At some point in the afternoon, the work of clearing her room began — the brisk, almost hungry efficiency with which families sometimes empty the rooms of the dead, as if putting the things in bags could put the grief in bags too.

And I came into the doorway just in time to see one of my brothers-in-law take up the old torn pillow from the bed, glance at it with distaste, and move to drop it into a black trash bag with the rest of what he had decided was worthless.

I crossed the room before I had decided to.

“Not that one,” I said, and I took it out of his hands.

He stared at me.