I don’t think about this crash much-it was a long time ago- but I believe that it has crossed my mind now for a reason. Maybe it is the thing that gets me to stand up and turn away. Maybe it is the reason I walk into my bedroom and pull out clothes and underwear, stuffing them into a small bag. Don’t get me wrong, I have no master plan. I keep my face turned away from my parents when I run out of my room and into the bathroom. I grab some dirty clothes of my mother’s from the hamper, and then I run down the stairs. My heart is pounding. All I want to do is get away. I hear my father say, “You bitch.”

When I was around twelve I thought about running away. I suppose all kids do at some point. I got as far as our backyard. I hid underneath the black vinyl cover of the barbeque, but it took my parents four and a half hours to find me. My father had to come home early from work. It was a big deal when my mother lifted up the vinyl cover. She hugged me and told me I had scared her half to death. What would I do without you? she said, over and over. What would I do without you?

Sneakers. I grab mine from the living room, my mother’s from the hall closet. They are what she calls her “weekend shoes.” So I am packed. Now what do I do?

When the plane crashed, I was brought to a hospital in Des Moines. I was in the pediatrics ward, of course, and all I can really remember is that the nurses wore smocks with smiley faces. And hair nets with Ernie and Bert on them. I didn’t know where my parents were, and all I really wanted was to see them. It took a while, but they came. They came in together, I remember. They were holding each other’s hands, and that made me so happy. The last time I had seen them my mother was crying, and my father was yelling very loud. It had been very scary, the crash. But it was what had to be done. It brought my parents together again.

Just as I am thinking about this, I hear the sting of a slap. It’s a sound you can recognize from any other, if you have heard it before. It brings tears to my eyes.

I slide the front door open on its hinges. I run to my mother’s car, parked at the edge of the driveway. She has a clunky old station wagon that has been around forever. I perch on the edge of the passenger seat. They say history repeats, don’t they?

My mother comes out of the house like a lost soul. She is looking-into the sky and she is wearing nothing but her underwear. As if it is a magnet, she is being drawn towards this car. I am sure she doesn’t see me. She holds some clothes in her left hand. When she gets into the car she slides them on the seat between us. She has red welts on her wrists from where he grabbed her. I don’t know where he hit her this time. I put my hand over hers; she jumps in her seat. “I have everything,” I say. My voice sounds too high and thin. My mother is looking at me as if she is trying to place the face. She whispers my name, and sinks back against the seat. So do I. I take a deep breath; wonder how long it will be before I see my father again.

The human body can withstand so much. I have read accounts of people who have survived extreme cold, brutality, bludgeoning, terrible burns. I have read the testimonies of these survivors. They all make it sound so simple, really, the ability to keep on living.

We all stand on the upper part of the driveway, where the gravel is a little thin. Sam has just carried Rebecca to the car. Oliver is standing a respectable distance away. Joley stands in front of me, holding my hands, trying to get me to look at him. Hadley is not here, and I cannot forgive myself.

It is a beautiful day by any other account. It’s cool and dry, with a see-through sky. All the apple trees have fruit. I don’t know where the birds have gone.

Joley smiles at me and tells me for the hundredth time to stop crying. He lifts my chin. “Well,” he says, “under any other circumstance, I’d say, ‘Come back soon.’”

My brother. “Call me,” I say. I don’t know how to tell him the things I really want to say. That I couldn’t have lived through this without him. That I want to thank him, in spite of the way this has turned out.

“Tomorrow,” Joley says, “go to the post office in Chevy Chase, Maryland. There are two. You want the one in the center of town.” He makes me laugh. “That’s better.” I don’t mean to, but just knowing Sam is in the foreground, my eyes dart over to his. Joley hugs me one last time. “This is my going-away present,” he whispers. He takes several steps towards Oliver. “Hey, I don’t think you’ve had a chance to see the greenhouse here, have you?” He claps his arm around Oliver’s shoulders, and pushes him, forcefully, down towards the barn. Oliver turns around once or twice, reluctant to leave us like this. But Joley isn’t about to let him off the hook.

So then it is just Sam and I. We move a few feet closer but we do not touch. That would be dangerous. “I’ve packed something for you,” he says, swallowing. “In the back seat.”

I nod. If I try to speak, it’s all going to come out wrong. How can he look at me? I have killed his best friend; I have broken all my promises. I am leaving. I can feel my throat swelling up at the bottom. Sam smiles at me; he tries. “I know we said we weren’t going to do this. I know it’s just going to make it worse. But I can’t help it.” And he leans forward, wraps his arms tight across my back, and kisses me.

You don’t know what it is like to touch him like that, our skin pressed together at the thighs, the shoulders, the cheeks.

Everywhere Sam is, I feel a shock. When he pushes me away, I am gasping. “Oh, no,” I say. He holds me at a distance, and that is supposed to be the end.

I have to stop shaking before I remember where I am. The little MG we bought in Montana is sitting next to the blue pickup truck. We are leaving it with Joley. Joley is leaning into the window of Oliver’s Town Car, speaking to Rebecca. I am not sure she is up to traveling. I would have liked to give her one more day. But Oliver feels she ought to be home. She ought to recuperate where she doesn’t have to think of Hadley every time she looks at something, and in this he is right.

Just then I am sure I will faint. I can’t feel my knees anymore and the sky begins to spin. Suddenly Oliver is beside me. “Are you all right?” he asks, as if I can answer that in one simple sentence. “Okay,” he says. “Then this is it.”

“This is it!” I say, repeating his words. I can’t seem to come up with any of my own. As I slide into the passenger seat, Joley gives Oliver directions back to Route 95. I unroll my window.

Oliver starts the car and puts it into gear. Sam moves so that he is standing across from my window, at just the distance where it is easy for us to look at each other. I do not let myself blink. I concentrate on his eyes. We are imprinting each other, etching an image so that when we meet again-ten months, ten years from now-we will have no choice but to remember. The car starts moving. I crane my neck, unwilling to break first.

I have to turn around in my seat, looking over Rebecca’s head through the lines of defogger tape, but I can still see him. I can see him all the way past the welcome sign for this orchard, past the mailbox.

Then I realize how it will be. Like metal pounded to a thin foil, spreading in distance but not compromising its strength. It has simply changed shape, changed form.

Oliver has been talking but I haven’t really heard what he’s been saying. He is trying so hard; I have to give him credit. I open my eyes, and there is my daughter. Rebecca stares at me, or maybe right through me, I cannot tell. She pulls a blanket back from the floor of the car. Apples. Bushels and bushels of apples. This is what Sam wanted me to have. I find myself silently mouthing the names of the different fruits: Bellflower. Macoun. Jonathan. Cortland. Bottle Greening. Rebecca takes a Cortland and bites hard into its side. “Oh,” Oliver says, looking in the rearview mirror. “You took some with you, did you?”