I carried the box to the front register and paid for the ice cream with a ten-dollar bill from my own wallet.

I slipped the receipt into my pocket next to the bank printout.

By four o’clock, the autumn air was turning cold.

I sat in my parked Buick down the block from the Elm Street house.

Dead brown leaves blew across the asphalt and stuck to my windshield.

I kept the engine off and waited in silence.

The streetlights flickered on early under the gray sky.

The Elm Street house looked exactly the way it had when Laura was alive.