Caitlyn Dunn had said he had no support base “to compensate for the difficulties he was facing.” He actually had a sister, back in the UK. They weren’t close, never had been. Old streaks of childhood resentment. Their dad had found it much more to his taste going along to his son’s karting meets than watching her play clarinet. She’d reached out though, after “it,” the game changer up on I-75. Spencer hadn’t been interested. Why would he care about the past when his whole future had just died?

He’d heard people say, wives whose husbands had been blown to shit on a road in Fallujah, heard them say that after a time most folks didn’t understand how long the pain went on for. Was that why these widows and widowers still went to support groups? He wasn’t ever going to do that. He’d never been a team player. Drivers weren’t team players.

The sun glinted on his watch as they drove past Hazel Park Raceway.

But you’re losing our daughter.

Marielle, it’s not like that.

Tell me how it is.

They don’t understand. No one does. I need those things.

You call them things, but you know what they are.

I was going to stop it all. When I made that new start for us in Toledo.

She is what we made, Spencer. Abby came from our love. You’re all she has. And she’s all you have of me.

I know! I’m fucking on this, Marielle!

Abby watched her father drive. They cut southwest. Spencer avoided the freeways today. They all seemed to be slow, sticky with the heat. Their car barely stopped. Abby was used to that.

They drove past mansions, abandoned and overgrown, that must have been beautiful in Detroit’s heyday. To Abby they were still beautiful, just in a different way. Like the crumbling ruins of a lost empire. Paris of the West, Mom had called it. Dad used to care about that stuff. She felt the burn of imminent tears. Not good, not just because she didn’t cry about Mom anymore but also because school was five minutes away. She was going to arrive in time for break and people would know she’d been crying.

He glanced at her, saw her staring straight ahead, somewhere else.

How long have you been losing her?

Since I lost you, Marielle.

Since you lost yourself, Spencer.

Later that day, when he knew Abby would be back from school, Spencer took a break from his rounds and headed home. He wanted to talk to her, to see if she understood what was going down and to see if there was some way he could reestablish their connection. At least then, when the next CPS meeting happened, she might make them reconsider, even if he couldn’t.