me out. Instead of walking out the front, she pulls me toward the side doors, leading me to the parking garage. There’s no place to hide me anytime someone passes, so I stand as tall as I can, clutching the coat around me, smiling and saying hello to everyone who passes. We get a few strange looks, but no one tries to stop us.
Finally we’re out into the garage, and the rain-scented air hits me in the face. It’s cold outside, and my feet are numb against the pavement. Nina pulls the keys out of a pocket and starts clicking the fob. Eventually, there’s an answering beep of a vehicle.
Christie’s SUV sits a few spaces down, lights flashing.
I stop. Nina was right. I’ve been selfish. I’ve thought too much of my own grief and not what anyone else might have gone through. Seeing my aunt’s SUV sitting in front of me hits me like I didn’t think it would. She betrayed not just me and my father. She betrayed my mother. She betrayed Mary. And she betrayed the little woman standing so fiercely next to me, who is determined to hold me up, determined to help me get home to the man I love before there’s nothing left but memories that rise like ghosts.
I sigh and put my hands into the pocket of the coat. My bad hand touches something small and cold. I pull the object out as Nina fumbles with the door. A small pocketknife. The handle is red. A small inscription on the side: I love you, my husband. Forever, Este. Estelle’s gift to her husband Abe. It was in my hand when I was shot. It fell into the river as I fell. It was lost to the rushing waters. As was the coat I wear.
“Nina?” I ask as she helps me into the driver’s seat. “Where did you say you got the coat?” I sound hoarse.
“I told you,” she huffs, pushing my legs in. “It was hanging on the coat rack just inside Little House.” She hands me the keys and shuts the door in my face.
She hurries around the back of the SUV and is climbing into the passenger side when something else hits me. “How?”
“Hmm?”
“The SUV.”
“Yes?”
“Why don’t the police have it? Wouldn’t they have impounded it?”
“You would think so,” she says with a smile. “Strange how these things work out.”
I stare at her.
“Coffee?” she asks me sweetly. “We’ve got an hour drive ahead of us.”
It’s as we ride through the dark that I confess. “I saw him.”
“Oh?” Nina says. She waits.
“Big Eddie. I saw him again. At the river.”
Silence.
“I’m sorry, Nina.”
She seems startled. “For what?”
“You know. Christie.”
“Yes,” she says quietly, looking out the window into the night. “Those who live
have always lost. What was three goes to two. But that’s okay. There’s always two.”
Her voice gets a little funny at the end.
“Nina? Are you okay?”
“Felix,” she whispers. “Oh, Felix. Turn away. Turn away, please. It is not a god.
It never was a god.” Then she shudders as she shakes her head.
I glance at her, concerned. “Who’s Felix?”
“Did he cross?” she asks, ignoring my question. Her voice sounds clear again.
“Did you help Big Eddie cross?”
Oh, my heart. Oh, my soul. “Yes,” I whisper. “He crossed.”
“I wonder,” she says, “if Christie will too. If God has enough forgiveness in his
heart.”
I take her hand in mine.
For the first time in a very long time, I pass mile marker seventy-seven and I do
not slow.
I do not stop.
And here, at the end of things, I show you this:
Five days have passed since the storm hit, but Poplar Street is still littered with debris. Large tree branches pile up on sidewalks. Broken windows are boarded up, waiting to be replaced. Puddles of water still remain in the shadows of buildings.
I drive slowly down the road that is my home.
Rosie’s Diner survived and is still standing, though it’s closed up tight. Big Eddie’s Gas and Convenience looks none the worse for wear. There’s a pile
of debris off to the side, and the whole front of the store has been swept clean. Someone has taken care of it for me. Maybe my mother. Maybe Mary or Nina. Maybe someone else entirely. I don’t know.
All the other businesses are still standing. They’re all dark, but they’re all still there. Roseland might have been struck by what is now being called the worst storm of this century, but it has survived. It has rolled with the punches. It has known sacrifice, but what