“I promised her!”
Another crash came from inside.
Smoke poured through the broken windows.
Grandma watched firefighters disappear into it.
Then someone guided her away from the entrance.
She remembered sitting on the curb.
The green coat lay across her knees.
Her hands were black with soot.
She waited.
And waited.
But nobody came to tell her about the woman.
The boy had already been taken away.
Grandma didn’t know his name.
Or his mother’s.
She was shaking so badly that when a stranger offered to take her home, she accepted.
She carried the coat with her.
She never returned to ask about it.
“All these years,” Grandma whispered, “I can still hear that ceiling coming down.”
The manager lowered the photograph.
I held Grandma’s arm.
She was trembling again.
“I heard that crash,” she said. “Right where I left her.”
Her voice broke.
“I promised I’d go back.”
