She could sympathize. She'd been in much the same boat when their father died. A good and decent man, much older than she, he'd had his greatest influence on them all only after his death, when they discovered the huge void he'd so quietly filled.
She suspected that Leo, more than Joe, would find the world an oddly empty place, at least for a while, once she followed her late husband's example.
She stole a glance at him as he turned right onto Route 5 on the Vermont side of the bridge and began heading north, parallel to the interstate, which he knew she didn't enjoy as much.
"Thank you, Leo," she said.
He looked at her quickly, both his hands on the wheel, a good and practiced driver. "What for? I thought you hated the movie."
"For taking me anyhow, for not choosing the interstate, for being a good son. I'm not sure I tell you enough how grateful I am for everything. You've given up a lot for me."
He laughed, though a little cautiously. His mother wasn't prone to such comments. "Totally selfish, Ma. Do you know how many times I've used you as an excuse to shake off some female with big plans? Unbelievable. There are women up and down this valley who think you're the worst thing since Cruella de Vil. You should be calling a libel lawyer instead of patting me on the back for being such a wonderful son."
She smiled and shook her head. She should have known better. Leo was her showman, quick to grab a joke when faced with a serious moment.
She decided to allow him his choice. "Really?" she reacted in kind. "No wonder I've been getting those strange looks. Good Lord. I always thought it was my breath, or maybe something horrible coming out of my nostril."
They were surrounded by darkness now, moving quickly and alone along the smooth, twisting road, paradoxically comforted by the dark, semifrozen expanse of the large river to their right. New Englanders often felt at home while isolated in the cold. It was that aspect of their environment that most outsiders compared to their demeanor, but which they themselves saw as simply encouraging strong character.
Leo was surprised. "Are you kidding about that?" he asked. "Have you really noticed…?"
He suddenly stopped speaking, his hands tightening on the wheel. "Damn…"
Alarmed, she looked first at him and then out the window, expecting a deer to be standing in the middle of the road-an almost common experience. Instead, the road was beginning to shift away as they slid out of control on a slight curve.
"Shit," Leo said through clenched teeth. "Hang on…"
She was ahead of him there, clutching both the dashboard and the uppermost handle beside her. "Leo," she said, almost a whisper.
Ahead of them the landscape changed from the comfort of the black macadam to a blizzard of white snow as they plowed through an embankment that exploded across their windshield. They could hear beneath them the tearing of metal against the remnants of a hidden guardrail, along with their own seemingly disconnected shouting. They were first jarred by several abrupt encounters with buried stumps or boulders, and then became weightless as the car began to barrel roll, causing their heads to be surrounded by flying maps, CDs, loose change, and an assortment of now lethal tools that Leo normally kept in the back.
In the sudden darkness following the loss of both headlights, Leo's mother focused solely on the muffled sounds around her, coming from all sides as they continued farther and farther downhill. She began thinking about the cold water that might be waiting at the bottom-if that was the way they were headed.
And then it was over. In one explosive flash, she felt a shocking blow to the side of her head, the sense of some metallic object, perhaps a lug wrench, passing before her face, and then nothing.
Leo opened his eyes briefly before shutting them again with a wince, brought up short by a burst of pain in his left eye. He paused a moment, trying to sort through the throbbing at his temples, to remember what had happened.
"Mom?" he asked suddenly, attempting to see again, ignoring the pain. He shifted in his seat, looking in her direction. The car was black and utterly silent. Carefully, he reached out and touched her, the tips of his cold fingers slipping on something wet on the side of her head.
"Oh, Jesus," he murmured. He made to turn toward her and shouted in agony, the entire left side of his chest suddenly spiking as if electrified. He sat back, panting, and coughed, feeling as if his lungs were full of phlegm. He gingerly pushed through his overcoat at his ribs with his good hand and winced.
"God damn it," he said, mostly to hear his own voice. "Mom?" he repeated then, reaching out a second time, but lower, groping for her shoulder, which appeared to be fine-maybe merely because it was there at all.
But she wasn't moving.
It was cold, and the other thing his fingers had felt was snow. Somewhere there was a broken window. He had no idea how long they'd been here, had no clue if they were visible from the road. He didn't even know if they were both alive.
He followed her shoulder up to her neck and burrowed his index finger between her collar and the scarf she was wearing, probing for a pulse. He was a butcher, he thought ruefully. At least he knew his way around a body.
His fingers were too cold. If her heart was beating, he couldn't feel it, but he doubted he could have anyway. At least that was the comfort he gave himself.
"Okay, okay," he said softly. "Probably just as well. No pain, no struggling. She's got her coat on. Could be worse."
Still using his right hand, he touched the window next to him. Intact. He didn't feel as though they were on their side, and he couldn't hear running water, which meant they hadn't reached the river. So far, so good.
He felt down to the door latch and pulled it. Nothing. Probably jammed. With even fewer expectations, he tried the electric window toggle. He was rewarded with a gentle whirring sound and a cool waft of air against his cheek.
"No shit," he muttered, noticing how hard it was to breathe, to actually move his lungs. The window had lowered all the way. He considered shouting, but with the cold air had also come a wider silence, as from a chasm without bottom. He knew this road-it either had traffic or was empty. There were no pedestrians and few homes.
He had to get out.
He moved his feet and found his lower body uninjured. That was good. But even at 100 percent, struggling out the side window of a small car wasn't easy. And, he knew by now, he was far from 100 percent, just as he knew that wasn't phlegm in his lungs.
"Ma?" he said, barely whispering by now. "Can you hear me? I got to try to get help."
Nothing.
He sighed, gritted his teeth, took hold of the steering wheel with his good hand, and pushed up with his feet, hoping to launch himself at least partway out the window.
The pain was beyond imagination. It felt like lava, filling him with heat and blinding red light, exploding inside his head and making him gasp for air. Beyond that, he could feel something fundamental shift within him, as if the cellar of a house had suddenly vanished into the earth, leaving everything above it precariously poised above a void. For a split second, he could almost see himself hovering in the air, somewhere between heaven and oblivion. And then he, too, collapsed into the blackness and the utter, all-encompassing quiet of a winter night.