Lily noticed.
“Pull over.”
“No.”
“Claire.”
“No.”
“I spent years avoiding this road because you died here.”
She went quiet.
The crash site was different now.
New guardrail.
Trees taller.
Nothing dramatic.
I slowed.
“That’s near it?”
Lily looked outside.
“I think so.”
“You think?”
“I don’t remember the actual crash.”
We continued.
Then Lily whispered:
“I’m sorry.”
I stared at the road.
“For the crash?”
“No.”
“For letting the road keep being a grave after I knew I was alive.”
That was the first apology that reached the right place.
I cried while driving.
She did not touch me.
She waited.
Eventually I said:
“Thank you.”
Three weeks later, I stopped at a bakery before our Thursday lunch.
The cashier recognized me.
“Two blueberry scones?”
I froze.
For ten years, I had ordered two.
Even after Lily died.
Sometimes I ate both.
Sometimes one went stale.
