Mary hadn’t thought about the trailer where she and Brian had lived together. Now, though, she couldn’t get it out of her mind. She saw over and over a forlorn picture of the trailer house standing empty on the prairie. She thought about all of their things still there, silently waiting, about how they had left the house the morning of the accident to visit Brian’s cousins in Oconto. She could not remember in what condition she had left the trailer. Had she made their bed? Had she washed their cereal dishes, or were they still sitting dirty in the sink? All this time later had the rooms been left undisturbed, their life together caught in mid-motion? Or had Iris gone into the trailer and cleaned up? Mary could see Iris going to the door of the trailer with that intention but stopping short of crossing the threshold, too intimidated by the powerful memories lurking there.

Some of Mary’s friends who had come to visit her after she got married thought it was a terrible set up, living in her in-laws back yard like that and in a dumpy old trailer house to boot, but Mary hadn’t thought about it that way at all. Gus and Iris and the boys had always been respectful. They never came to the trailer unless invited, and the truth was, she and Brian didn’t spend much time there except nights anyway. They ate most of their meals at the main house, spent most days working outside. It had been exactly what Mary had wanted for her life, a dream in fact.