The novel opens with Dolores Driscoll describing in first person what she saw just before the school bus she was driving, which is full of children, was involved in an accident. Dolores says at first that what she saw “for certain” was a dog but then immediately qualifies that statement by admitting that what she saw was obscured by the snow and “you can see things in the snow that aren't there” (1). She suggests that she may have overreacted, but that she prefers generally to err on the side of caution, and that her reaction was natural, given that she is a mother and wife to an invalid. She then describes the object she saw as a “reddish-brown blur,” smaller than a deer, that came to the center of the road and stood still. Dolores, in an effort to avoid hitting the reddish blur, pulls the steering wheel hard to the side, triggering the accident. She does so automatically and without thinking. 

In the remainder of the chapter, Dolores recounts, from a future perspective, how the day of the accident began and unfolded, up to the moment when the accident actually occurs, at which point the chapter ends.