Sara would always remember the words, jagged and piercing:   An accident. On her way home from work. Two blocks from home.

Sara waited cautiously, hoping it was a wrong number

“Expired,” said the officer who announced himself as Ron.

Sara pictured a Marine: broad shouldered, crew cut, and matter of fact. “What? Her driver’s license expired?”

“Ms. St. James, are you listening?  She never knew what hit her.”

“Like all beautiful women,” she said.

Of all the words he might have chosen, expired seemed the least humane and most indifferent.  Why not call it what it was?  Permits expired; people died. Sara remained silent, almost without breathing, waiting for what he might say next. He did not say with business-like inflection: “We’ll need you to identify the body.” Nor did he, in a long-drawn out accent, offer the typical condolence: “Sorry for your loss, Miss Sara.”  Rather, he proclaimed his sympathy saying, “Bless your heart,” which her mother had always said was southern for you are in deep shit now.

“Shit,” Sara said, as she hung up the phone, for the woman who had been so obsessed with death was dead, not merely expired.