she was not killed
Today I came the closest I've probably ever come to hitting a human being with my car. She was in a brown coat. She was leaving the hospital. She had a ponytail. She was walking very quickly toward the street I was flying down. I saw her look the other way, the way that couldn't possibly kill her, and then she disappeared behind the bus stop and I couldn't see whether she was still moving toward the street but I thought, I should swerve. I swerved and saw her in the street, a horrified face reeling back, clutching her bag in the safe U-shaped hollow of my tight detour around her body. I watched her in the rearview; someone pulled her by the elbow back onto the curb.
