It was the year of misfortune. The trouble began lightly, like when the rain begins and you wonder if the squirrels are on the rood again or maybe the house is just settling. But then it starts in earnest, more insistent, and there’s no mistaking it. At first there were simply more stories about— the kind exchanged run the schoolyard, waiting for the bell to ring, the kids to come pouring out. The stories went like this: Did you hear Kathleen miscarried again? Did you read about the third grader getting knocked off his bike? Did you know Evan’s wife is in the hospital? And so on. But soon it wasn’t merely hearing or reading but happening everywhere. In every house on the block. Up and down the street. You could point to each front door and recite: divorce, heart attack, mugging, cancer, cancer, cancer, stillborn baby, car accident, bankruptcy, husband in jail, divorce, divorce, suicide. The morning paper grew enormous. They rehired all the staff laid off the previous year. The obituary page became the obituary section, then the obituary edition. Church attendance soared out of sight and all the bars and taverns made out royally. Public officials were powerless— they were of course not exempt and they had their hands full. No one felt superior to anyone else. The nation’s sweetheart, a formerly chest blonde, showed off her mastectomy scar on television. The president’s daughter died of a heroin overdose, and he, grief-stricken, drank himself to dearth at Camp David. America had always been so blessed, so lucky. Meanwhile, over the border, in Mexico and Canada, in Europe and Asia, our friends and enemies, those to whom we sent food and weapons and those against whom we’d fought, looked on with immense satisfaction.