Chapter 79

Billy popped the car door open and stepped out. He shivered a little, but from the emotion or the cool wind, he wasn’t sure. He was wearing his thin jean jacket and now he shut it tight, walking around the front of his green Mazda, closer to the ditch. For a strange moment, he thought he’d see his father’s limp and broken body lying down there. He froze and then looked back at his mother’s house—his old house—for courage.

Billy walked closer to the ditch and peered into the muddy trench full of dead leaves. How old had his father been when he’d died? Yes, he remembered now. Thirty-one years old. And he’d had a two-month old baby boy at home. Maybe his father had been walking that evening, thinking of his little son, of all the events and milestones that awaited them both, immersed in his thoughts, shrouded in the safety of his new fatherhood, feeling blessed and thrilled.

Or scared of the future?

And that car had struck him.