It was that I decided, on my own, in 2012 and again in 2013, what my six daughters were allowed to know about their own mother, and then I spent twelve years defending the decision by not mentioning it.

And the cost of that did not land on me.

It landed on a twenty-six-year-old in a parking lot at twenty to midnight, and on a thirteen-year-old who sat on a fact for two years because she could not find an adult in her own family who wanted it.

The crate is still in my garage.

Manny asked me again last month whether he could break it down for the plywood and I said not yet, and he laughed and said, “Emil, it’s been a year and a half,” and I said I know.

It has a piano hinge running the full width of the back.