Everybody looks at my clothes like they are trying to figure out what I am underneath. You don’t see people like me every day.

If I left the store and followed someone for real, they would notice me right away, with my gypsy skirt and bright scarf. But I don’t need to do that.

I just shut my eyes and see.

So I saw the little boy riding in the car, stopping at the corner where the Starbucks was. It’s not like a camera; you can’t zoom in and pan through your vision until you find what you need to see. It just comes to you, limited, sometimes in pieces. And this time, I saw the boy, waiting, dangling his feet, kicking them until one blue sneaker fell off.

And then the man, the man with the shaggy hair in the back, clothes rumpled like a homeless veteran, lifting him out of his seat, running across the street and behind an idling bus painted red, where his gray car was parked.

The bus blocked the view of the car. But I saw. I saw the first three letters of the license plate—BMT—before he left.

But I never saw the boy’s mother. I never heard her scream.

Where were you, Carrie Morgan? I see you everywhere: on the covers of newspapers, on the local news. Anyone who wanted to memorize your face, the way you walk, could do it on YouTube, with all the clips they have of you now. Your pretty hair and your blank expression, like a pale chalkboard.

Am I the only one who knows you weren’t there?

Everyone says if you can see it before it happens, you can stop it.

But all I can see is the after, always.

That’s why hardly anyone wants to pay for the after. And why they’ll pay almost anything for the before.