Rose noses around the scraggly yard. Hatred boils up inside her. She hates the house and the city. She hates Longwood and pink nightgowns. She hates Harley for dumping her in an alien suburb, then waltzing off to celebrate his eightieth birthday and never coming back. She hates that she’ll never see him again, that his remains—or what remained of his remains—were cremated and mailed to her in a box with a plain brown paper wrapper. She hates that she cannot feel the loss of him, cannot measure the hole that yawns in her heart waiting for her to tumble in.

Under a leggy azalea bush, she finds a broken brick. It will serve.

Brick in hand, she stalks back to the side of the house. Over the kitchen sink is a paned window. Viciously, she hurls the brick through the glass. Vandalism—even on property she owns—feels good. She finds another piece of brick and, none too gently, smashes out the shards of glass embedded in the window frame. Were she not a mere shadow of herself, she would rip the frame from the brick.

Using fury to a practical end, Rose scrambles through the window over the sink, then drags her feet and legs inside. Sitting on the counter, she draws a shaky breath. Running from cops and breaking and entering take it out of a person. She sits and breathes until she is fairly sure that when she slides off the counter, she won’t fall in a heap on the tile floor.

And break a hip.

Isn’t that how this scene plays out?

Negative thoughts, she admonishes herself.

Though quivering like an electric wire in a gale, she manages to stand. Her body wants to rest, but her mind is restless. Wandering into the dining area, then the living room, she touches boxes, leaving finger marks in the accumulated dust. A few half-formed memories surface of the day they moved in: Harley lifting crates, the weight of which made her cringe. Flynn panicking when she climbed up onto the roof to clean out the gutters. Melanie coming over after school. Nancy bringing her son and ex-husband sandwiches.

Mostly Rose remembers that queasy feeling you get when you realize you’ve made a huge mistake. She remembers wondering if Harley would be too upset if she called their New Orleans Realtor and asked her to take their house off the market.

Has it sold yet?

Probably.

Using the rail more than she would have before Longwood, the flu, drugs, and possibly a mental breakdown, Rose climbs the stairs. Off a landing that takes up more square footage than it should are three small bedrooms and two baths. Two of the bedrooms are filled with boxes. The New Orleans house was considerably larger. Neither she nor Harley downsized as much as they needed to.