I shook Gunther. “There must be some opening, hole, seam, where we could breathe fresh air, even if we had to take turns,” I said. My legs felt as if they were cast from iron, my arms from lead.

He said nothing, which gave me hope, because each prior time I’d suggested something, he’d scoffed.

I said, “Listen, you can stay alive underwater if you just have a straw. All I’m asking for is a straw.”

He said, “It’s not like being underwater. The carbon monoxide invades, it’s a poison.”

I begged him. “A crack! I’ll take anything.” I put my mouth by his ear and whispered, “I don’t want her to die without hope.” At this point, I was no longer looking for the way out. I was looking for whatever might make Gail think there was a way out.

“It won’t save us,” said Gunther. He crawled on his hands and knees, as I followed him, to the left front corner of the trailer. He pointed to a tiny seam in the metal. “Here. This little join. It was soldered to be airtight, but the solder must have been cheap—it came off. I put five layers of medical tape over it, on the outside.”

I probed the corner with the nail of my pinkie finger, which clicked against an edge of metal. “Do you have a knife?” I asked him. “A fountain pen? Anything small or sharp? I just want to make a breathing hole.”

I knew the answer was that he had nothing.

“Bring Gail over here,” I ordered. He didn’t move. I grabbed his throat. “Bring her over or you’ll go to Valhalla with your balls shot off.”

He crawled back toward Gail.

While he did, I held the barrel of the gun down against the corner of the truck. The seam in the corner was no bigger than a dime. All I could hope to do was pierce the medical tape that covered the tiny crevice on the outside of the truck. I took a breath and held the gun down hard, clamping my left hand on my right, vowing not to let the gun recoil.

I screamed my daughter’s name for willpower as I pulled the trigger. The gun exploded, and I felt a kind of pain I’d never known before. I couldn’t tell if I’d sprained, broken, or shattered my right wrist. But there was such pain.

I bent down to feel the scorched metal with my left pinkie finger. The shot had opened up the corner join just a little.