My wife was not at the gate. I was met by another agent whom I knew only slightly. He said, “Your wife has been in an accident.” He said it was a head-on car crash; both drivers were women, similar in appearance except that one was younger. The younger one had been killed. He wasn’t sure which one that was. He said other stuff, but that’s all I remember. We went to the hospital. My wife had not been killed. She was in intensive care, in critical condition, attached to machines and tubes. Her eyes were covered with bandages. Both her corneas had been lacerated. Her face was a web of gashes. She had a collapsed lung, a broken wrist, a broken collarbone. She was hooked up to a lung machine. She couldn’t see. She could barely talk. She squeezed my hand. My daughters were there. The youngest, who was nine, had gotten sick at the sight of her mother and gone into the bathroom to throw up. I hugged the others, who were fifteen and thirteen, and tried to smile and act like everything was okay.
