"The 'what if,'" Leo explained. "Not the crash. The moment before. The one he never had."

"My brother," she said, voice tight. "The logbook said he swerved to miss a deer. But I know the truth. He fell asleep. Sixteen-hour haul, no sleep, just coffee and grit."

She pushed a photo across the counter. A man, grinning, arm out a truck window.

The needle buzzed, a familiar hymn in the small, grease-scented shop. Leo, owner of "Asphalt Ink," wasn't sketching skulls or flames today. Across from him sat Maya, clutching a worn leather steering wheel cover like a rosary.

Leo nodded. He didn't draw a tombstone or angel wings. Instead, he sketched a single, cracked trucker's side mirror. In its reflection: a pair of wide, tired eyes and a deer standing calmly in the road.