when it happens. It just is… what it is. DAMN IT. 

But if we could...if she could… would she call for takeout...or delivery? Would she drive another way? Would she still stop her car?

Charlotte: I'd do it again. Because... somebody has to try you know. I would hate for... no one to have been there. and then that happened anyway. That's horrible. But no, if I knew I was going to end bad, I'd do it differently. but I wouldn't... take a different route. I would go the same way.

Nora: What would you have done differently?

Charlotte: You know I've asked myself this a million times. and.... I don't know what I would have done differently I don't know if anyone...  one thing I do now that I would have done differently for sure... is I would have told her... “it gets better.” Because… when you're young like that a teenager and... you know you're having a crappy life because we do when we’re teenagers... and to just have someone say "Listen...it's going to get better. You have a whole life ahead of you. Everything's going to be different. And.. it will get better." That's what I would have done different. And I don't know if it would have worked. but I definitely would do that next time. If there was a next time.

She would still choose it. That pizza. That route. This life -- unrecognizable in so many ways from the one she had, from the one she assumed she would always have. She would still choose five years and counting of unanswerable ifs, of hypothetical hypotheticals, of a life that was reshaped by one face, spotted out of the corner of her eye. She would still do it. 

Charlotte: This is your reality right now. What are you going to do? [snaps fingers] Make a decision.

[CREDITS]