Now Kelly was holding a piece of evidence that had disappeared from that night.
I took a slow breath.
“We don't have to solve anything right this minute.”
Kelly began crying.
“I remember a girl.”
I remained quiet.
She looked toward the bracelet.
“Not everything. Just pieces.”
I nodded.
She continued.
“A car. Glass. Someone shouting.”
Her breathing quickened.
I moved the wooden chair closer but didn't touch her.
“You're here, Kelly. You're safe.”
She looked at me.
“I know.”
Then she closed her eyes.
“There was a woman in the front seat.”
My chest tightened.
Kelly continued.
“I remember her hair. Brown. And something yellow around her neck.”
Hannah's scarf.
The mustard-yellow scarf she'd worn every winter since our first Christmas together.
My fingers tightened against my knees.
Kelly opened her eyes.
“Jeffrey, are you okay?”
I tried to answer.
Couldn't.
Finally, I nodded.
She looked frightened.
“Maybe I'm wrong.”
I swallowed.
“It's possible some details are uncertain.”
She stared.
“But the bracelet is real,” I continued. “We can find out where it came from without relying only on memory.”
Kelly nodded slowly.
Then she began describing the little she remembered.
She had been eighteen.
Working as an apprentice at a flower shop several miles from our neighborhood.
On the night of the accident, she'd finished a late delivery and was walking toward a bus stop near the intersection.
She remembered an engine revving.
A horn.
Then a terrible crash.
The next moments were difficult to place in order.
She remembered running toward a vehicle.
A little girl crying.
A door that wouldn't open.
And a silver horse bracelet caught against something beneath her sleeve.
Then pain.
Bright lights.
Voices.
And waking in a hospital with no clear idea how she'd arrived there.
Kelly lowered her eyes.
“I always knew I was hurt in a road accident. But I didn't remember there was a child.”
I sat very still.
She continued.
“After the hospital, I had nightmares about a car door and a little horse. Sometimes I could hear crying.”
Her fingers moved over the bracelet.
“I thought it was just my mind putting things together.”
I nodded.
“Dreams and fragments can be hard to interpret.”
She looked toward me.
“You believe me?”
I chose my words carefully.
“I believe you're telling me what you're experiencing. And I believe we should investigate the bracelet and the circumstances without pressuring you to remember more.”