“Twice is not the number you think it is.

Twice is what I had left.”

Then she got up and went into the back of the house and came out with a box.

Part Eight: The Box

It was a cigar box.

Not an heirloom, not anything — a wooden cigar box with a hinged lid, the kind that costs four dollars at a craft store, with the varnish worn off one corner from being opened.

She put it on the kitchen table between us and did not open it.