My mother did not freeze.

She moved faster than a woman her age should have been able to move, and she shoved me — hard, both hands, all her weight — and I went down onto the pavement, my palms and knees scraping raw against the concrete, as the truck missed us by inches and slammed into a utility pole further down the block.

When I pushed myself up, my mother was on her knees on the sidewalk, shaking, gasping.

And then she began to weep.