I let the conversation drop, even though knowing that my mom believed I was lying about my phone made me feel awful. On the ride back to town, I imagined scenarios in which Trey was apprehended by authorities with my phone in his possession, and tried to think up lies to have ready in case I needed to explain to my Mom how that may have occurred.

Twenty minutes later, when we reached the outskirts of Willow, I saw the first evidence of the tornados that had touched down. The way they’d inflicted damage in focused areas was eerie. On some blocks, trees had been uprooted and cars had been flipped along one side of the street, while everything on the opposite side looked perfectly normal. Mom insisted on driving me past Glenn’s house so that I could see the tree that had smashed through his living room. I got the sense as we slowed down in front of his address that this was Mom’s not-so-subtle way of reminding me before we arrived home that Glenn was crashing there, and would be for a while until his house had been repaired.

We turned at the corner of Martha Road and drove past the familiar houses of my street. This was the first time I’d ever traveled down our block without feeling an instant sense of security, a reassurance that I was safer simply by being home. My throat tightened; I wasn’t sure if tears were threatening to form because I felt even more endangered by being back there, or because Martha Road was no longer truly my home. Since moving to Florida, I’d focused every spare ounce of my energy on yearning to be back there, and now I had to admit that it seemed unlikely that I’d ever actually live on that street again.

It was a gloomy, overcast day, and the dead, yellowed lawns of our neighbors made our street look as if winter had simply exhausted it. I noticed as we pulled into our garage that the FOR SALE sign was still standing on the Emorys’ front yard. It was a relief but not a shock that they hadn’t found a buyer yet, since Willow wasn’t exactly a real estate hot spot. But the sign served as a reminder that Mrs. Emory was being sued for an enormous sum of money by the Simmons family for the actions she’d taken as a college student. Trey and I hadn’t discussed the status of that lawsuit in any of our phone conversations since January.

What Mom hadn’t told me earlier in the week when we’d touched base was that Glenn’s two dogs and ancient cat were also staying at our house until his house was livable again. “Luckily, so far everyone’s getting along,” Mom told me as Glenn’s dogs circled me, tails wagging, the moment I stepped inside the house. Maude, my mom’s puppy, certainly seemed to be happy about the company.

As the afternoon passed, I wondered where Trey was—if he had gotten a ticket, if he had successfully got on a plane without being noticed. The uncertainty was torture.