I remember gripping the wheel so hard my knuckles went white.

I remember the road, and the terrible slowness of it, the way distance becomes an enemy when your child is on the other end of it.

And I remember keeping Lily on speaker whenever the signal held, because I was not going to let her be alone in that kitchen for one second more than I had to.

I kept my voice level the whole way, because that was the one thing I could still do for her from a moving truck.

I talked her through it like I would talk a handler through a crisis.