She glanced at him quickly. ‘If you want to, but. My eyes are better than yours.’

Under all this snow the world was like the waiting womb. They passed a few cars but were otherwise alone, and then for several kilometres there were no other tracks on the road. Then, a faint double line of a vehicle having turned on from a side road, the track already mostly filled.

The radio was on and the voices began to deteriorate, to skip with static, so Nora reached over to turn it off and now the only sounds were the blow of the heater and the flap of air through the window. It had been a week since Nora told Red about Jody, and other than those few words the first night, nothing had been said.

Maybe life could be like this, like a finger broken and never treated, healed but crooked. Or a leg. You could walk with a limp for ever. You could get used to anything.

Red: ‘I think we should put the chains on.’ With Red now, everything was a statement, terminal.

‘It’s not that bad.’

‘So we wait until it gets bad, then put them on.’

‘No. I’m just saying. When we stop to eat, we’ll put them on. Don’t you think?’

‘Whatever you think.’ He shifted away and rested his head against the window and closed his eyes.

Not yet noon, but Nora had to turn on the headlights. She kept a steady foot on the accelerator and kilometres passed in silence. The land here was hilly. The road swerved around bends, up and over hills that broke one after the next. Nora took it slowly. Should have stopped to put on the chains when Red suggested it but now, with the visibility so poor, there was nowhere safe to pull over.

The road descended steeply and they came to a single-lane bridge that spanned a river, a cut of black water bleeding a track in the snow. Nora slowed to a crawl, beeped the horn to warn any oncoming vehicles of their approach, as she knew that the road on the other side took a sharp, hidden turn to the left. They crossed the bridge and took the left, which quickly inclined. Nora slipped the truck into first gear and hit the accelerator hard, and the truck fishtailed slightly, the engine whining. She lost the gear and stalled. Looked sideways at Red. He was sitting forward, shaking his head. Nora pulled the emergency brake and restarted the engine, then bit hard with first gear and eased off the brake. The truck jolted up and over the lip of the hill and swung towards the side ditch. Nora spun the wheel with the turn to avoid the skid and the truck straightened out. A tree in the middle of the road and she hit it square. And time stopped on the inhale. A crunch. Nora’s head whipped forward. Her seat belt dug into her neck, and then there was the seize of inertia, then no thought or movement, only the exhale. Truck silent. Nora reached into the back seat to touch Anouk but couldn’t feel her. She unclipped her seat belt and leaned over the seat and saw that Anouk had rolled on to the floor of the truck, still in her sleeping bag, eyes wide open.