2008 · the drive home
Somebody hit her. Nobody stopped.
Walter was on his way back from teaching when he saw a small white stray get clipped by a car in the road ahead of him. The traffic kept moving. He pulled over, picked her up off the asphalt, and put her in his car.
She was already grown. Already on her own. Already had a whole life nobody has any record of. Best guess put her around two years old.
He called her Jenny and took her home. That was eighteen years ago.
She was supposed to die in that road. She has been alive for eighteen years since.