I do not know why.

I think I could not bear to leave it on the seat, as if leaving it there would make it true.

I carried it up the walk in my fist, past the chairs and the wreaths, toward a house that had gone quiet the way houses do when everyone inside has agreed on a story and is waiting to see if you’ll believe it.

Chapter 2 — You Came Too Late

My mother came out of the house with her eyes swollen red and threw her arms around me before I was through the gate.

“You’re too late, Julius,” Helvi wept into my shoulder.

“Odile is gone.

Three days ago.

It was her own doing, sweetheart — she’d been so low for so long, and there was nothing any of us could do.”

The words did not fit into me.