“Not once a cashier’s check has been processed at the main branch,” Sarah said.

I picked up the white receipt and folded it twice before tucking it into my purse.

I stood in the bank lobby with my driver’s license in my hand while the line behind me moved on to the next window.

By six o’clock the warm late sun was turning the pale walls of Emma’s room a deep orange.

Cardboard boxes were stacked along the hall wall, their brown flaps taped shut.

I knelt by Emma’s white wooden closet, taking down little flowered dresses and laying them flat in an open carton.