He doesn’t close his eyes until I am lying next to him in our bed. And, sometimes, I will curl up close beside him.

And Nicole—the changes in her have been more pronounced. She will start college next fall. She has been coming with me to my grief support sessions. Yes, she mocks everyone the second we leave, the things they say and even the way they say them, always in a neutral tone. She calls them emotional robots. She says it makes her want to scream out into the room that they are all full of shit. They have boxes of shit, she says. Maybe she’s right. But she still comes. And sometimes we have dinner after.

Sometimes we talk about the woods in Hastings. Sometimes we talk about what she should study next year, or what classes I might teach. Sometimes we even laugh, though tears often follow.

I don’t mind her tears. I don’t mind my own.

Do I owe this to Jared Reyes? To the horrible things he did to our family? He took me, yes. But he took me to care for a child who was not even his own. He took me to care for her when her own mother left without a second thought. A mother who put a gun to her head. I see them sometimes before I can catch them—images of Reyes and Alice. The way he carried her through the rain. The way he made her laugh. The way she looked at him like any child looks at a parent who loves her.

And then I feel his body pinning me to the kitchen floor. His strong hands dragging me to the dark room. His hot breath in my face when he tells me about Nicole. He was going to kill me and take her.

And now, here is my family, healing. And here is Alice, surviving.

There are so many shades of gray that sometimes I feel life is one long, beautiful, cloudy day.

The conversation lingers and now begins to die. The social worker turns to Alice and says, “Do you want to give her the present now?” she asks.

Alice nods. Coy Face is here and it sends a shiver down my spine.

Shades of gray.

She is just a child.

She reaches down into her lap and sets on the table two plastic dolls.

I feel my stomach turn. I feel a violent urge to vomit.

She takes the doll that she calls Suzannah, and she hands it to me.

“I want you to have this so you will never forget me.”

Now come her tears. Real tears. And I feel my own start to well.

I force my hand across the table and take the doll. I swear to God it burns my skin, but I take it anyway.

I take it and I straighten its hair.

Acknowledgments [TK]

[tk]

Also by Wendy Walker

The Night Before