Summary

After the narrator's car accident, the woman in the grey sweater delivered him from "the wreckage" (14). She used her folder to wipe his blood. When he begged her not to kill him, she said she did not "have that kind of influence" (14). She could not trade "a death for a death," only "a life for a life" (14). Terrified, he continued begging. The woman smoked, looking sad and defeated. She said everyone's name was in her folder (14). The more questions he asked, the more daft she thought he was.

There was a time when the narrator felt his son belonged to him. When he was born, the narrator felt empathy for the first time. It terrified him. He did not like people to have "that kind of power" over him (15). He knows all parents feel these things, but he was unwilling to sit with...