The coincidental nature of all social collision has always troubled the mother, even before she was a mother. To have a nationality, a lover, a family, a coworker, a neighbor—the mother understands these to be fundamentally absurd connections, as they are accidents, and yet they are the tyrants of every life. After she rolled up her window, she approached the drive-through speaker and ordered. The man hit the glass of the next car with his beach shovel, his eyes wide open.
