Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

by Gabrielle Zevin

Then, the high-pitched squeal of tires, the metal crumpling, the glass shattering like a scream. It will turn out that the driver had been speeding, but the accident won’t have been his fault. The streets were narrow—barely room enough for two cars to pass. He took the turn a bit wide and crashed his heavy sedan directly into the hood of Anna’s lightweight sports car, most of the impact on the driver’s side and on Sam’s left foot. How could that driver have been expected to know that a car was there? Why would a car be stopped just below Mulholland, without any lights on? How could he know a boy and his mother would be in that car? From the passenger seat, Sam could see his mother’s face, illuminated by the other car’s headlights. Her skin had particles of glass on it, and she looked as if she were sparkling. He tried to reach for his mother to clear the glass from her face, but he found that his left leg was pinned against the dashboard. He felt no pain—that would come later—but he couldn’t get free enough to reach her face, and the constriction panicked him. He could smell her blood, mingling with her tuberose perfume, and he could see that her chest and abdomen were crushed by the caved-in dashboard. But it was the glass. It was the glass on his mother’s pretty face that disturbed him the most in that moment, and he tried again to reach for her to brush it off. He felt a strange shifting in the bones of his foot as he pulled for her. And with that last unsuccessful reac...