Her handbag, containing her cell phone, had been left in the car. She could not bring herself to climb back into the car. Fortunately, the ditch was fairly shallow, the car’s front wheels submerged in less than a foot of water, but the water smelled brackish, foul; she did not want to wade in it, still less did she want to grope around in it, where water had begun to seep inside the car with a hoarse, gurgling sound, as of occluded breathing.

Peering through the side windows, she couldn’t see her handbag, guessing that it had been flung down onto the floor. No, she couldn’t retrieve it, not her cell phone, not her wallet … The car key was still in the ignition, she couldn’t bring herself to retrieve that, either.

In the interim, another vehicle had passed in the roadway. If the driver had seen her, and her car partway in the ditch, the driver gave no sign, but drove imperturbably on.

She climbed back onto the roadway, trying to hold herself erect, unswaying. She understood: it was crucial not to give an impression of drunkenness or injury. (Was her face bleeding? A stranger would not wish to bloody the interior of his car.)

Her fingers, gingerly touching her throbbing forehead, came away unbloodied, but her nostrils felt loose and runny—was her nose bleeding? She hoped it wasn’t broken, she dared not touch it for fear of injuring herself further.

But what had happened to her left shoe? She was standing in just one shoe; on her left foot was a light woolen sock, soaked from the ditch.

Miserably she looked around on the roadway to see if the shoe was there—but no, of course the shoe was inside the car, no doubt on the floor in the front, where brackish water was seeping in.

No choice but to make her way, limping, half sobbing, along the road in the direction of a house nearby; she would ask to use a telephone. This was not an unreasonable request, though she was looking disheveled and her damned nose was leaking blood.

Now! You must prove yourself.

A curious sort of anticipation overcame her. Almost euphoria.

Most of her life she’d been waiting—for what, she hadn’t known.

As a bright and curious girl-child, waiting for her true life to begin. As a restless but shy adolescent, waiting for her true life to begin. Before she’d met the man she would marry, waiting for her true life to begin. And then, in the months before she’d married this man, waiting for her true life to begin.

Before she’d had her first pregnancy and her first baby—waiting for her true life to begin.

And since the children had grown and gone away—waiting for her true life to begin.

Something meant for me alone. Just—for me.

That has been waiting for me to arrive.