She nods. “He strangled her.” She starts to cry again. “With a pair of panty hose.” She blows her nose and offers me a Kleenex. I shake my head. She takes about four. “The chief of police wants to talk to you. I told him not today, though.”

“Okay.” I remember him coiling up the body stocking in his hand and then stretching it. I can see his eyes, standing before me in that little kitchen, and I can hear his voice. How come I can remember him, and not her?

“I’m sorry, Serena.” She’s crying so hard she can’t talk.

“It’s okay, Mom. You can cry for both of us.” I give her more Kleenex, and she dries her eyes again. She sobs out another apology, and I tell her again that it’s okay. As I watch my mother cry, I wonder how I got to be a thousand years older than she will ever be. There’s not a tear in me. Everything is dry and empty and old. There is some ratlike feeling scuttling around the edges of my brain, but I don’t pursue it.

“I knew they were a couple,” she says. “But I didn’t know—how long were they together?”

“About a year.”

“Jesus.” She stops crying and stares at me. “A year? Why didn’t—” And then she stops herself. “But—is that why she was in California?” I nod. “And that’s why you went out there?” I nod. “You were worried about her?” I keep nodding, even though I have no idea if it’s true. “Worried about her … with him?” she asks.

I open my backpack and take my upward mobility notebook out, find Grimshaw’s postcard, and hand it to her. It’s been in there since the day I got it. She looks at the front and then she reads the message on the back. Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.

“She mailed it to the school just before April vacation,” I tell her.

“Oh my God,” she breathes. “Oh God forgive me.”

“Do you know any of the details?” I ask her.

She falls apart again, and I have to wait for her to collect herself enough to tell me the rest of the story. Grimshaw had left Mike and Los Angeles, applied for work in a casino in Las Vegas, rented a motel room, alone, and Mike found her there, probably after looking for a while. They know she had left him once already, and it may have sent him into a rage when she did it again. There were people in both adjoining rooms, but nobody heard a thing. She hands me a business card.

“The police chief thinks you may be in danger. We’ll go down to the station tomorrow.”