Vanessa still wears her grandmother’s ring. Every day. She had the band tightened so it can’t slip off.
“Never again,” she says.
Last Sunday, after dinner, I found Ellie and Danny sitting on the back steps together. Looking at the rose bush in Gerald.
It’s getting big. Bigger than the bucket now. Danny says we’ll have to plant it in the ground soon. Ellie says no. Gerald’s earned it.
I stood in the kitchen doorway and listened. They didn’t know I was there.
“Danny?” Ellie said.
“Yeah?”
“Do you remember my mommy’s face?”
Danny was quiet for a long time.
“A little,” he said. “Not all of it. It was dark. And there was a lot of smoke. And I was scared.”
“Oh.”
“But I remember her voice,” he said. “When she was holding me. In her jacket. On the side of the road. Before the truck.”
