Dorothy waved from her porch when Clare's car pulled in. Her expression was the particular combination of concern and relief that belongs to people who have been watching something frightening resolve itself from a safe distance. Clare stood in her driveway for a moment before going inside. Just stood there looking at the house at the yard at the garage. Taking in the fact that it was still standing, that it was still hers.
I stood next to her and didn't say anything. The garage will have to come down eventually. She said. I can't. I'm not going to be able to use it for anything.
Not after knowing what's in the floor. One thing at a time. Yes. She turned toward the house. One thing at a time.
Inside the house was exactly as she'd left it Tuesday morning before the world changed. A coffee cup in the drying rack. A cross word puzzle half finished on the kitchen table. A cardigan over the back of a chair. The ordinary evidence of an ordinary life that had been interrupted by something extraordinary and then 24 hours later had been returned to its owner with everything still in its place and nothing feeling quite the same.
She put the kettle on. I sat at the kitchen table. Tell me what they said at the meeting, she said. All of it, I told her. The planning commission member, the 47 documented disposal events, the 11 years the operation had been running.
Evan's investigation beginning two years in when the contamination was already substantial. She stood at the counter with her back to me while I talked, filling the kettle, getting mugs down from the cabinet, processing the way she always processed by continuing to do the next small necessary thing. When I finished, she brought the mugs to the table and sat down. 47 Events, she said, over 11 years on land 12 mi from where my brother was doing environmental compliance work. He would have encountered it professionally, I said.
Eventually, or someone tipped him off. Either way, when he found it, he did what he always did when he thought something was wrong. He couldn't let it go. No. She wrapped her hands around her mug, and then he died on a road he'd driven a thousand times.
She looked at the steam rising from the tea. Torres told me this morning that the investigation into Evans accident has been formally reopened. As part of the overall case, she said it carefully like she was placing each word in exactly the right position. She said they can't confirm anything yet, but they're looking at it. I kept my voice steady.
How are you with that? I don't know. I've been not knowing that for 9 years. Having it officially not known somehow feels different from just quietly not knowing it by myself. She looked up.
Does that make sense? It makes complete sense. If it wasn't an accident, she stopped, started again. If it wasn't an accident, then the people responsible are already in custody for other things. And I don't know whether that makes it better or worse or just differently terrible.