It is both true, and banal, that sometimes who you are changes in an instant. This is how Elizabeth will eventually begin “The Story of Molly.” She has come to understand the importance of structuring the details around a narrative, the expectation of histories having a beginning, a middle, and an end, though she doesn’t really believe this is the way life works: she does not know the way life works. She will perhaps include the Mexican chairs and Pete’s pink bicycle; Molly’s mitten in the ice, found later frozen like an autumn leaf. The black ice killed her cousin, Molly. Fact. Elizabeth was in charge for the afternoon. Fact. The pond was forbidden. Fact.
Everyone said they forgave her. Accidents happen. Her aunt and uncle said it, too, after a while, after a few years, after her aunt howled in a way that Elizabeth had never heard a human being sound, in a way that she will never, ever, forget.