My father took
         one hundred and thirty-two minutes
         to
         die.

    I counted.
    It happened on the Jellicoe Road.
    The prettiest road I'd ever seen,
    where trees made   b r  e   e    z     y    canopies
    like a tunnel to Shangri-la.
    We were going to the ocean, hundreds of miles away, because I wanted to see the ocean and my father said that it was about time the four of us made that journey.
    I remember asking,
    "What's the difference between
    • a trip
    • and
    • a journey?"
    and my father said, "Narnie, my love, when we get there, you'll understand,"
    and that was
         the last thing
         he ever said.
    We heard her almost straightaway.
    In the other car, wedged into ours so deep that you couldn't tell
    • where one began
    • and
    • the
    • other
    • ended.

    She told us her name was Tate and then she squeezed through the glass and the steel and climbed over her own dead—
    just to be with Webb and me; to give us her hand so we could clutch it with all our might.
    And then a kid called Fitz came riding by on a stolen bike and saved our lives.
    Someone asked us later, "Didn't you wonder
         why
         no
         one
         came
         across
         you
         sooner?"

    Did I wonder?
    When you see your parents zipped up in black body bags on the Jellicoe Road like they're some kind of garbage,
    don't
    you
    know

          ?

         Wonder

         d
         i
         e
         s
         .