IS SHE GOING to tell her lover about the accident too?

For of course it was an accident. It was sheerly an accident.

No one was responsible, she hadn’t touched the jack or she’d touched it so gently it couldn’t possibly have slipped, but suddenly everything buckled and gave way—the car crashed down, Lee screamed in shock and pain, Marya stood there frozen, mute, staring. She was too frightened to think except for the crazed thought that car tires are made of rubber so Lee couldn’t be killed could he?—his leg couldn’t be severed from his body could it?

She saw that he had lost consciousness. Still, the upper part of his body writhed, convulsed. She backed away in terror. Was he dead? Who was to blame? How could there be blood if the tire was made of rubber, wasn’t rubber soft, wouldn’t rubber bend?—blood on the filthy cement floor, blood mixing with oil lifting tiny flecks of dust and dirt, snaking its way in her direction.

How do you like it now pig pig pig pig pig.

Marya backed away slowly. She didn’t want Lee to open his eyes and see her. Her jaws were clenched hard against crying, then she turned and ran for the house, ran for help. Pig pig pig pig pig. But nobody had touched the jack, nobody was to blame except Lee himself, Lee must have kicked it himself with his foot not knowing what he did.

She called for Wilma. Began shouting now, screaming. Now it was all right to scream. And once Wilma heard her cries then everything was out of Marya’s hands—it had nothing to do with her.

THE AMBULANCE ARRIVED in ten minutes from Innisfail: a feat nobody along the Canal Road would have believed.

LEE DIDN’T DIE. Of course Lee didn’t die. Afterward everybody joked—you couldn’t kill a Knauer that easily.

Even Wilma, who’d been hysterical at the time waiting for the ambulance to arrive, even Wilma joked about it. Goddamned fool so clumsy he almost killed himself and what if he’d been crippled for life, then what?—his mother’d have to wait on him, right, help him dress and undress, right?—take care of him the rest of her life?