At the request of the family.
At my request.
My hands were shaking so hard the paper rattled.
“Ma’am?” David Reyes said through the door.
I didn’t answer.
I unhooked the chain.
I opened the door.
I don’t remember walking to the SUV.
I just remember being there. On the sidewalk. In my bathrobe and slippers. In the cold October morning with the newspaper article crumpled in my fist.
The back door of the SUV opened.
The woman from the Walmart got out. She was wearing the same blouse as yesterday. She hadn’t changed. She hadn’t slept. I could see it on her face.
She stood in front of me on the sidewalk.
“My name is Vanessa Cole,” she said. Her voice was shaking. “Three years ago, on October fourteenth, I was driving home from my mother’s house in Columbia with my son. It was raining. I was tired. I hit a deer. The car went off the road and rolled into the ditch and caught fire.”
