Mrs. Wiley anchored herself directly behind Mother, like a wooden frame, and Uncle Arpad clasped Father’s elbow. I was standing in between them—on my own, I supposed; reality had skewed for me. The beauty of the wintry scene that surrounded us kept getting cut, sliced by a knife. At these moments the finality of her death—the knowledge that the box before us held my sister’s dead body—would overcome me.
