He stayed there a minute, holding the letter. Then he opened the drawer and put the letter next to her heart-shaped locket and closed the drawer. Their wedding photo was sitting on the dresser in a silver frame. He didn’t mean to do it, but he looked at the spot where she’d hung, and she wasn’t there anymore.

He tramped across the snowy yard to the barn and tugged the door open on its rolling metal wheels. Frozen dirt floor. A tool cabinet with peeling red paint. He rifled through the aluminum drawers and, in the bottom one, his hand closed over cool metal. He withdrew it: a hammer. He stuck it in his back pocket. In the corner in the gloom, there was a rusted Coke machine next to an old bookcase and a puffy recliner couch. Flowered upholstery. The steel springs of the cushions exposed. This is where he used to read to me.

On the shelves the books were stiff from the cold and half lost in dust. He crouched and pulled out a paperback. He hadn’t known it was still here. This was my favorite book. I’d beg him to read it. All those warm gentle nights a bunch of summers ago, back when everything was good. He thumbed through the pages. Life lived on life. There were the eaters and the eaten. The law was: EAT OR BE EATEN.

Bleak daylight fell through the barn door. Grim as his heart.

White Fang knew the law well.

Later that summer, Dad had slouched on the couch and snorted crank and dreamed up big plans. The moon was high when Jack last saw him come thumping into the house with jumpy eyes and a blue vinyl briefcase. Two buckles on the top. Between them, a little brass latch. Dad had paced the floor for a handful of slippery minutes and twitched at shadows like a rabbit in an open field until some thought spooked him and he took off into the dark. When he got back, the briefcase wasn’t with him anymore. And then the cops came.

That briefcase could be anywhere.

In the kitchen, Jack spread out everything on the table and looked it over. He added three Hot Wheels. A Batman action figure and a deck of UNO cards—things Matty liked. He packed the duffel until it could hold no more and then looked to the window at the road. Somebody would be coming soon. A cruiser, or maybe Services. Probably anytime now.