Not me.

The family.

The lid came down, and the light disappeared.

PART 2 — The Woman on the Shoulder

At first I heard the van rather than felt it: a door shutting, the engine starting, tires moving over gravel.

Then the vibration reached the wood beneath my back.

I kept one hand near my stomach and the other against the inside of the lid.

I could not tell how it was fastened from where I lay.