It was Seymour, actually

I was driving home for spring break, and I felt like a failure. To quote Rabbit: "My mornings are just not complete without at least one major catastrophe." I had wanted a nice day, the kind full of nonevents issuing soundlessly from a conveyer belt.

And then the person in front of me hit his brakes, and I did wild circles across two lanes of traffic. Somebody honked. I found myself in a ditch, somehow very alive, uninjured, and in such utter disbelief that I couldn't even be mad at myself.

And then I was standing outside looking at the wheels on my car, the mud and the snow, at people groaning as they passed, men emerging from tow trucks, police officers raising their eyebrows at me. And I was on my cell phone, talking to a new person every twenty minutes. I was scouring the map for "Nichol", "Bristol" and "Seymour", taking notes about where exactly I might be, adding insurance papers and phone numbers to the impossible mess in the passenger seat. I was sighing and huffing and making low growls.

Over an hour passed, and I was asking God to just be there, and I was wringing my hands in despair-- when suddenly I noticed the warmth of my hands and remembered how Brayden would clutch my finger. I remembered how he trusts the people who love him.

And I was okay.