and begins its long, languid arc toward the embankment. There is no guardrail, nothing for the car’s front end to strike, to impede its progress or in any way change the nature of the scene, its dreamlike silence. The total, parabolic energy of their vehicle—thirty-five hundred pounds of diesel-powered French station wagon, traveling at or about the legal speed limit of fifty miles per hour—is suddenly, amazingly, tractionless. It is unbounded, set loose from the earth, and though jealous gravity will soon assert itself, whisking his parents to the valley floor at a velocity sufficient to snap the chassis in two, for this moment they are free; they are as free as ghosts, as comets, they are streaking across the heavens; Arthur and Miriam, together at last.
He was nineteen years old, happy. He did not know yet that it was possible for his life to change, and that once it changed, it would never change back. An hour would pass before his parents were found, and that is the hour O’Neil returns to, every day: the car in the river, the river in the valley, the valley gone under the snow.
ORPHANS
July 1983
O’N EIL B URKE WAS twenty-three years old, a college graduate who had traveled to Europe, but by the time his sister came to get him at the hospital in Stamford, six hours after the accident, he felt as if his life had stopped. It was eight o’clock when Kay arrived, still in her suit from a day of work, a slim leather case under her arm; the wide glass doors of the emergency room sighed open on their hinges, and there she was at last. She stood a moment in the doorway, searching the room with narrowed eyes, until she found him parked in his wheelchair by the sign-in desk, his left leg encased in plaster of Paris from knee to toe.
“God, look at you.” Kay raked her fingers through his hair, clotted with knots of dried paint. She was a pretty woman who worked too hard—slender and brown haired like O’Neil, with a small nose and deep walnut eyes—and her tired face said:
Now this
. “Couldn’t they have cleaned you up a little?”
“That was extra.” O’Neil held up the magazine he had been reading, which was
Business Week
. In two hours, since the nurses had wheeled him back to the waiting area, he had read through the rack, everything from
Highlights for Children
to
Modern Maturity
. “Now,” he said, directing her attention to the article, “it says here that what we are experiencing is not so much a recession strictly speaking, as a period of contraction before an expansion. Does this make any sense to you?”
“You’ll have to ask Jack. O’Neil, what did they give you?”
He returned the magazine to the pile. “Some Demerol when I first got here. It made me throw up.”
“It can do that. Listen, honey. I hate to ask, but do you have any insurance?”
“A technical question,” O’Neil said, and paused for effect; the news was not good. “Technically, no.”
Kay paid for everything with her Master Charge, then pushed O’Neil’s wheelchair into the parking lot, where the orderly, a large black man named Donnelle, helped her drape O’Neil across the backseat of Kay’s Volvo. The light in the parking lot was evening light—the day had disappeared—and insects throbbed in the trees.
“Thanks for everything, Donnelle.” O’Neil leaned out the window so the two could shake hands; Donnelle met his hand with a firm grip.
“You mind that leg, now,” Donnelle said.
When they had pulled out of the lot, Kay lifted her eyes at O’Neil through the rearview mirror. “Please don’t pout, honey. I didn’t even get the message until forty minutes ago. I came as soon as I could.”
He had left messages for her everywhere: her office, the house, even the restaurant where she sometimes met Jack after work for dinner. “Oh, it’s all right,” O’Neil said after a moment. “Donnelle was good company.”
“I can stop somewhere if you’re hungry,” Kay offered.
O’Neil shook his
He was nineteen years old, happy. He did not know yet that it was possible for his life to change, and that once it changed, it would never change back. An hour would pass before his parents were found, and that is the hour O’Neil returns to, every day: the car in the river, the river in the valley, the valley gone under the snow.
ORPHANS
July 1983
O’N EIL B URKE WAS twenty-three years old, a college graduate who had traveled to Europe, but by the time his sister came to get him at the hospital in Stamford, six hours after the accident, he felt as if his life had stopped. It was eight o’clock when Kay arrived, still in her suit from a day of work, a slim leather case under her arm; the wide glass doors of the emergency room sighed open on their hinges, and there she was at last. She stood a moment in the doorway, searching the room with narrowed eyes, until she found him parked in his wheelchair by the sign-in desk, his left leg encased in plaster of Paris from knee to toe.
“God, look at you.” Kay raked her fingers through his hair, clotted with knots of dried paint. She was a pretty woman who worked too hard—slender and brown haired like O’Neil, with a small nose and deep walnut eyes—and her tired face said:
Now this
. “Couldn’t they have cleaned you up a little?”
“That was extra.” O’Neil held up the magazine he had been reading, which was
Business Week
. In two hours, since the nurses had wheeled him back to the waiting area, he had read through the rack, everything from
Highlights for Children
to
Modern Maturity
. “Now,” he said, directing her attention to the article, “it says here that what we are experiencing is not so much a recession strictly speaking, as a period of contraction before an expansion. Does this make any sense to you?”
“You’ll have to ask Jack. O’Neil, what did they give you?”
He returned the magazine to the pile. “Some Demerol when I first got here. It made me throw up.”
“It can do that. Listen, honey. I hate to ask, but do you have any insurance?”
“A technical question,” O’Neil said, and paused for effect; the news was not good. “Technically, no.”
Kay paid for everything with her Master Charge, then pushed O’Neil’s wheelchair into the parking lot, where the orderly, a large black man named Donnelle, helped her drape O’Neil across the backseat of Kay’s Volvo. The light in the parking lot was evening light—the day had disappeared—and insects throbbed in the trees.
“Thanks for everything, Donnelle.” O’Neil leaned out the window so the two could shake hands; Donnelle met his hand with a firm grip.
“You mind that leg, now,” Donnelle said.
When they had pulled out of the lot, Kay lifted her eyes at O’Neil through the rearview mirror. “Please don’t pout, honey. I didn’t even get the message until forty minutes ago. I came as soon as I could.”
He had left messages for her everywhere: her office, the house, even the restaurant where she sometimes met Jack after work for dinner. “Oh, it’s all right,” O’Neil said after a moment. “Donnelle was good company.”
“I can stop somewhere if you’re hungry,” Kay offered.
O’Neil shook his
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