Charles, a young telephone repairman who narrates the story, explains at the beginning of “What I Saw from Where I Stood” that his wife Dulcie, a second-grade teacher, is afraid of the Los Angeles freeways. He remembers that she had to drive home from a party that they went to the previous week after he got drunk. Her touch as she took the keys from his pocket excited him, especially since he admits that she has not been touching him very much lately. Dulcie sank lower in the driver’s seat when they passed the hospital where she had miscarried their baby a year earlier after being pregnant for six months.

During the drive home, they were rear-ended. As he and Dulcie got out of the car to inspect the damage, which was minor to such an old car, four or five...