The driveway to our house on Marigold Lane was beautiful in daylight, curved and edged with low boxwoods, one of the features that had made Caleb say, “This feels grown-up, doesn’t it?” when the realtor first brought us there. But at night, when everything else slept, those pale stones crunched under tires like an announcement. Caleb had always claimed he slept heavily. That wasn’t true. Caleb slept lightly when he wanted to. He could sleep through my alarm at 5:10 in the morning, sleep through the dog barking at the mail carrier, sleep through the dryer thumping with towels, and yet wake instantly if I came home early, if I opened a drawer he thought I shouldn’t be opening, if I asked why his phone was facedown again.
So I parked down the block under the maple tree in front of the Sandersons’ house.