Look at her! The most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, teasing him so!

I’ve already gone through this, Wayne thought. This isn’t fair.

The army bag was getting heavy. He zipped it up and brought it to the front door. Then he went back into the closet and grabbed a brown suitcase from the floor. Next to the suitcase he saw a pair of Molly’s shoes. He got to his knees. There were six pairs in all including his favorite: a yellow pair of heels that somehow brought out the green in her eyes, from all the way down there.

There was a book about North American birds on the floor next to the shoes. He fit it snugly into the case. Her binoculars, too.

Her camera.

Shit.

There was an undeveloped roll inside the camera from the day before Molly died. Wayne hadn’t discovered it until a week after she was gone. The roll was from a trip the two took to Lake Oslow. A day they took turns flashing the camera on their naked bodies on the beach.

Nobody, she said, sees these.

And every time he’d seen the camera, or thought about it, he thought how, if he developed that roll, he’d get to see her again naked one more time.

“Molly…”

He felt his pants getting tighter. Nothing turned him on like Molly did.

He packed the camera into the suitcase, latched it shut, and carried it to the front door.

Then he went into the hall closet and found a big duffel bag mashed into the back corner.

Then he grabbed everything.

Towels, her toothbrush, her family photo albums, underwear, socks, sunglasses, gloves, hats, handbags, her pillow (that had stayed on her side of the bed for the twelve years since she’d died), a grocery list, receipts, her checkbook, a pair of scissors she used to clip phone numbers from the phone book, a keychain with her name on it, coats, boots, nylons, maxi pads, deodorant.

Everything.

Wayne was sweating. He was starting to work in that frenzied distant state in which he’d built The Hedges so long ago. When he did this he was a much different-looking man than the easygoing proprietor who sold that little girl an eight-dollar ticket forty billion years ago.

Big or small, all projects felt the same size to him, whether it was erecting Neal and Barbara’s topiaries on their front lawn, clipping the boots of Jonathan Trachtenbroit at the city gates, or constructing The Hedges themselves.

Even packing a bag full of Molly’s things was an artistic accomplishment, perhaps even more satisfying than the others.

Wayne sweated. Wayne thought. Wayne worked.

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