His car was in front of it.

That was the thing that made it real.

Not the receipt — a receipt is paper.

It was the silver Corolla with the dent in the rear quarter panel from a shopping cart in the Wegmans lot in 2019, parked in a numbered space, sixteen feet from a door.

We went up the outside stairs.

I could hear him before we got to the door.

Not words — the tone.