Part 1

It is snowing. The dark of the pavement on the road and the gritty grass in the ditch are being bridged slowly by a cold, white coating from the sky. It layers itself over and over, concealing everything from the telephone poles lining the highway to the slush in the gutter. I am waiting for it to cover me.

Something hot is running down my face. It’s blood. My blood. I feel compelled to find it’s source, but instead I let it roll down my temple to the curve of my neck. I feel that if I move, this stillness around me will never return.

Someone knocks on my window. He is yelling with startling precision, and I don’t want to make either of us feel like an idiot so I pull myself back up using the steering wheel as leverage and begin to open my car door.

“Whoa, easy now,” he says. “Just stay right there if you’re feeling weak.”

I ignore him and allow him to help me out as I check out the damage. He tells me that my head is bleeding a little. The cut doesn’t feel significant when I touch it, so I leave it alone for now.

“How are you feeling? You feeling alright?”

“I’m fine,” I answer. He sighs, but I don’t know what he is relieved about. The front of my car is shattered. Smaller pieces of it scatter the snowy road. Larger pieces of my car fray apart and bend inward, retreating to the core of the vehicle, as if my car is cringing where it was hit from the cold, open, and startling world to which is has been exposed. It sits on the side of the road, one back wheel edging into the ditch. I realize now that it is facing the opposite direction from where I was heading. I can’t remember flipping around during the crash.

“Should get you a bandage for that.”

I look up from the damage but don’t respond. I’m not sure what to say, but I look at him anyway. The man is wearing blue jeans and a hooded Arctic Cat sweatshirt but he’s too old to be wearing it. His brown hair is thinning beneath his faded Chevrolet cap and his face is masked with graying scruff and creases. His eyes are blue and spry but forgetful. “I’m Andy,” he says.

“Margo.”

“You took that corner pretty fast,” he laughs.

I dust snow off the front of my pea coat. “Must have been quite the surprise when you blew through that stop sign.”

My head is beginning to hurt, just where the cut is, and I am wishing I had put the Emergency Car Kit in my trunk since my aunt gave it to me at Christmas. You never know, she had said. And she was right. I hadn’t woken up this morning knowing that a redneck would destroy my car.

“Well Margo, I don’t suppose you have a cell phone?”

I suddenly remember that my cell phone had been ringing right before I got hit. I had been digging for it in my purse on the passenger seat, but hadn’t reached it before the accident.

“One second,” I say. My car door is still open, and I crawl in. My purse is on the floor on the passenger side and everything has been thrown out. I grab the phone. One new voicemail. I get out of the car and Andy asks me if I know the number for the police department. I’m not from the area, so I hand the phone to him.