Raymond did not answer. He slid out of the passenger seat, leaving the door slightly ajar as he stepped back into the gravel of the shoulder.
“You take care now, Margaret,” he said.
He turned and walked toward the tree line, his figure blurring into the deep shadows of the pines before I could even open my mouth to call him back.
I stared at the photograph on the seat, my mind racing as I looked at the handwritten address. The realization settled over me like a cold draft that the man in the tattered coat knew my name without me ever having told him.
By eight the next morning, the smell of damp pine needles still clung to my winter coat on the wooden peg by the back door, but the kitchen smelled only of toast. Evelyn set her heavy brass magnifying glass on the oilcloth table and polished her reading glasses with the hem of her blue cardigan. Outside, the autumn wind was shaking the last dry maple leaves onto the lawn.
The Polaroid lay between us, its white border yellowed like an old tooth. I watched her hand, liver-spotted and steady, as she slid the glass over the glossy surface.
“Look right there,” Evelyn said, her voice dry and precise. “Just behind the boy’s shoulder, where the gravel turns to weeds.”
I leaned down until my nose nearly touched the glossy paper, squinting at the dark shape in the background blur. My bare ring finger felt cold, and I rubbed the spot where the gold band used to sit before I took it off three years ago.
“It is just a car, Evelyn,” I said, pausing before I spoke.
“Not just any car,” Evelyn said. She tapped the brass edge of the magnifying glass against the table with a sharp click. “That is a Ford Crown Victoria, white with a blue stripe. Look at the lower corner of the rear fender.”
A tiny yellow smudge sat on the chrome bumper, no larger than a grain of corn.
