HALLOWEEN 3 YEARS AGO

Don’t worry, dad said, you worry too much.

But what about—?

Don’t worry!

They said no going outside, no exposing yourself to—

To what, air? Don’t expose myself to air and breathe like a human being just because I’m dying?

You’re not dying wasn’t the right thing to say, because it was a lie, and so instead she said, don’t worry, dad, you’ll live forever.

Nah, I won’t. None of us do. And when you’re my age you realize that’s a blessing. You stop being afraid; you start being ready.

She’s never recalled the finer details of the crash, but she does the red memory of the vivid blood pressure in her whirling head and how it had built some behind her eyes until the burden made them haul open fanlike and woozy and all she desired inwardly was to sleep. She could’ve persisted there suspended…