Frances sat slumped in the cruiser, the window half down, her waterproof makeup running in dark streaks, looking frail and ancient and defeated.

The empire she’d spent decades building had collapsed to ash in twenty minutes.

I didn’t feel a shred of pity.

As the Jeep was hauled up onto the flatbed and the silver bow tumbled off the hood into the dirt, I felt lighter than I had in forty years.

I remember the bow, specifically — the absurd silver bow, face-down in the dirt of my mother’s flawless driveway, while the car it had adorned swung slowly up a tow truck’s ramp.

It struck me as the truest image of the whole day.