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there’s a place we can talk?”
    I closed my eyes. “What’s this about, Detective?”
    “Ma’am, I need to talk to you face-to-face about your husband, please. I’ll explain it all then.”
    I told him to meet me at the reception desk. I pushed myself up and grabbed my bag. My mind’s eye drew back, and I saw myself from a distance, a short woman covered in oozing concrete, squarish in a thick cement shroud. A chalky scent dried my nasal passages halfway into my skull. I tried to swallow, but couldn’t. My mouth tasted like writing “I won’t talk back to Mrs. Simpson” on the blackboard twenty times and cleaning erasers during recess, and I knew that whatever this detective had to tell me was my punishment, but for what, I didn’t know. If I did, I would take it back a thousand times and never do it again. I could be good. I
would
be good, so, so good. I willed my right leg forward, then my left.
    “Michele?” someone called out from the interior cubicles. A buzz had started and was building as I made my way past. How did they know?
    Another voice joined in. “Are you all right?”
    I couldn’t answer the questions they were lobbing at me. I could barely even walk. My legs were lead posts. My thoughts ricocheted. Am I still moving forward? Why is it so hard to see? Why is everyone staring at me? And why do I have to go listen to this detective tell me something I already know, something that can remain untrue if he just doesn’t say it?
    I came to a stop at Marsha’s desk, where a tall black man in khaki pants and a blue blazer was standing. He held up a badge.
    Marsha whispered, “Michele, this man is here to see you.”
    I nodded and motioned him toward the conference room with my hand, but I didn’t meet his eyes. He walked in front of me, but stepped back to let me enter first, then pulled the door shut behind him. I turned to face him.
    “I’m Detective Kevin Young.” His voice was even deeper in person than on the phone. He handed me his card, then pulled out a wallet. “Does this belong to your husband?”
    He handed me a square of black water-repellant material. I opened the Velcro closure and pulled out Adrian’s driver’s license and rubbed my fingertip over his picture. I tried to answer the detective, but my mouth was stuffed with something like chunks of the old foam pads Papa used to put under our sleeping bags when we went camping. My breaths became labored. I couldn’t talk with a mouth full of foam, so I nodded and stifled a gag.
    His bass voice rumbled. “This wallet was found in the pocket of the victim of a hit-and-run driver about two hours ago on Endicott, near Meyerland Plaza. The man matches the picture on this license. We believe it is your husband. I’m very sorry to tell you this, but he had no vital signs when the paramedics arrived. He was declared dead at the scene.”
    I kept nodding. The whole room had turned gray. I could barely see the detective now. Was he waiting for me to say something? He would be waiting a long time.
    He squinted hard at me. “He was on a bicycle when he was hit.”
    Hit and run. Bicycle. My mind started playing tricks on me and I saw Adrian in a bloody heap on the side of a country road, like the blond man we’d seen die. No. That hadn’t been Adrian then. And this couldn’t have happened to Adrian now. I wished the detective would just stop talking. I wanted to go home to see the tulips in the vase on my bedside table where my beautiful husband put them last night. To herd our bickering teenagers into the 4Runner for our family date. To deliver my anniversary surprise, to tell Adrian we were going to do Kona together. I wanted him. Adrian. My husband.
    “Ma’am? Can you hear me?”
    When I opened my eyes, all I could see was the ceiling. I shifted my gaze to the concerned face of a stranger. I sat up. My cheeks felt wet. I touched my face and my fingers found tears.
    “Can I call someone to come be with you, ma’am?”
    I shook