May We Be Forgiven

sound like a bang, and the car jerks to the right. The driver struggles to maintain control; slowly we roll to a stop, and the dust settles around us.
    “Are we in an accident?” Ricardo asks.
    “Flat tire,” the driver says.
    The three men stop behind us, get out of their car, and approach. As soon as they’re within striking distance, they start banging on the car, rocking it from side to side—it’s terrifying.
    “Hijacking,” Nate whispers. “Just give them your money.”
    “My babies, my babies,” Ashley suddenly screams. “My babies aren’t breathing.”
    I throw open the car door—knocking over one of the men, who’d been leaning against it. Ricardo, Nate, and Ashley jump out, carrying the brown babies wrapped in their blankets.
    Ashley is on the side of the road, wailing, “My babies, my babies are not breathing.”
    Nate is hunched over the babies, pressing his ear to their chests, his mouth to the plastic baby mouths. Nate shouts—“Do you know CPR?”
    Ricardo and I are on our knees at the side of the road, hunched over the brown baby boy, while Nate is compressing the baby girl’s chest—shouting, “Breathe. Breathe.”
    “He’s not doing well,” Ricardo says. “Does anyone have a de-frigerator?”
    The driver is still in the car, paralyzed by fear.
    Ashley’s scream has now turned from a piercing shriek into a high-pitched wail—as though she’s summoned all the pain, the grief of Jane’s death. She’s on the side of the road, keening, truly hysterical, and I’m not sure what to attend to first. “You killed my babies,” she wails again and again.
    The hijackers are thoroughly perplexed; they get back into their car and speed away. We wait until they are far gone, and then Nate and I pick up the babies and go to Ashley, who is having a hard time calming down. Nate shows her the dolls. “Look,” he says. “They’re all right. Here, hold them.” He puts the dolls in her arms. Ashley’s breathing is shallow; she’s wild-eyed, like she doesn’t quite know where she is. I get the paper bag that the dolls came in. “Breathe into this,” I say, crumpling the opening into a mouthpiece and putting it to her lips.
    “That was amazing,” Ricardo says, “and really scary.”
    We all nod. And when Ashley has caught her breath, we go back to the car.
    Our driver is still at the wheel, silent tears streaming down his face.
    “Do you have a spare tire?” I ask.
    He nods. We quickly change the tire and drive off—shaken.
    “It’s very common,” Nate says. “Hijacking. Sometimes they take the car, sometimes they just want money.”
    “You were very lucky,” the driver says. “Sometimes they want rich white people too.”
    “Are you okay?” I ask Ashley.
    She nods but says nothing.
    “What you did was pretty amazing. Where did that idea come from?”
    “TV,” she says. “You know how the TV was always on in our house.”
    “Yes,” I say.
    “Well, I always used to see these crying ladies, mamas and aunts, and it made me feel so sad and scared. They’d be standing in their doorways sobbing while a reporter tried to push his way in, or they’d be at some candlelight vigil where they’d fall to the ground. I don’t know,” she says. “It just kind of came over me.”
    “You did a very good job,” I say.
    “Like Academy Award–winning,” Nate says.
    “I can’t believe that happened,” Ricardo says. “And we all just leapt to action, like superheroes, like guys in the movies.” He smiles broadly. “Did you like when I asked for the de-frigerator?”
    I keep replaying the event in my head; the more I think about it, the more traumatized I am. I look at the children—they seem fine, as though they don’t fully realize how wrong that could have gone. I think about what might have happened and know that in a blink I would have done anything to protect the children. For the first time I’m aware of how bonded to them I’ve become, how attached.
    At the airport, my mood starts to sink. I am still upset about the attempted kidnapping and worried about going home. How do we maintain the sense of hope and possibility, the feeling of not holding back that infused our trip up until now? I’m suddenly filled with dread and wondering if it’s just me. We have done so well outside of our home—outside of ourselves, up against a world so much bigger than we are. We banded together, working as a team, and I worry what will happen when we get home, when all