“There’s only one way to find out.” He opened the driver’s side door, and I quickly rounded the car and got in on the passenger side as he was turning the key in the ignition. It rattled, and sputtered, and when it caught, rumbling to life, I let out a gleeful squeal as I clapped my hands together. “It runs! Oh my God. Tuck.”

He met my eyes. “We’ll write down the address. We’ll return it as soon as we can.”

“They have a car,” I said. “And who even knows if they’ll be back.”

“Still,” he said.

I smiled. “Still.” Doing the right thing mattered, even now. And why that made me feel powerful when perhaps it should have done the opposite, I didn’t even know.

He turned off the ignition and then I ran my hand over the dash and peeked at him sideways. “This classic car brings back memories,” I said. “Of that old dusty loft you found peaceful for some reason.”

He opened his mouth to say something but then merely smiled, that secretive one that had always made me want to pin him down and force him to tell me what he was thinking.

He slid from the car and pocketed the key. “So, then we’ll stay here tonight and leave in the morning. But I do want to check the house more thoroughly and make sure this is what it looks like. Wait here for a few?”

I nodded and then he disappeared through the door, returning about five minutes later and beckoning me inside. “All clear,” he said. “There’s an itinerary for a middle school trip to DC on the kitchen counter. I wonder if they took off to find their kid.”

God. The stories to be told from this disaster. I’d seen so many awful things on the road, the worst side of humanity showing itself, but I’d also been struck by the fact that when the lights went out, the first thing human beings did was reach for those they loved.

I wondered if years into the future, people would say, “Where were you?” And no one would have to clarify, “When?” Because everyone would know exactly what the asker meant. Where were you when the lights went out?

And I had this overwhelming feeling of gratitude, even though my personal answer to that question would likely give me some amount of PTSD for many years to come. I was on an airplane. We made a crash landing. The gratitude was for the fact that when we crawled from the wreckage, I was with Tuck. And there was no one better to find at my side.

I heard a sound outside but realized it was just one of the horses out back, letting out a soft whinny. “What if the people who live here are gone now, but return?”

“We’ll hear them coming. They have a car.”