When I woke rain was falling and men were leaning over me and somewhere, in a world I could barely see, Clay was being lifted from the seat and put upon a stretcher.

“He’s dead,” I heard someone saying.

“No, he’s not,” a second voice answered. “He’s breathing. Goddammit, Joe. He’s breathing.”

Men were all around me. Someone gave me a shot. Then I was being moved and stars were falling all around me. A sea of stars was falling on my arms and legs and belly and shoulders and face. It was a baseball field full of stars. It was a baseball field or a pillow. It was dark in the room and my mother was sitting by the bed and a nurse was leaning over me.

“Is he dead?” I asked. “Is Clay dead?”

“Yes,” my mother answered. “Go back to sleep, Rhoda. It wasn’t your fault. Please go back to sleep.”

“I don’t know what happened. I don’t know how it happened. I don’t know what happened to the car.”

“You spun the car around and a car hit its side. It wasn’t your fault. Try to go back to sleep. You’ve had a concussion, Rhoda. You have to stay still.”

“What happened to him?” I was beginning to cry. Tears were rolling down my cheeks and onto the pillow. I couldn’t move my head to get the tears away. My head hurt so much I could barely move it. My mother had my hand in her small tight hand. She was squeezing my hand. It was too dark in the room. “Turn on the lights,” I was screaming. “I don’t know what happened. I can’t see anything in here.” Then the nurse left and when she returned other people were with her. Someone took my arm and gave me a shot and my mother kept holding on to my hand.

The funeral was in Saint James’s Church at ten o’clock in the morning a few days later. I was dressed and wearing bandages on my head and my mother and father and brothers were all around me. My mother and Fannin and my sister-in-law had dressed me and done my hair. “You have to go,” my mother kept saying. “You have to be there.”

“It’s not your fault, Sweet Sister,” my father was saying. “There were brand-new tires on that car. It’s that goddamn asphalt. I’ve been telling them to modernize that road. That old asphalt’s a hazard when it rains.”

“Oh, Daddy, I’m so sorry. I don’t know why you’re all being so nice to me. Someone should be mean to me. I think I was driving too fast.”

“No. You weren’t driving too fast. Ariane, hurry up and finish whatever you’re up to with her hair. Come on, let’s get going.” He had moved out into the hall outside of Momma’s bedroom. My sister-in-law, Annie, was sitting on the bed. Momma was combing my hair. “I want you to go on and sign up to go to the university, Sister. I want you down here near us, especially after this.”