Turned my head farther. And saw Ed, facing away from me, still. Blood seeped from his ear.
I said his name, or tried to, one breathy syllable in the chill, a little cloud of smoke. My windpipe was sore. The seat belt had drawn tight around my throat.
I licked my lips. My tongue dipped into a hollow in the upper gum. I’d lost a tooth.
The seat belt was slicing against my waist, wire-taut. With my right hand I pressed the buckle, pressed harder, gasped as it clicked. The belt slithered from my body and I slumped toward the roof.
That chirp. The seat-belt alert, stuttering. Then silent.
Breath fountained from my mouth, red in the dashboard light, as I splayed my hands on the ceiling. Braced them. Pivoted my head.
Olivia was strapped into the backseat, suspended there, her ponytail dangling. I crooked my neck, squared my shoulder against the ceiling, reached for her cheek. My fingers rattled.
Her skin was ice.
My elbow folded; my legs dropped to one side, landed hard on the spider-webbed glass of the sunroof. It crunched beneath me. I scrambled to right myself, knees scuffling, and crawled toward her as my heart knocked against my chest. Seized her shoulders in my hands. Shook.
Screamed.
I thrashed. She thrashed with me, her hair swinging.
“Livvy,” I shouted, my throat flaming, and tasted blood in my mouth, on my lips.
“Livvy,” I called, and tears shot down my cheeks.
“Livvy,” I breathed, and her eyes opened.
My heart failed for an instant.
She looked at me, inside me, mouthed a single word:
“Mommy.”
I jammed my thumb into her seat-belt buckle. The belt released with a hiss, and I cradled her head as she descended, caught her body in my arms, her limbs spilling, jangling against each other like wind chimes. One of her arms felt loose within its sleeve.
I unrolled her along the sunroof. “Shh,” I told her, even though she hadn’t made a sound, even though her eyes were shut again. She looked like a princess.
“Hey.” I shook her shoulder. She looked at me once more. “Hey,” I repeated. I tried to smile. My face felt numb.
I scuttled toward the door, grasped the handle, yanked. Yanked again. Heard the snap of the latch. I pushed against the window, strained my fingers upon the glass. The door swung wide without a sound, gliding into the dark.
I stretched forward and pressed my hands to the ground outside, felt the burning snow against my palms. Dug my elbows in, steadied my knees, and pulled. Dragged my torso out of the car, flopping onto the frost. It squeaked beneath me. I kept dragging. My hips. My thighs. Knees. Shins. Feet. The cuff around my ankle snagged on a coat hook; I hitched it loose, slid free of the car.
And rolled onto my back. My spine went electric with pain. I sucked in air. Winced. My head rolled, as though my neck had quit.
No time. No time. I gathered myself, collected my legs, reassembled them into working order, and knelt by the car. Looked around.
Looked up. My vision wheeled, reeled.
The sky was a bowl of stars and space. The moon loomed planet-huge, solar-bright, and the canyon below blazed with shadow and light, crisp as a woodcut. The snowfall had nearly ceased, just a spray of stray flakes floating through the air. It looked like a new world.
And the sound . . .
Quiet. Utter, final quiet. Not a breath of wind, not a shift of branches. A silent film, a still photograph. I turned on my knees, heard snow crumpling beneath them.
Back to earth. The car was pitched forward, its nose bashed against the ground, its rear seesawed slightly upward. I saw its chassis exposed, like the underside of an insect. I shuddered. My spine twitched.
I dove back through the doorway, hooked my fingers in the down of Olivia’s jacket. And hauled. Hauled her across the sunroof, hauled her past the headrest, hauled her out of the car. Wrapped my arms around her, her little body rag-limp in my arms. Spoke her name. Spoke it again. She opened her eyes.
“Hi,” I said.
Her eyelids fluttered shut.
I laid her beside the car, then tugged her back in case it should capsize. Her head drifted toward her shoulder; I held it—gently, gently—and turned her face toward the sky again.
I paused, my lungs working like a bellows. Looked at my baby, an angel in the snow. Touched her wounded arm. She didn’t react. I touched it again, more firmly, and saw a wince warp her face.
Ed next.
I crawled inside once more before realizing that there was no way to yank him out through the backseat. I reversed, shuffling my shins backward; cleared the car; reached for the front-door handle. Squeezed. Squeezed again. The lock caught, clicked. The door flapped open.
There he was, his skin warm red in the woozy ambulance light of the dashboard. I wondered about that light, how the battery had survived the impact, as I released his seat belt. He slouched toward me, unspooling, like a tugged knot. I gripped him under the armpits.
And dragged him, my head knocking against the gearshift, his body trawling along the ceiling. When we emerged from the car, I saw his face was rinsed in blood.
I stood, pulled, staggered backward until we were next to Olivia, then rested him beside her. She stirred. He didn’t. I seized his hand, peeled his sleeve back from the wrist, pressed my fingers into the skin. His pulse was flickering.
We were out of the car, all of us, beneath the sprawl of stars, at the floor of the universe. I heard a steady locomotive chug—my own breath. I was panting. Sweat slid down my sides, slicked my neck.
I bent an arm behind my back, felt carefully, fingers climbing my spine like a ladder. Between my shoulder blades the vertebrae flamed with pain.
I inhaled, exhaled. Watched breath spout feebly from Olivia’s mouth, from Ed’s.
I turned around.
My eyes scaled what looked like a hundred yards of sheer cliff, blasted fluorescent white in the moonlight. The road lay unseen somewhere overhead, but there was no climbing toward it, no climbing anywhere. We’d crash-landed on a small shelf, a little ledge of rock jutting from the side of the mountain; beyond and below, oblivion. Stars, snow, space. Silence.
My phone.
I slapped my pockets—front, back, coat—and then remembered how Ed had clutched it, waved it away from me; how it had spun to the floor, danced there, rattling between my feet, that name blaring on the screen.
I plunged into the car for the third time, swept the ceiling with my hands, finally found it lodged against the windshield, screen intact. It was a shock to see it so pristine; my husband was bleeding, my daughter was injured, my body was damaged, our SUV was destroyed—but the phone had survived unmarked. A relic from another era, another earth. 10:27 p.m., it read. We’d been off the road for almost a half hour.
Crouching in the cabin of the car, I slid my thumb across the screen—911—and lifted the phone to my ear, felt it tremble against my cheek.
Nothing. I frowned.
I ended the call, retreated from the car, inspected the screen. No Signal. I knelt in the snow. Dialed again.
Nothing.
I dialed twice more.
Nothing. Nothing.
I stood, stabbed the speakerphone button, thrust my arm into the air. Nothing.
I circled the car, stumbling in the snow. Dialed again. And again. Four times, eight times, thirteen times. I lost count.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
I screamed. It burst from me, scouring my throat, cracking the night like a pane of ice, fading away in a flock of echoes. I screamed until my tongue burned, until my voice gave out.
Whirled around. Dizzied myself. Hurled the phone to the ground. It sank into the snow. Picked it up, its screen dewy, and flung it down again, farther away. Panic surged through me. I lunged, dug through the frost. My hand closed on it. Shook off the snow, dialed again.
Nothing.
I was back with Olivia and Ed; they lay there, side by side, still, luminous beneath the moon.
A sob kicked its way to my mouth, desperate for air, thrashed past my lips. My knees buckled beneath me, folded like switchblades. I melted to the ground. I crawled between my husband and my daughter. I cried.