The car smelled faintly of old coffee and the vanilla air freshener Ryan had bought when we first purchased it.
I checked the temperature on my phone.
Forty-three degrees.
I pulled the sweatshirt over my knees and tucked the blanket around my shoulders.
At two in the morning, headlights swept across the parking lot.
A silver SUV turned into the space beside my car.
I recognized it immediately.
Margaret’s vehicle.
For one strange second, I thought I was dreaming.
Then the driver’s door opened.
Margaret stepped out wearing a bathrobe over her pajamas, slippers on her feet, and her hair pulled into a loose knot.
She looked around the parking lot as though searching for someone.
Then she saw me.
She stopped.
Her face changed so quickly that I would remember it for the rest of my life.
First confusion.
Then disbelief.
Then a kind of horror I had never seen on another person’s face.
