“You’re a good girl,” he said. “Now take this stuff away. I don’t want it. I’m going to write you a letter. I’ll try to explain a few things. Good-by, Ann.”

She walked home, dragging her feet, aching with fatigue. Sigrid was in Joe’s room. From the road, Annie could see her through the open door sorting out clothes. She wished it were a week later, a year later.

On the narrow cot were two or three shirts, some boxer shorts, an old black cardigan with a raveled sleeve. As Annie came in, Sigrid swept some toiletries off a wooden shelf into a paper bag. One book lay on the floor. It was a Boy Scout handbook and there was a ragged marker of newspaper at a chapter on knot-making. When Sigrid moved the pillow, Annie found a length of line with which Joe had apparently been practicing knots.

She pulled one end of the rope and the half-knot gave way—Joe’s life went in her hands. An involuntary gasp escaped her. Sigrid looked up from a scuffed suitcase she was emptying. Her face was blank of expression. Perhaps the whole family was like that—snow-faced.

“My family’s going down the drain,” the gitl said. “I called relatives all afternoon from the police station. The ones that haven’t got phones got the news from the ones who have. They’re sending money. I got to get the body up to L.A. and get it on a train. They want him buried out there with the rest of the Swedes. But there’s got to be an inquest. Because of the way…he’s at the undertaker’s now being rouged up, I guess. I don’t want to know what they’re doing. It doesn’t count. What’s hard is how am I going to get the body to L.A.? It costs too much with the limousine. What are you looking so sick about? It’s my brother not yours.”

“He was learning how to make knots.”