It’s raining the day we bury my grandfather.  He was just seventy, celebrated that milestone birthday the month before I moved away to begin university.  My grandmother was the one to find him.  He’d probably been dead for a couple hours by then.  He always got up early, four-thirty or five, and showered in the downstairs bathroom so he wouldn’t disturb anyone.  I realize this makes him sound like some sort of kind person who always put the needs of others before himself.

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The frost on the window is thick enough for Annie to scrawl her name in, but she doesn’t dare.  She wears jeans and a black turtleneck and a denim jacket with frayed cuffs.  She shivers, a long tremor that starts at her shoulders and slides down the length of her body, exiting the soles of her feet like lightening.

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