The innocence of the contents and the alarm of the weight were, it turned out, the same fact seen from two directions.

I froze with the mattress corner still in my hand.

Down in the kitchen, the coffee grinder chose that exact moment to start up, its loud comfortable rattle filling the house, the most normal sound in the world, the sound of an ordinary weekend morning proceeding exactly as ordinary weekend mornings do.

And I stood there, frozen, one hand on a lifted mattress, my heart doing something odd in my chest, and I told myself to calm down.

“Okay, Brenda,” I whispered.