I did not leave immediately.
That was the first decision, made quietly on Wednesday afternoon while the house was still processing Victor’s address and the particular silence that had settled over it afterward, each person retreating to their separate corners to do whatever they needed to do with what had just been said in the dining room.
I went to my room and sat at my desk with the folded address in my hand and thought about what going to New Mexico required and what it meant to do it correctly rather than urgently.
Urgency was understandable. The address had been sitting in Victor’s jacket for three years. Sophia Reyes had been in Las Cruces for eight. The time already elapsed was significant and the instinct to eliminate the remaining distance as rapidly as possible was strong and
