As I drove on after the call I couldn’t help but remember Elise telling me, the morning after driving into that protest in front of the abortion clinic, that she needed to drop by her lawyers to do a little business. Did she sense darker danger to come? But why leave her home to me? I was distressed and feeling deeply guilty about Elise’s daughter. I knew that she and her mother had had a breach. Elise did say that she made serious money and was building a life with a fellow financier. But I couldn’t, in all good faith, accept this gift. It wasn’t merited. I was determined to tell her lawyers that I was handing it all over to Elise’s daughter; that I wanted nothing from her estate whatsoever.

I stayed away from NPR or any news channels on the radio. I didn’t want to hear another damn thing about the horror that was still haunting my every moment. I kept telling myself to just keep my eyes on the road, keep clocking up the miles, keep making to-do lists in my head. But I couldn’t blank out that image of Elise falling into my arms, her last whispered word, the strange shock on her face – as if, in that moment or so before her heart stopped, she realized: this was it. The end of her. A death so sudden, so violent, so out of nowhere. Though everyone would now say that she died doing a heroic, ethical deed I knew that Elise’s decision to throw herself in the way of the gunfire was all split-second instinct. She just wanted to save the girl’s life.

There was only one other text message during the trip. Right around 8 p.m. The one I was truly dreading. From Agnieska:

Father Todor suggested I go to my sister’s house for a few nights. I heard about Teresa’s death. I spoke with the Father who told me that you and Klara had been on a father–daughter trip – you showing her your old stomping ground of Sequoia – when all that happened. I was so relieved that you were both far away from all that – and from that woman you were driving. I feel terrible about what happened to her. I feel even more terrible about that poor teenage girl who she rescued. I know people will blame Teresa for what happened to her baby but had your friend gotten that woman the proper care she needed maybe this would never have happened. I fear that Teresa is now in purgatory for what she did – and may be there for eternity. I know you probably don’t want to see me but there are things to discuss. And I hope Klara has, in the wake of this terrible business, seen that she must stop supporting the baby killers and –