The Oldest Daughter Visits the Scene

On State Road 715, between Pahokee and Belle Glade, a white Buick Regal and a green station wagon race toward each other like magnets on a collision course. A gray fog is rising from the sugar cane fields on both sides of this highway. The northbound Regal passes an old truck also headed to Pahokee. As it passes, it runs off the western shoulder. The startled driver yanks the wheel too hard to the right. Her car shoots back across the northbound lane.

As this happens, high above this scene, beyond the moon and stars, a row of dominoes begins to teeter in a slow, deliberate motion. Eleven children are sleeping safely at home. When they wake, they'll hear news that will end their childhoods.

The Regal shoots across the lane in front of the truck and runs off the road on the east side. The driver yanks hard to the left. The car lunges left again, heads west, crosses the yellow line. The station wagon slows and tries to pull off the road, but it cannot get far enough away. For a brief moment the two drivers click into each other's sight. In their eyes there is recognition of something planned long ago, before birth, before this life. There is a moment before they hit that they know all their roads have led to this spot. After the brief surprise there is a knowing that fills each driver's body just before their cars kiss.

The cars strike each other front to front, engine to engine, like the fists of a fighter, but there is no anger. There is simply a collision of fates. Free-falling dominoes echo through eleven childrens' dreams as both cars collapse in and up; their hoods bend upward from the bottom like tin lids lifted from a can. The driver of the Regal is thrown forward first; the gearshift punctures her chest. When her last breath is punched out of her body, she is already above the scene. To her surprise and relief, the woman's oldest daughter's future spirit is there to hold her hand. Together they watch as her body, below them, is thrown into the back seat. Her necklace breaks, and her car keys bend. Her bones snap. She bleeds from a cut across her face. The driver of the station wagon dies from the impact. His passenger is unconscious and bleeding. Her knees are crushed by the weight of the dash.

The driver of the white truck pulls over. He peeks into the white car. The lady is lying in the backseat with a strand of gray hair stuck to the side of her open mouth. She isn't breathing. He crosses the street and looks into the green car. He can't see the driver who is under the dashboard, but the passenger is breathing. Cars slow down and stop. "Are they alive?" a sugar mill worker asks. A semi truck pulls up and radios for the police. The man from the truck waves at people to go on around, but this is the Glades. Every car that passes knows it must be someone they know, but cars are too bent up to recognize.

A young policeman arrives, tired from the night shift. He knows the lady in the Regal, but he doesn't recognize the car. He looks like a marine, strong and handsome in his blue suit. When he sees the side of the white car, his knees buckle. He stops and stares. No, he says to himself. Don't let it be. He walks a little closer and reads the gold lettering of the car's name, hanging on its side. He walks back to his car and puts his hands on the hood, whispering "I told her, I told her."

The man from the truck says, "We called an ambulance. There's a lady alive in the green car." He looks up and nods. The green car is smashed and smoking from oil on its hot motor. Just beyond, banana trees line the ditch by the skating rink. All...