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say?’
    She had struggled over telling Noah the actual details of David’s accident, but he had to be told something, and she and David had always been honest with him. David was scrupulous about that. He would have told him, she knew in her heart, so it seemed only right that she tell Noah the truth. Jim and Noreen had been horrified when they found out. They more or less accused her of child abuse. She wished she could handle them the way David had, but she was completely out of her depth.
    â€˜Is atta bus what smooshed Daddy?’ Noah was repeating insistently, in almost a singsong rhyme.
    Helen tried to collect herself. He was a child, asking an innocent question. She had to hold it together. But she was beginning to find it difficult to breathe. She opened her window to get some fresh air, though how she thought that was possible on Darling Street at peak hour, she didn’t know.
    â€˜Uh, I don’t think so, Noah,’ she answered finally, looking over her shoulder at him. ‘That bus was in the city, near Daddy’s work.’ She turned to look ahead again. Her hands trembled as they rested on the steering wheel.
    â€˜Mummy?’
    â€˜Yes, Noah?’
    â€˜Did it hurt Daddy?’
    Helen’s heart froze. ‘What, darling?’
    â€˜Getting smooshed.’
    Her throat was dry. ‘It happened too fast, Noah. Daddy wouldn’t have felt anything.’
    â€˜Why didn’t Daddy hold sum’n’s hand?’
    Helen turned around again. ‘What do you mean, sweetheart?’
    â€˜Daddy did tell me one day that I always haffa hold sum’n’s hand across a road or else I’ll get smooshed by a bus. Why didn’t Daddy hold sum’n’s hand?
    â€˜. . . Mummy?
    â€˜Whata matta, Mummy?
    â€˜Why you crying, Mummy?’
    *

One week later
    â€˜Actually, it was my husband’s, um, my parents-in-law who thought I should come.’
    â€˜Oh?’ said Jill. She’d told Helen to call her Jill. She was the bereavement counsellor provided through the State Transit Authority to the families of accident victims. It was a free service. She’d be mad not to take advantage of it, Jim had insisted.
    â€˜Have your husband’s parents received any counselling?’ Jill asked.
    â€˜I don’t know,’ said Helen.
    â€˜Well, if they needed you to come,’ said Jill, ‘you can tell them you came.’
    â€˜Pardon?’
    â€˜You don’t have to stay, Helen,’ she said plainly.
    Helen was confused. Was she being dismissed? ‘I’m sorry?’
    â€˜Helen, this is an incredibly personal and painful thing to have to talk about, and if you’re not prepared to do that, if that’s not something you want to do, or feel the need to do, well, you shouldn’t have to do it because someone else thinks it’s what you should do.’
    Helen nodded faintly.
    â€˜Please, feel free to go. It’s okay.’
    Helen let a moment or two pass, and then shrugged. ‘Well, I guess I’m here now.’
    â€˜All right,’ said Jill. ‘We can talk for a while if you like.’
    â€˜About the accident?’
    â€˜That’s up to you.’
    â€˜But you do know what happened, don’t you?’
    â€˜I’ve read the report from the inquest, if that’s what you mean. That didn’t tell me much.’
    That’s what Helen thought as well. The inquest didn’t tell her anything, except too much detail about David’s injuries, which only served to further fuel her nightmares. But it didn’t tell her how something like this could have happened, much less why it happened.
    â€˜It certainly didn’t tell me anything about you, Helen,’ Jill went on, ‘and you’re the one sitting here in front of me.’
    â€˜What do you want to know about me?’ Helen said warily.
    â€˜Whatever you feel like telling me.’
    Helen wasn’t so