But it offered something she had not expected to find.
A reminder that the event had not existed only within her private memory.
Other people had been affected. Other people had carried their own questions, their own sadness, and their own understanding of what the accident meant.
Someone had wanted to acknowledge that experience.
Someone had taken the time to create a memorial, not to deny the pain associated with the location, but to recognize it.
The discovery made the place feel different.
For years, Elira had thought of it primarily as the location where something terrible had happened. Whenever she remembered it, her thoughts moved toward the accident and the changes it had brought into her life.
The place had become inseparable from the moment that had divided her life into before and after.
Now she could see that the location also held another story.
There had been people who cared enough to remember.
