Jena had taken a suite in The Drake for a week—to paint. She was forty. She had her husband’s permission. They—she and Wales—had done this five nights in a row now. He wanted it to go on.

Wales had worked abroad for fourteen years, writing for various outlets—in Barcelona, Stockholm, Berlin. Always in English. He’d lately realized he’d been away too long, had lost touch with things American. But a friend from years ago, a reporter he’d known in London, had called and said, come back, come home, come to Chicago, teach a seminar on exactly what it’s like to be James Wales. Just two days a week, for a couple of months, then back to Berlin. “The Literature of the Actual,” his friend who’d become a professor had said, and laughed. It was funny. Like Hegel was funny. None of the students took it too seriously.

The woman who’d fallen—old, young, drunk, sober, he wasn’t sure—had gotten to her feet now, and for some reason had put one hand on top of her head, as if the wind was blowing. Traffic rushed in front of her up Sheridan Road, accumulating speed behind headlights. Tall sixties apartment blocks—a long file of them, all with nice views—separated the street from the lake. It was early March. Wintry.

The stoplight stayed red for Wales’s lane, though the oncoming cars began turning in front of him in quick procession onto Ardmore Avenue. But the woman who’d fallen and had her hand on her head took this moment to step out into the thoroughfare. And for some lucky reason the driver in the nearest lane, the lane by the curb, slowed and came to a stop for her. Though the woman never saw this, never sensed she had, by taking two, perhaps three unwise steps, put herself in danger. Who knows what’s buzzing in that head, Wales thought, watching. A moment ago she was lying in the snow. A moment before that everything had been fine.

The cars opposite continued turning hurriedly onto Ardmore Avenue. And it was the cars in this lane—the middle turning lane—whose drivers did not see the woman as she stepped uncertainly, farther into the street. Though it seemed she did see them, because she extended the same hand that had been touching her head and held it palm outward, as if she expected the turning cars to stop as she stepped into their lane. And it was one of these cars, a dark van, resembling a small spaceship (and, Wales thought, moving too fast, much faster than reasonable under the conditions), one of these speeding cars that hit the woman flush-on, bore directly into her side like a boat ramming her, never thinking of brakes, and in so doing knocked her not up into the air or under the wheels or onto its non-existent hood, but sloughed her to the side and onto the road—changed her in an instant from an old, young, possibly drunk, possibly sober woman in a gray man’s coat, into a collection of assorted remnants on a frozen pavement.

Dead, Wales thought—not five feet from where he and his lane now began to pass smartly by, the light having gone green and horns having commenced behind. In his side mirror he saw the woman’s motionless body in the road (he was already a half block beyond the scene). The street was congested both ways, more car horns were blaring. He saw that the van, its taillights brilliant red, had stopped, a figure was rushing back into the road, arms waving crazily. People were hurrying from the bus stop, from the apartment buildings.