“You’re funny,” he says. His smile looks lopsided, creaky, like it hasn’t been used in some time. “I was always afraid Olivia was going to get herself shut in. At least she can’t suffocate, now.” He shows Dee the holes that are drilled in the lid.

“Pretty,” she says, running her finger across one of the blankets. It is yellow, with a pattern of blue butterflies on it, and it is like a duckling’s back to the touch.

He closes the lid of the freezer slowly but steadily, so that she has to remove her hand. As he does, she notices the fading bruising on his forearm, his swollen hand.

“Hey, you’re hurt,” she says. “How’d that happen?”

“The car door closes on my arm,” he says. “Closed, I mean. I was parked on a hill. At least it’s not broken, I guess.”

She makes a wincing face. “Still hurts, I bet. I broke my arm once. It was so awkward, you know, opening jars and stuff like that. Are you right-handed? If you need help, let me know.”

“Uh,” he says. She lets the ensuing silence stretch. “What do you do?” he asks eventually.

“I wanted to be a dancer once,” Dee says. “I’m nothing, now.” Strange that this is the first time she has allowed herself to admit it out loud.

He nods. “I wanted to be a cook. Life.”

“Life,” she says.

At the door, she shakes his hand. “Bye, Ted.”

“Did I tell you my name?” he asks. “I don’t remember doing that.”

“It’s on your shirt.”

“I used to work at an auto shop,” he says. “I guess I got used to the shirt.” Manual labor or unemployed.

“Anyway, thanks,” Dee says. “You’ve been very neighborly. I won’t bother you again, I promise.”

“Any time.” Then he looks alarmed. He locks the door quickly behind her.

Thunk, thunk, thunk.

She walks back slowly across the parched yard. He’s watching her as she goes, of course. She feels the weight of his eyes on her back. It takes all her restraint not to run. The encounter has shaken her more than she expected. She had been sure he wouldn’t let her in.

Dee closes her front door behind her with trembling hands and sits down on the dusty floor with her back against it. She tries to breathe, to calm herself, but she seems to have handed her body over to someone else. Her hands clench and unclench. Hot tides crawl across her skull. A sawing gasp comes from her throat. Her heart thumps in her ears. A panic attack, she thinks vaguely. Got to get it together. But it’s like sinking deeper and deeper into a sand dune; she can’t just climb out.