"That's not the same answer you would've given before," Vivian observed. Morgan smiled. "Before, I'd have said I was fine even if I wasn't." Vivian nodded and passed her a folder, then reminded her that she was taking the weekend off regardless of what she found inside.
Morgan went to Maryland that weekend. Raymond had invited a few neighbors for dinner, promising that he would not put her in front of them as a public speaker. He kept his promise, though one guest asked whether the expensive car had finally been repaired. Morgan said it had, and a lively conversation about automobiles took over the table before anyone could ask about Nolan.
After dinner, her father led her into the garage and showed her the old Honda Accord's license plate mounted on the wall. The car itself had been sold years ago, but Raymond had kept the plate because it reminded him of teaching Morgan to drive. He ran a thumb along its edge and said he was sorry that so much of his instruction had been about what might go wrong. Morgan told him the lessons had helped her stay alive, and that she loved him for wanting to prepare her.
"I just wish I'd been able to teach you more about enjoying the drive," he said. Morgan thought of the Senna in her own garage, of the first time she heard its engine, and of the careful happiness she was learning to reclaim. "You did," she answered. "That's why I kept going."
Several months later, Morgan drove south for a meeting in Richmond and chose Interstate 85 for part of the return journey. It was not the most direct route to Arlington, but she wanted to see the place in ordinary daylight without an investigation team or a television camera beside her. She brought water, checked the weather, and loaded the same jazz playlist she had used on the morning of the stop. The McLaren ran smoothly beneath her hands, its repaired window showing only sky and trees.
She passed broad fields, service exits, and tractor-trailers hauling ordinary freight. Near the stretch of shoulder where the incident had occurred, she noticed that the pavement had been resurfaced and the road markings were brighter than she remembered. Nothing identified the spot as important, and nobody had built a monument to her experience. Drivers passed without knowing they were crossing a place that had changed several people's lives.
Morgan felt her stomach tighten as the location approached. She checked her mirrors and the speedometer, then breathed slowly until the sensation passed. She was not the same person she had been before the stop, and she no longer believed healing meant pretending otherwise. She could remember what happened without surrendering the rest of the road to the memory.