I stop myself quickly from having this thought. Annie was on foot that day. Running to catch the ice cream truck. She’d heard the bells. The jingle. She’d heard it pass by and knew where it would stop—on the corner of our street and the road that heads to town. Our town. There’s a small park on that corner. The truck would stop there and kids would come running from the park, lining up to buy ice cream. When I was home, I would walk with them. Down the driveway. Down the street. I would hold their hands and look for cars coming around the bend. We would cross the street to the sidewalk.

But I wasn’t home that day.

“It’s far,” the man says. “Too far to walk without getting eaten by a bear.” I wonder how he can say this when Alice is afraid of the bears.

“Alice said your wife got lost in the woods,” I tell him. The things Alice told me linger in my thoughts. That’s how my first mommy died.

The man looks at Alice now. Then back to me.

“It’s true,” he says. But when he hesitates, I know this is a lie he tells for Alice, and that he knows how ridiculous it sounds. “She went into the woods and never came back.” And that was that. His tone has a finality to it and I know to leave well enough alone. Still—he joked about the bears, didn’t he?

Finish lunch. Get to town.

Alice seems upset by this talk of her first mommy. I wonder if she was Alice’s real mother, and if she loved her. Alice is so hungry for love. It’s a hunger that could swallow a person whole.

“It’s not as bad as how your daughter died,” Alice says.

The man looks between us, curious.

“She was hit by a car. She ran into the street,” she says.

I feel violated but I try not to react. I try not to let my emotions run wild. She is just a child.

She is just a child.

Alice now strikes at my heart. “You were driving that car,” she says. “That means you weren’t a very good mommy.”

My eyes stare at her as she stares at me and I can’t look away. Suddenly I see Annie’s face. Annie’s blond hair and blue eyes. Annie’s feet swinging beneath the table. And Annie saying those words, the ones she must have been thinking when she felt the impact of the car, hurling metal crushing her bones, sending her into the air, her head smashing against the pavement.

That car.

My car.

I hear her voice. My sweet, sweet girl.

You were not a good mommy.

No, my darling. I wasn’t. I let you die. I killed you.