You forgot the part about the broken pickle dish. Riveting!
The sledding disaster wasn't an accident; Ethan and his wife's cousin Mattie were trying to commit suicide because they were in love, but couldn't afford (morally or financially) to be together. The suicide went awry (sledding into a tree is not the most efficient method) and both were crippled, Mattie to the point of being a perpetual invalid.
So Ethan is left partially crippled and with the wife he hates and the lover he has destroyed and forced to wait on both, hand and foot.
(The illnesses and handicaps are metaphors for moral and spiritual impairment.)
Personally, I loved it. But I didn't read it in high school; I read it much later, after I learned that life is all about disappointment and shattered dreams.
