EPILOGUEFriday, November 6, 1987
Walking carefully between the precariously stacked rows of full shopping bags, and piled books that comprised all she’d wanted to take away from the house of her grandmother—all that she could bear to take with her—Anna Sudek carried the bundle of letters the postman had just left in her mailbox into the dining room. One of Arlene Campbell’s cats was rattling the bathroom doorknob, and a fuzzy orange paw snaked out through the narrow space between the bathroom and the floor. Over her shoulder, Anna warned, “You be good in there,” glad that Arlene’s dogs did little more than sleep away the day, as she made her way to the cluttered dining room table, near where Bruiser was sitting on a big box of books. He silently watched her open and set aside the letter f
