My Favorite Terrible Thing: A Novel by Madeleine Henry

Author:Madeleine Henry [Henry, Madeleine]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Little A
Published: 2024-05-01T00:00:00+00:00

THIRTEEN

“You’ve died 1,021 times.”

—Claire Ross, The Starlit Ballet

“The word ‘trauma’ comes from the Greek τραύμα, meaning a physical wound,” AM radio claims a few days later. Brake lights cast 495 in a red haze, on my way to LaGuardia. Traffic crawls toward a distant accident. “The word’s evolved, of course. Sigmund Freud was the one who popularized ‘trauma’ to describe inner wounds. Psychological wounds . . .

“And now we’re finding that trauma isn’t just about what happens to you. It’s about what doesn’t happen. It’s about all the good times that you didn’t have. All the good people who weren’t there. It’s harder to measure what never existed, but that’s what we’re starting to do. We’re measuring what was missing. We’re taking the dimensions of those holes and their consequences. The results are extraordinary. Tragic and extraordinary. We’re finding that the longer people go without certain crucial and nourishing experiences, the deeper the damage. Over a long enough period of time, this could—”

I turn it off.

Cars single-file past the accident. A gray sedan is scrunched against the barrier, its hood skinned off, engine exposed in a black nest of pipes. An airbag hangs from the steering wheel like an empty pillowcase. The blood across it looks black, as if the night is dripping. A news helicopter passes overhead, its channel number painted on the side. I keep checking the accident in my rearview mirror, but I can’t see who was hurt.

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