Upstairs are two ugly-but-pristine bedrooms, a linen closet that contains approximately one million hand-crocheted doilies, and a spotless, white-tiled bathroom with a cupboard empty but for a can of air freshener. I’m guessing the elderly couple living here didn’t make it up the stairs much.

I check the garage next. There’s a workbench, two bins full of children’s toys—for grandkids?—and a single car. It’s hard to see in the gloom, but it’s a large four-door sedan that looks like a brick on wheels. Maybe I’ll come back for it when Paul’s car gets low on gas. They certainly won’t be needing it anymore.

But no backpack. I go back inside, and my gaze settles reluctantly on a gigantic purse sitting on the kitchen counter beside a rotary phone. It’s covered in quilted material, printed with lime-green and fuchsia flowers. I upend the contents onto the counter—car keys, prescription bottles, cosmetics, a wallet, a small photo album, ballpoint pens, and an honest-to-god checkbook.

I shove the car keys into the pocket of my jeans. I’m about to turn away, but on impulse I grab the wallet and open it to the driver’s license.

Hazel Jenkins. Five foot five, one hundred forty pounds. Born July 21. She’s a withered apple with a shock of white hair. Something about her wide, wet grin makes me smile; it’s rimmed with runny hot pink lipstick, set off by eyes so crinkled they almost seem closed. She’s so alive in this photo, uncaring that her teeth are gray or that her hair sticks up at odd angles. Hazel Jenkins was a joyful person, and she loved pink.

I slide the driver’s license from the wallet and toss it into the floral purse.

“Let’s go, Emmy.” I grab the purse and head out the front door, Emmaline trotting behind.

The sky is wrong.

At first I think it’s the tinting of Paul’s SUV. But I roll down the driver’s side window, and the sky is the same: filling with clouds, but with a sickly greenish cast. It’s even hazier than yesterday, and my eyes ache from trying to focus through it. It smells of decomposing bodies, burned plastic, and wet fireplaces.

Smoke from yesterday’s explosion, I tell myself. That would explain the green tint, right?

Cautiously, I pull into the Tremont Shopping Center. The store windows are dark. Padlocked chains stretch across the doors of the supermarket. The parking lot is empty of everything except for patches of melting snow and a single Humvee in gray and white camouflage, parked near the pharmacy. I almost hit the brakes and turn around, but snow on the hood and a busted passenger side window indicate that the Humvee has been parked awhile.