The world went still.
My mother gripped the doorframe.
“What?” she whispered.
Fire Marshal Briggs looked at me with a gentleness that made me want to run.
“Caleb was there the night your house burned down,” he said. “And there’s something you need to hear.”
My whole body went cold.
Behind the officers, Vivian Turner began to cry without making a sound.
Richard did not move.
My mother let them inside because what else could she do? You cannot leave the past standing on your porch forever. Eventually, it enters.
They sat in our yellow kitchen.
The same kitchen.
Not the same cabinets, not the same stove, not the same floor, but the same room where my life had split into before and after. My mother and I sat on one side of the table. Officer Hale and Fire Marshal Briggs sat across from us. Richard Turner stood near the doorway like a man refusing to belong to the room. Vivian sat with her hands locked around her purse.
