The Crate in the Parking Lot
And my daughter said, “It’s okay.
You don’t have to have a thing.”
Then Willa said, “Do you want to see Odie’s dress?
You can’t, she’d kill me.
But it’s really good.”
And Maren laughed — Willa says she laughed and then immediately stopped, like a person catching herself — and said, “No.
But thank you.”
And then she said: “I’m going to go and sit down at the back now, and I’m not going to talk to any of you today, and that’s on purpose.