Cutler walked up the wet concrete driveway toward the side of the house. In the past thirteen years nothing had changed. The clapboard was still painted the same sundown-tinted beige. The window frames were still green. There was the rust on the wire screen in the side door. The garbage cans were in the same place. The grass along the back was still bright, well cared for, freshly mown. The car was different. Not the black, four-door, big-block Buick Century that would have been at least twenty years old by now, but a freshly washed, silver-gray, two-year-old vw Jetta, water dripping off its fenders, sitting mute under the carport roof. A white plastic bucket with a small sponge floating in soapy water sat by the steps.
He went to the door, knocked, and a young blonde girl with short hair opened the screen door and looked out.
He asked if the Moss family still lived there. “Beverly Moss?”
The girl, still holding the door open, looked at him.
She smiled.
“No,” she said. “She hasn’t lived here for a number of years.”
“You have any idea where she went?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t.”
“Okay, thanks.”
“Hey,” she said, “you’re doing the right thing.”
Cutler didn’t know what she meant. He saw she was a very sweet-looking girl, a little older than he first thought, maybe twenty-one or twenty-two years old. The blond hair was natural and roughly cut. She had a pair of yellow rubber gloves on and was barefoot and wore white shorts and a faded blue T-shirt.
“How is that?”
“You find someone and you spend your life loving them. That’s all there is,” she said.
She smiled at him again and closed the door.