The Beginning of After

whole thing.”
    There was a big window adjacent to our front door, and I slowly drew aside the curtain, just a few inches, to see who it was.
    A police officer, holding his hat in his hands, looking down at his feet.
    That was it. The end of Before, and the beginning of After.
    Now I had a new mental image for unyoke .
    There weren’t many details about the accident for Lieutenant Roy Davis to explain to me. Things were said and things were asked, and suddenly I was sitting cross-legged on the living room floor, pushed down there by the weight of new information.
    My mother, father, and someone they assumed was my brother had been pronounced dead on arrival at Phillips Memorial Hospital.
    So had Mrs. Kaufman.
    Mr. Kaufman was in the emergency room. Not dead on arrival. More like pretty seriously messed up on arrival.
    Somehow, the new SUV had gone off the road, tumbled into a steep ditch, and caught fire. They didn’t know how, and they didn’t know why.
    These were simply facts with nowhere to go. Leaves fallen on the water, floating in clumps, too light to break the surface.
    And now, things just stopped, hard. Like the air; I couldn’t feel it moving around me anymore. Or my ability to swallow; I was sure that if I tried it, my throat would freeze up and get stuck like that forever. It was as if I was suddenly sealed up in a bubble where everything was completely and totally wrong, wrong, wrong and I had to get out.
    How do I get out? Can I take one big step and be on the other side of it? Maybe if I say something, anything , the whole thing will just POP.
    So I blurted the first thing that came to mind: “What should I do now?”
    Lieutenant Davis started to answer but stopped himself, biting his lip. Then I realized the scale of my question.
    “I mean, do I need to go to a morgue or someplace?” I said. “Do I need to sign something?”
    His face softened into a real sadness. “We do need someone to identify the . . . them . . . but it doesn’t have to be you. Is there a relative you’d like us to contact?”
    Nana. I thought of her getting home from dinner at her friend Sylvia’s house. Combing the hairspray out of her hair, wiping the Clinique off her lips. There was no way I was making that phone call.
    I gave Lieutenant Davis my grandmother’s number and handed him the phone.
    An hour later, I lay on the white couch in the living room, the one we used only when guests came over, with my head in Meg’s lap. Mrs. Dill, Meg’s mom, sat on the floor holding one of my hands. Theirs was the second number I had given Lieutenant Davis. Mr. Dill and Megan’s sister, Mary, were on their way north, a three-hour drive, to get my grandmother.
    “Just close your eyes and breathe,” said Mrs. Dill. “Just breathe.”
    All I could think was, Mrs. Dill smells a little like cranberry bread .
    Suzie Sirico showed up shortly after midnight. I hadn’t asked for her. I didn’t even know who she was. Lieutenant Davis said she was a grief counselor who sometimes worked with the police department. I tilted my head in Meg’s lap and looked at the woman sideways. She was short, with large features.
    “Hi, Laurel,” she said slowly. “I’m Suzie.”
    Mrs. Dill got up from the floor. “Can I get you some coffee?” she offered.
    “That would be wonderful, thanks.”
    They passed each other right then, switching positions like some careful team maneuver. Suzie squatted on the floor so we were at eye level.
    “I know we’ve never met,” said Suzie, pressing her lips together with seriousness, “but I’m hoping you’ll let me help you with whatever you need right now.”
    “There is something you can help me with right now,” I told her. “The cats are probably at the back door. Can you let them in?”
    Suzie Sirico cocked her head to one side and raised an eyebrow. Probably making a note on a mental pad. I didn’t care.
    “I’ll do it,” said Meg, and a second later she was gone into the kitchen.
    If this woman touches me , I thought, I will barf right here on the white couch .
    “Laurel, you’re clearly in shock, and that’s normal,” said Suzie, reaching for my hand but trying to balance in that squat position at the same time. “We don’t need to talk. I’m really just here to meet you and let you know that I’ll be available to you, for any reason, over the next days and weeks as you deal with what has happened to your family.”
    My family.
    The word hit me in the chest, a real