and discusses his brother with Adelita, eventually coming to the conclusion that they have the right to be happy together for the time being no matter how their relationship will end. At the very moment Ciaran is coming to this conclusion, Corrigan's van is hit by a gold car on the FDR Drive, causing a massive car crash. Jazzlyn is killed instantly, and Corrigan is left so badly injured that the paramedics initially believe him to be dead. Lara, the passenger in the gold car, pleads with her husband Blaine, who was driving, to stop and accept responsibility, but loses her nerve when she hears sirens approaching and the two leave the scene of the crash. Meanwhile, Corrigan is rushed to a hospital and survives long enough for Adelita and Ciaran to make it to his bedside, where he tells Adelita that he had "seen something beautiful" before he finally dies. The same day, Claire, a woman from a very wealthy southern family who lives on the Upper East Side, hosts a gathering for a group of mothers who have lost children in the Vietnam war. On the way to Claire's apartment, one of the women saw the tightrope walker and was shaken due to the fact that it reminded her of her son, expressing the belief that it was her son coming back to see her. Claire is greatly upset by this but cannot figure out why, eventually realizing that she resents the idea that someone would be so flippant about their own personal safety, showing so little disregard for their life when their sons were forced to give up their own without a choice. She tells the group the story of how she learned her son, Joshua, had been killed; Joshua had been drafted into Vietnam and worked as a computer programmer, writing code that would allow the computers to automatically tally American casualties. Unlike most of the other women's children, Joshua was not in active combat, but instead died when a grenade was detonated at the coffee shop he was inside. She reveals that she didn't know how to react to the officer who came to inform them of their son's death and instead just smiled and thanked him, unable to do anything else. After telling the story, she realizes that there is nothing they can do but rely on each other to heal, and decides to