Vanzant? There’s been an accident.…” The words are burned into my brain—the tone, their inflection, every one of them a bullet to the heart. In the first few days following Sam’s death, those words spoken by the police officer at my door resounded like a maniacal loop designed to kill me by way of insanity. And on every anniversary since, they have been the first words that wake me up, almost as if they’ve been programmed to do so, regardless of whether I know what day it is. Four years. Four years since Sam went out for a bottle of sparkling cider, a meaningless detail of our anniversary dinner that he’d refused to ignore, and never came home. Nine years since our wedding day. Nine years since I nearly skipped with glee down the aisle to greet him—he looked ridiculously handsome in his black tuxedo with white silk tie in a Windsor knot. And I, in a plain yet elegant Vera Wang gown, with my hair fixed in a French twist, sans veil. Sam was shaking so much he had nearly dropped the ring just as he was about to place it on my finger.
