“Okay. If I can find them. This is Mother’s car. I haven’t driven it very much.” I reached for the switch to turn on the windshield wipers. Then the car began to skid and I threw my foot on the brake and the car began to spin. It spun around once and then again and again and again. I put my hand on Clay’s knee. “Nothing can happen to me,” I said. The car stopped and lights were coming toward us and then the car exploded and sailed out across the road and I heard the sound of gravel underneath the wheels. I felt my head hit against the side of the window.

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.