1:26 p.m.

I am reminded of an evening when I was about 16. I probably hadn’t had my driver’s licence very long, but I had my parents’ car — a silver luxury car — to attend a bridal shower in my home town. Following the program, when the ladies were visiting and looking at shower gifts, a friend and I got into the car to leave, and half a dozen little girls hopped onto the car’s hood.

Perhaps they wanted to be given a ride, and were just being little girls, pestering a couple older ones. When they didn’t obey my commands to get off the car, I backed up from the curb and drove ahead a few feet, and when they still wouldn’t get off, I hit the brakes. The car was not going very fast, maybe 10 mph, if that. But the next thing we saw, in what seemed slow motion, was all these dressed-up dollies rolling and bouncing down the pavement ahead of the stopped car. Then they were getting to their feet, rips in their pantyhose, wiping dirty smudges off their “good” outfits, and my friend and I were driving away thinking we’d witnessed something pretty funny.

It was after 11 o’clock that night that the phone in our house rang. I was downstairs in my bedroom, but this was an unusual time for the phone to ring in our house, and I picked up the extension outside my door. Upstairs, my mother said, “Hello?”

“It’s Doris Doright here, Grace. Did you hear what happened tonight?”

“No, what?”

The call wasn’t for me, but for some reason I was in no hurry to put down the phone.

“Well, your daughter is responsible for breaking a little girl’s wrist.” She went on to tell my mother what had happened, but I didn’t need to listen any further. I hung up and crawled into my bed, wishing it was a deep black hole I could disappear into forever. I felt sick. What the hell had I done? How stupid could I be?

My parents were none too pleased with me, but they believed me when I explained that I hadn’t hurt anyone on purpose. Even the momentum of a few miles per hour could be dangerous, but this was a physics I had no idea of.
Apparently it wasn’t too difficult for them to believe I was that dumb.

In retrospect, we were probably lucky things didn’t turn out worse. A head could have been broken. I feel bad about it still — not because I was careless and inexperienced, but because someone was hurt as a result of my actions.