There is no end to the game.
Grant is trying to slide the patch of his mother’s nightgown back into his pocket when Paige screams. He looks up, a wall of blinding light pouring through the windshield. As the tires begin to screech, he’s thrown violently against his sister who crashes into the door. The last thing he sees is the guardrail racing toward them, glowing brighter and brighter as the headlights close in.
The violence of the bumper punching through is cataclysmic, and then the noise drops away.
No sound but the revving engine.
Tires spinning like mad and nothing underneath them.
Grant’s stomach lifts with the same weightless ache he experienced the time he rode a roller coaster.
The radio is still on, the airwaves now riddled with static.
The play-by-play announcer, whose name Grant will one day learn is Joe Garagiola, says, “The crowd will tell you what happens.”
Paige says, “Daddy?”
Their father says, “Oh shit.”
• • •
Grant opens his eyes.
The engine is hissing and the tires still barely spinning—above him.
The Impala is inverted. The radio gone silent. One headlight is busted; the other blazes intermittently. Through the fractured windshield, he sees the beam shining into an upside-down forest where mist lingers between the tall, straight trunks.
An image that will haunt him to the end of his days.
He calls out to his father.
Jim Moreton doesn’t answer. He’s crumpled into the steering column, the side of his face gleaming with blood and sparkling with bits of glass.
He is so terribly still.
Grant looks over at his sister. Like him, she hangs by her lap belt. Grant reaches down, unfastens his, and falls onto the ceiling, crying out as a flare of pain rides up the bone of his left leg.
Tears stream down his face.
His head throbs.
“Paige?”
She groans. He’s lying under her now. Reaching up, he takes hold of her hand and gives it a squeeze.
“Paige, can you hear me?”
It’s too dark to see if her eyes are open.
“What happened?” she asks quietly.
Something wet is dripping on his face.
“We wrecked.”
“My chest hurts.”
“It’s okay, Paigy.”
“It hurts really bad. Why are we upside down? Daddy?”
No answer.
“Daddy?”
“He’s hurt,” Grant says.
Her voice kicks up an octave. “Daddy?”
“It’s gonna be okay,” Grant says, though he has no idea if there’s even a shred of truth to the statement.
“I want my daddy.”
“He can’t hear you right now, Paige.”
“Is he dead?”
That possibility hasn’t occurred to Grant until this moment.
“Touch him,” she cries. “Make him answer.”
Grant turns his attention to the front seat. His father is upside down, still buckled in, a string of blood dripping from the corner of his mouth onto the roof. The boy reaches out, touches his father’s shoulder.
“Dad?”
His father makes no response.
Grant strains to hear if he’s breathing, but the noise of the spinning tires and the hiss of the dying engine make it impossible to tell.
“Dad,” he whispers. “Wake up.”
“Is he alive?” Paige begs.
“I don’t know.”
She begins to cry.
Hysterical.
“It’s gonna be all right,” Grant says.
“No,” she screams.
Grant leans in closer. He will never forget the smell of blood.
“Dad,” he whispers. “It’s Grant.”
His father’s hands still clench around the steering wheel. “Please do something if … if you’re okay. If you can hear me. Just make a sound.”
He will never recover from the silence.
“What’s happening, Grant?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is Daddy okay?”
The tears are coming. Grant tries to hold back the sob, but there’s no stopping it. He lies on the glass-covered roof and cries with his sister for a long time.
• • •
The engine has gone silent.
The last spinning wheel creaked to a halt.
Cold mountain air streams in through the busted windows.
Grant has unbuckled his sister and helped her out of the seat, and now they lie side-by-side on the roof, huddled together and shivering.
The air becomes redolent of wet evergreen trees. Rain is falling, pattering on the pine-needled floor of the forest and on the Impala’s undercarriage.
The headlight dims away, now just a feeble swath of light.
The boy has no concept of how long they’ve been upended on this mountainside.
“Can you check Dad again?” Paige asks.
“I can’t move my leg anymore.”
“Why?”
“It hurts a lot and it’s stiff.”
In the darkness, the boy finds his sister’s hand and holds it.
“Do you think Daddy’s dead?” she asks.
“I don’t know.”
“Are we going to die?”
“Someone will find us.”
“But what if they don’t come?”
“Then I’ll crawl up the mountain and find someone myself.”
“But your leg is hurt.”
“I can do it if I have to.”
“What’s it called,” she says, “when you don’t have a mom or a dad?”
“Orphan.”
Grant braces against another push of fear-fueled emotion. So many questions springing up he feels like he’s drowning.
Where will they live?
Who will pay for their food?
Their clothes?
Will he have to get a job?
Who will make them go to bed?
Who will fix their meals?
Make them eat good food?
Who will make them go to school?
“Is that what we are now, Grant?” Paige asks. “Are we orphans?”
“No, we’re brother and sister, Paige.”
“What if—”
“No matter what happens, I’ll take care of you.”
“But you’re only seven.”
“So?”
“You don’t even know how to add.”
“But you do. And I can do the other stuff. We can help each other. Like how Mom and Dad did.”
Grant turns over in the dark, his face inches away from Paige’s. Her breath smells faintly of spearmint gum. It warms his face sweetly.
“Don’t be scared, Paige.”
“But I am.” Her voice breaks.
“I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
“Swear.”
“I swear to you, Paige. I’ll protect you.”
“Will we still live in our house?”
“Of course. Where else would we live? It’ll be just like it was only I’ll be taking care of you.”
She draws in a labored wheeze.
“It hurts when I breathe.”
“Then don’t breathe hard.”
Grant wants to call out to their father again, but he fears it might upset her.
“I’m cold, Grant.”
“Me too.”
“How long until someone finds us?”
“They’ll be here soon. Do you want to hear a story while we wait?”
“No.”
“Not even your favorite?”
“Which one?”
“The one about the crazy scientist in the castle on the hill.”
“It’s too scary.”
“You always say that. But this one’s different.”
Through the windshield, the beam of light has weakened such that it only offers a yellowed patch of illumination on the nearest tree.
“How is it different?”
“I can’t just tell you. It’ll ruin it.”
“Okay.” Paige moves in closer.
Outside, the headlight expires.
Pitch black inside the car now.
The rain is falling harder, and for a moment, Grant is paralyzed by the horror of it all.
“Come on,” Paige says.
She nudges him in the dark.
Grant begins, his voice unsteady: “Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Paige.”
“Just like me?”
“Just like you. And she had an older brother named Grant.”
“Just like you.”
He blinks through the tears reforming in his eyes.
Fights through the tremor in his voice.
Don’t cry.