Chapter 17: The Muddy Boots

Daniel's POV

Ask Daniel who was at the hospital first.

I heard it all the way home, and Laura heard it too, and neither of us said so.

She went to work at noon, because the clinic needed her and because she wanted one hour of her own life.

I sat at the kitchen table where we had been so recently, and I made myself go back.

I had not let myself think about that night in order for three years.

I had kept pieces of it.

The phone ringing at ten past midnight, and a state trooper's voice saying Laura's name.

Winnie in her bathrobe at my door, taking Bea out of my arms without being asked.

The road.

The saw.

Her hand moving.

I put my head down on my folded arms and went on.

The ambulance had gone ahead.

I followed it in my own car with the heater off, because I had forgotten to turn it on.

At the emergency room desk, a nurse took one look at me and said, "Is there someone we can call for you? Family?"

I said, "Her sister."

I had called Claire from the waiting room.

She picked up on the first ring.

I remembered that now, and it was a small cold thing in my chest.

I had said, Claire, it's Laura, she's been in an accident, and Claire had said, Oh my God, I'm coming, and she had been there in six minutes.

Six minutes, from her apartment on Orchard Street, in the snow.

I lifted my head.

I could see her walking in through the sliding doors.

Her hair was wet at the ends.

Her good boots were soaked, with mud on the toes and up the side, the way boots get when you climb down a bank.

She had her coat buttoned wrong.

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