What Was Spared

"See? There are the angel wings."

She gestured to two white marks stretching out from either side of the back door where the fire bit the house.

They woke to smoke. Within five minutes, they were all outside and there was no going back in. Not for the twenty-five years of original scores written by her musician husband. Not for photos or flowers or mementos. The windows exploded as their neighbors banged on the house, yelling for them to get out.

She told us the story as we picked our way th...