[infinitesimal]

[to see what growing up in such unpredictable circumstances does to you," she says. "Surrounded by physical peril. Death is everywhere." 

She shakes her head again, like she's trying to clear her thoughts. 

"This is hard to understand," she tells me, looking at me directly. "It's hard to say. You're always waiting for the death blow, you know? And that can come at any time, no matter how rosy things seem."

I stifle a frown. She goes on.

"There are times when I sense trouble, and that's when I see the peril clearly: death on the road, on a flight of steps, by plain and simple accident, or maybe ... I don't know. Some violence inflicted by a stranger...

"Other times, it's not so obvious, but it's always there—in the surprise you feel at good luck, at tenderness, at the kindness of a stranger ... good fortune at not hitting black ice on the drive home."

She pauses. Outside a car sighs past on the road. A blackbird calls in the late afternoon.

"Life is a numbers game, mostly," she says after a long while. "Odds. Chance. But there are times," she adds

—and here her eyes stare into the space between herself and me with clarity, as if she's actually looking at something real and specific and concrete in that void—

"when the chances of surviving seem infinitesimal. When it all seems]