Summary

Danticat opens “Close Calls” by confessing she has “never experienced the classic near-death experience,” but has had a few “close calls” (121). She describes her first death experience: in her mid-twenties, Danticat’s car turned on its own into the opposite lane, heading right for a garbage truck, stopping only at the last minute. Her second death experience happened in winter, when Danticat slipped on black ice on a fire escape, saving herself at the last minute by grabbing onto the fire escape’s rail. Her final death experience occurred when she and her husband were driving, and her husband accidentally pulled onto the wrong side of a highway ramp.

Reflecting on her close calls, Danticat says some of these experiences “happen so quickly we barely notice them,” while others “change the way we think not just about living but about constantly being close...