There'd been no rain for months and the vista seemed chalky and pale, the color washed out.

Closer to us, the roadside dropped away into the treacherous canyon that had nearly marked Bobby's death nine months ago. A length of metal railing had been replaced, but where the bridge began, there was still a chunk of concrete missing.

"The other car started ramming us from behind just as we came over the rim of the hill," he said. I thought he meant to continue, so I waited.

He walked forward a few feet, gravel crunching under his shoes. He was clearly uneasy as he peered down the rocky slope. I looked back over my shoulder at the few cars passing. No one paid the slightest attention to us.

I studied the scene, picking out one of the scarred boulders I'd seen in the photograph, and farther down, the raw, jagged stump where a scrub oak had been snapped off at the base. I knew the Santa Teresa police had swept the area clean of debris from the accident, so there was no need to whip out a magnifying glass or creep around picking fibers from the underbrush.

Bobby turned to me. "Have you ever been close to death?"

"Yes."

"I remember thinking, This is it. I'm gone.' I disconnected, I felt like a plant ripped up by the roots. Airborne." He stopped. "And then I was cold and everything hurt and people were talking to me and I couldn't understand a word they said. That was in the hospital and two weeks had passed. I've wondered since then if that's how newborn babies feel. Bewildered like that and disoriented. Helpless. It was such a struggle to stay in touch with the world. Sending down new roots. I knew I could choose. I was barely attached, barely tethered, and I could feel how easy it'd be just to let go like a balloon and sail away."

"But you hung on."

"Hey, my mother willed it. Every time I opened my eyes, I saw her face. And when I closed my eyes, I heard her voice. She'd say, 'We're going to make it, Bobby. We're going to do this, you and I."

He was silent again. I thought, Jesus, what must it be like to have a mother who could love you that way? My parents had died when I was five, in a freak car accident. We'd been on a Sunday outing, driving up to Lompoc, when a huge boulder tumbled down the mountain and smashed through the windshield. My father had died instantly and we'd crashed. I'd been in the backseat, thrust down against the floorboards on impact, wedged in by the crushed frame. My mother had lingered, moaning and crying, sinking into a silence finally that I sensed was ominous and forever. It had taken them hours to extract me from the wreckage, trapped there with the dead whom I loved who had left me for all time. After that, I was raised by a no-nonsense aunt who had done her best, who had loved me deeply, but with a matter-of-factness that had failed to nourish some part of me.