Night Road

On the drive home, Miles kept up a steady stream of conversation. He was trying to “go on,” to merge into the lane of their new existence, but neither Jude nor Zach could go there with him. Each of Miles’s attempts landed in the big empty backseat of the Escalade, and he eventually gave up, turning on the radio instead.

“… Pine Island teen killed—”

Jude snapped it off and the silence returned. She slumped in her leather seat, with the heat cranked high enough to warm her frozen core, staring dully out the window as the ferry pulled into port. She was so mired in grief that she hardly saw the familiar island landscape until all at once she recognized her surroundings.

Miles had turned onto Night Road.

She gave a gasp of recognition. “Miles. ”

“Shit,” he said. “Habit. ”

The trees on either side of them were giants that blocked out the struggling mid-June sun. Deep shadows lay banked on either side. High in one of the branches, a lone eagle perched proudly, watching something far below.

They turned a hairpin corner, and there i

t was: the scene of the accident. Twin skid marks scarred the gray asphalt. A tree was cracked, half of it fallen aside. At its base, a memorial had sprung up.

“Oh, man,” Zach said from the backseat.

Jude wanted to look away but she couldn’t. The ravine between the road and the broken tree was strewn with bouquets of flowers, stuffed animals, high school pennants, and photos of Mia. Parked along the side of the road was a van with a satellite disk perched on top: a local news vans. Jude knew what she’d see on the evening news tonight: images of teenagers, kids she’d known since they had gaps in their teeth, looking haggard and drawn now, older, crying about Mia’s death, laying mementos of her short life on the ground, holding lit votives in small glass jars.

And what would happen to all those stuffed animals that had been put here? Fall would come and rain would pound the color out of everything, and this place would become another ragged reminder of their loss.

Less than a mile, she thought as Miles turned onto their gravel driveway.

Mia had died less than a mile from home. They could have walked …

At the front door was another shrine. Friends and neighbors had layered the entrance with flowers. When Jude got out of the car, she smelled the sweet, heady fragrance, but already some were fading, their petals beginning to curl and turn brown.

“Get rid of it,” she said to Miles.

He looked at her. “They’re beautiful, Jude. It means—”

“I know what it means,” she said tightly. “People loved our daughter—a girl who is never coming home again. ” Her voice caught, and she hated how overwhelmed she felt when she looked at these flowers. She would have done the same thing for a neighbor’s child, and she would have cried as she bought the flowers and placed them here. She would have felt an incredible sense of loss, and the sharp, sweet relief of knowing that her kids were okay. “They’ll just die,” she finally said.

Miles pulled her into his arms.

Zach came up beside them, leaned into Jude. She wanted to put her arm around him, but she felt paralyzed. It took concentration just to breathe with the cloying scent of all these flowers.

“She liked white roses,” Zach said.

At that, the grief came at Jude again. How had she not known that about Mia? All those hours she’d spent in her garden and never had she planted a single creamy white rose. She looked down at the flowers by her front door. There were dahlias, zinnias, and roses of every color except white.

In a burst of anger, she scooped up all the flowers and carried them over to the woods behind the garage and threw them into the trees.

She was just about to turn away when something white caught her eye.

An unopened rosebud lay on the top of the flowery heap, its petals as rich in color as fresh cream.

Jude scrambled through the brush, feeling stinging nettles lash across her face and hands, burning her skin, but she didn’t care. She picked up the lone rosebud, clutching it in one shaking hand, feeling the prick of thorns.

“Jude?”

She heard Miles’s voice coming at her. Clutching the single stem, she looked back at him.

In the harsh sunlight, he looked slight suddenly, fragile. She saw the hollows of his cheeks and the spidery look of his fingers as he reached out. He took her hand and helped her to her feet. She stared up into the gray eyes that had been her only real home and all she saw now was emptiness.

They walked into their home, which was bright with lights and sweltering hot.