Part I

I call her

"Whatcha doing? Tyler wants to see you," I say.

"I'm leaving to take Mike his lunch. I can stop by after. About an hour and a half," she says.

The phone rings

"Is this Mrs. Decker?" the voice says.

"She's not here. Can I take a message?" I say.

"She's Nathan's maternal grandmother?"

"Why?"

"This is 9-1-1. She needs to go to the hospital immediately."

"Oh, my God. What's wrong?"

"She needs to go to the hospital."

I'm pacing

"Tammy? She didn't make it," Mom says on the phone. I hear her choking.

I fall, my knees and elbows bang on the floor. Tyler's above me, sobbing, with her hands in my hair. I can't see. I can't breathe.

"Mom? You’re screaming," Tyler says.

I feel for the phone. "Nathan?" I ask.

"He's okay. They have him in x-ray."

"Does he know?"

"Not yet."

At the hospital

"He's asking for you," Mom says.

Nathan's fingers are white from gripping the picture. He's wailing. "I miss my mommy."

The police

"She ran the stop sign...."

"Flatbed truck...."

"Under the wheels...."

"It was instantaneous...."

"Nathan climbed through the windshield...."

"Yelled for help...."

"You shouldn't see the car...."

"You don't want the contents...."

In my mind I see her now, twisted and red.

People we didn't know we knew

"Thought you might need groceries."

"I have some clothes for you."

"Drove by the accident. It was bad. Didn't know it was her."

Nathan

"I miss my mommy."

"I know, honey. I miss her, too."

"Aunt Tammy, can I call you mommy now?"

Part II

I don't understand. "Why do you keep calling her 'the body'?"

"Because it gives us distance," they say.

I don't want distance. I refuse to call her "the body".

Everything I touch is her. I open the freezer and she's standing with me getting meat to take home because money's short. I turn on the radio and she comes running down the stairs yelling, "Oh my God! Shawn doesn't know who Annie Lennox is!" I sit on the couch and she’s sitting with me laughing about eyeballs exploding in elevators and hair that screams infidelities. I walk through the living room and I'm on the floor again screaming because she's dead, she's dead, she's dead!

People bring food. I haven't eaten in two days.

It was all over the news. I didn't see any of the broadcasts, but I looked it up online. They got the story all wrong. The newspaper put a picture of it on the front page. I didn't look at it. I pulled it off and got rid of it while I struggled to keep from throwing up. As we drove around trying to take care of the business of her death, we had to be careful to stay away from the newspaper stands so Nathan wouldn't see the picture. He remembers everything. He sees her laying there crushed and bloody.

I don't want to know every detail of the accident yet. But I want to know if she was wearing her sunglasses. If her hair was up or down. I want to know if she was smoking a cigarette, and if so, what happened to it?

Tyler asks me why I keep asking questions like that. I tell her it's because I can't know what I really want to know.

Part III

“I can’t. I can’t do this.”

Hands are in my face and under my arms, pulling me off the floor.

“Shhh…it’s okay. You don’t have to.”

They’re waiting for the speech. I see them packed in the church and standing in the doorways. I see the pastor who preaches about sin and redemption as the crowd nods. They didn’t know her.

They line up to offer condolences. “I’m so sorry,” they say before the small talk. Everyone is smiling.

Part IV

A wreath made of plastic flowers and a place mat hangs from the broken bark of the tree where her car landed. A styrofoam cross sticks out of a rut made by her tires. I stare at the intersection and wonder where she was when she last breathed. There are no skid marks.

Charred and bent pieces are everywhere – a crimson fender, an engine hose, a food container from Mike’s lunch. I walk down the road, picking up the pieces and carrying them back to the tree. I leave them next to a patch of violets. It's time to go home.