As we're leaving the church, my friend says his truck is in the shop after another crash. Last time his son took a winter curve past the coefficient of friction. What this time, I wonder. I hadn't yet noticed the change in him. He says, a deer. I recall another deer that he and I watched run into the side of my car. It wrecked a fender. Tore off a mirror. Rolled across the hood. Then ran into the woods. My surprise turned to anger, but that faded fast. I was unchanged by the thing, restored with a shake of my head and a smile. A body shop replaced the fenders and side mirror. I recall that as we stand in the church vestibule and my friend says again, a deer. He says, at seventy miles per hour it appeared from the darkness. No time for brakes, he says. I see an explosion of flesh and fur against steel and glass. I cringe thinking of the flesh and bone inside the truck. His wife's head concussed on the dash. His arm burned by the airbag. He says, she's different. I see now that he is too. We look at the carpet, the cold walls of the church. I see him through the unfocused lens of memory and wonder if we ever really heal or just change according to some plan. There's no going back. At best, we go on. His truck, in the shop under fluorescent light may be restored, perhaps good as new. We leave the church, go out into the diffused, grey morning sunlight. The shop in which perhaps our bodies are restored. Our frames aligned. Our engines tuned so we again move down the road at speed. I shake my friend's hand. Say goodbye. Get in my car and turn the key. Soon I'm back on the highway, fingers tight on the wheel, eyes searching ahead for the hazards we have no hope of avoiding, wishing for some guide past all that waits in the woods to cross the paths we are traveling at far too much speed.