Beyond the fence, there’s nothing. A gaping hole lined with mud.
This is where they found her.
I duck under the tape and step onto the lot. I walk to the center, near the edge of the dig, and look down at the rectangle of disturbed earth where my mother’s bones lay for eighteen years.
There used to be a record store here. That’s what she told me once, when I was seven or eight and we were looking at old photos. She pointed to a faded Polaroid of a storefront with a red awning and said, That’s where I met your father. I tripped while I was dancing and I fell into his arms. Can you believe that?
She chose this spot. She made my father promise to bring her here, to the place where it all started.
I sit down in the dirt. The shame is total. Not for anything I did to Lukas, though. That ha
