Lane, it’s a lane, the middle lane,” and she says “Lane, then, but go in it to pass him,” and I say “You’re not supposed to pass from the right, he might not see me even if I’m flashing him, he certainly won’t if I flash him as he hasn’t seen me flashing since I started doing it, and then, without looking at his right side mirror and signaling me, he might suddenly decide to go into that middle lane himself the moment we’re alongside him and hit us. He’s supposed to move over when he sees us behind him so we can pass from the left lane. He’s like some Maine driver — you know the ones I always complain about up there — on a two-lane back road, but they go fifteen or twenty miles an hour when they should be going the posted speed of thirty-five or forty. He’s doing sixty now — not even sixty — fifty-seven or — eight,” and she says “So he’s right, the speed sign before said fifty-five,” and I say “But you don’t know, you’re not a driver, you’re allowed to go at least sixty-five on these Interstates even if the signs say fifty-five, the police allow it, everybody does it, and especially in the speed lane, this passing lane,” and she says “You’re still much too close to him, Daddy; if he stops you’ll crash into him and hurt everything,” her voice shaky saying this and I say “Okay, I give up, you’re right, and as my dad said, ‘When you’re right, you’re right, and no one in the world should say you’re not right,’ I just wanted to get you to that skating thing in plenty of time to skate but I shouldn’t take chances doing it,” and she says “The skating’s not so important, I don’t even want to go to the party if it means taking chances with the car,” and I say “You’re right again,” slowing down a little to put some more room between our cars, check the rearview and see the car behind me’s keeping just as close to mine, “And you talk like your mommy; you do,” and Julie says “I do sometimes too,” and I say “Yes, you’re both — you’re all three very smart and cautious and the way I should be, I admit it, I admit it, but that creepo, look at him, I can even see his eyes now in his rearview mirror, he sees me and he knows I see him and now he’s looking away but that I’m angry and he probably even knows I don’t want to honk at him, no, he couldn’t know that, but he has to know he’s going too damn slow for this lane,” and I signal right and look into the rearview and right side mirrors and cut into the middle lane to go around him and teach him a lesson by speeding past him and then cutting sharply in front of him and speeding on, but his car without signaling cuts into the middle lane second after mine does and when I see I’m going to hit it I brake and try to cut into the lane we were in but the car that was behind mine’s already there and our sides hit, I brake all the way, didn’t think about it, just did it, and our cars come apart and mine spins around my side and I try to brake with little pedal taps and then all the way when that didn’t work but have no control of the car and it spins around again and nothing will help it it seems till it stops or slows way down on its own and then I can stop it and I’m screaming and the girls are and I yell “Duck down, down, duck down,” and a car from somewhere, not one of the other two, smashes into the passenger side in the middle lane and pushes us about a hundred feet before it stops, all the time we’re all screaming. All sorts of things after. I must have been knocked out a few seconds. There’s a gas smell and a burnt smell and a metal smell and a rubber one and I can hear cars screeching and people shouting and I think “No, this can’t be, it can’t,” my eyes are shut when I think this and then I think “I’m out of it again, I’m sure I put myself out because I don’t want to know what’s happened,” and when I open my eyes it’s raining, but really pouring, sky’s dark when just a few seconds ago, a minute, minutes, I don’t know, but it seemed it was light, rain’s slashing the windows and banging the roof when before it was dry, I’m sure it was, there wasn’t a drop, I didn’t have my wipers on or even thought I’d soon have to put them on and I tell myself “Turn them on now, no, that’s not where you are,” and I think “I never would have made that lane change if it had been raining like this, never, ever, I’m afraid of driving in blinding rain and the rain slicks, cautious of them, extracautious, I hate them, hate to slide, and I would have slowed down to a hundred feet more between me and the old guy and gone into the middle lane when it was safe to and maybe even into the slow lane and then down to around fifty if the rain continued like this, forty-five, forty, thirty as I have on this same Interstate when it was raining hard as this and I couldn’t see much even with the high-speed wipers on,” and then I’m quickly out of it again and in my dark shake myself awake and think “Hey, what’s going on, I’m not driving, who’s driving, somebody driving?” the last I either think or say and I shout “Julie, Margo, Julie, Margo,” and Julie’s crying and I think “Where’re they crying from, it sounds so weak, were they thrown out? but it’s only one crying, Julie, not Margo,” and I look up, see the roof, hear the rain banging, try to sit up, for some reason can’t, “What is it,” I say, “what, where are you girls?” and try to sit up again, my body’s twisted around itself with the back of my head down on the seat, seatbelt’s caught and I finger around for the clasp, “No no,” I say, “no, please tell me you’re both okay, Margo, Julie,” and continue fingering, find the place to press if it’s my seatbelt and I press and sit up, my neck, it stabs, head, holy shit, I can’t lift it, feel it and feel a big gash with blood or some slick stuff all around it, I reach up and grab the top of the seat and hear whining behind it, Julie’s, still not Margo’s, and hoist myself up and am now on my shins with my knees facing the seats and get my face between the backrests and look. Julie’s still on the seat. Someone’s banging the driver’s window and yelling “Sir, you all right, sir? How is it in there? Your girl pinned? Can you let us in?” Julie’s still in the seat. “Julie, you all right?” and she says “I hurt, Daddy. I’m bleeding. There’s blood,” and I say “Where’s Margo?” and she says “Daddy, your head,” and I say “Where’s Margo?” and she says “Here,” and looks where and I look and say “Margo, my poor Margo.” She’s on the floor, not moving, eyes closed, not breathing it seems. “Margo, oh my God, oh dear.”