“Can I ask you something?” I said. “Where did it happen, the attack?”

“Cristóbal’s dog?” She gestured vaguely up the block.

“Did you see it?”

“Everybody saw it.” She glanced at Roland. “There was nothing we could do.”

“I really don’t care,” he said.

“We stayed with her, though, till the purple truck came.”

“Purple truck?” I said.

“The ambulance.”

The ambulances I’d seen at Ascension had been white like any others. But we were a long way from the hospital now. Maybe things were different in the Tomahawk.

“You want me to show you the place?” she said.

“No,” Roland said, and gripped my arm.

I’d only felt his strength during sex. I resisted as he tried moving me along.

“Officer,” she said, “I can keep the car?”

Roland made no reply. The woman started throwing clothes back in the Celebrity.

—

As we drove away, I saw burnt houses, the concrete stoops orphaned on empty lots, the ground black beneath the ice. A man was walking his dog along one scorched block, the animal straining the taut leather leash.

“You think that’s Cristóbal?” I said.

Roland didn’t slow down. I played with the photo in my pocket, trying to hold the details true and clear before they crept.

Already it felt like the day was ending. The sun had never really emerged and now a darkness seeped into the afternoon.

“We could still hit the slopes,” Roland offered, “under the lights.”

He’d been right. I should’ve stayed at the Antlers, done laps beneath the Olympic flag. In another life, I was taking a vacation.

I said, “That was my editor on the phone this morning. He wants me back in New York by tomorrow morning.”

The leather wheel slid under his palms. I wondered if he knew I was lying. There was no show of surprise or disappointment, nothing of his usual sentimental cast when it came time for us to part. He’d just hit the wall in me, and it was done.

—

We said our goodbyes. I packed my things in the Jeep and told him I was going back through Denver. In truth, I drove around Arcade until I found another hotel.

It wasn’t nearly as nice as the Antlers. The window of the room faced the brick of the building next door and the sheets felt grainy when I got into bed. But here, alone, I became excited, energetic. I leaned the photo of Floella’s wedding day against the bedside lamp, turned on CNN, and wrote my notes.

8.