Mrs. Cummings placed her bloated fingers on Clare’s shoulder. “The hand of God. His watchful eye.” She nodded. “I just hope you know how much this whole town is grateful that you didn’t have to pay the ultimate price for that boy’s sins. If ever you need anything…” She nodded her head, the space between her eyes crinkling for emphasis.

Clare couldn’t conjure words. They had deserted her, and in this moment when she needed them most. She stared at Mrs. Cummings’s foundation-filled pores and remembered that it was her oldest son, Greg Cummings, who had once yelled at her from his lunch table surrounded by his friends, “Hey, Clare? If you ever need some extra cash, I’ll let you suck my dick for ten bucks!”

Two tables away, Adam had overheard Greg. He got up out of his seat, strode over with his fists clenched, and punched Greg Cummings in the face. Back then, Adam had only been Adam, recreational basketball player, son of the piano teacher, good student, her best friend. And now he was gone. Her Adam was dead. The realization kept attacking her when she wasn’t ready—like now, standing in line at the grocery store, listening to some fat, middle-aged bitch who knew absolutely nothing tell her how lucky she was.

“Oh.” Mrs. Cummings pointed over Clare’s shoulder to the clerk waiting to scan her box of doughnuts. “Your turn, sweetheart.”

Clare turned from the woman, paid for her doughnuts with a wad of one-dollar bills pulled from her front pocket, and left the store, forgetting all about Help Wanted signs, red aprons, name tags, and any seedling thought she may have been entertaining about moving on with her life. She rushed through the parking lot and pulled the car keys from her fleece jacket, barely registering what she was even doing until she was sitting behind the wheel of her mother’s car, doughnuts still in her lap, the early Sunday morning sun blinding her through the dirty windshield.

In the privacy of the car, Clare gasped, filling her lungs several times. One of her migraines was blooming, right behind her left eye, a storm swirling and gathering speed. Flashing lights began to strobe in her peripheral vision.

“Shit,” she whispered, dreading the pain, like a vise on her skull she would now be enduring alone in her darkened bedroom for the rest of the day. She placed the box on the seat next to her and managed to get the key in her shaking hand connected with the ignition slot. Any minute, the waves of pain would blind her, leaving her incapacitated. She considered heading back into the store right now and calling her mother to come pick her up in her patrol car.