Even this late, the indigo sky glowed with lingering daylight. If we had been in our Jersey neighborhood, the streets would have been crowded with people coming home from work or heading out to night jobs, on their way to meet friends or lovers, running to the bodega, walking a dog, in motion, always in motion, in throngs. In this neighborhood, there was so much space. Back in Jersey, my parents also lived in the suburbs, but in an older neighborhood without these broad sidewalks and blank, cookie-cutter houses.

A car passed us with only a single person inside, a woman driving, her face set in a tight mask of concentration. And it was almost a full minute before another car came along, this one with a man driving and a child alone in the back seat. And then another moment before a third went by, an SUV with tinted windows. Out on the highway, these vehicles packed together like people on a city sidewalk, but as they peeled off down their exit ramps, each went its separate way to soccer practice or Scouts or home for a sit-down dinner.

Now we had space to walk holding hands, swinging them a little without worrying we’d be knocked apart by a Segway or cursed by a commuter. Ahead of us, a car pulled up to our street’s block of freestanding mailboxes, and a woman leaned out to unlock her box and withdraw a handful of envelopes. Then she drove a few houses down, pulled into her driveway, and got out, juggling the mail and a briefcase and her keys. A man jogged past on the opposite sidewalk, and in the distance I saw a teenager walking a shaggy dog. Michael and I weren’t alone, but nobody jostled us or drove us together. Everyone was an island.

Michael and I crossed over Windswept Court and walked only a little ways before we saw it, a brick house like any other. The only sign of trauma was the garage, bowed in just as Rahmia had described it. Streaks of red paint marred the pale metal of the garage door, and bits of broken plastic glittered on the driveway.

Other than that, her house was indistinguishable from a house we’d passed on the previous block. The same builder had designed them all, the same landscaper had planted crape myrtles and boxwood, and the same homeowners’ association had mandated the colors of the front doors and the height of the lawns.

Michael tugged my hand. “Look.” He nodded to the street, and I saw black rubber streaks where the car must have skidded out of control.

“How fast do you think they were going?”

He paused, considering. “Not too fast. The door’s banged up, but if they’d been going full tilt, a car could have smashed right through.” Calculations must have been flashing through his mind like one of those mathematical word problems I could never solve.