“That ought’a hold her for now.”

I drop the car’s hood and slip the roll of duct tape over my wrist, wearing it like a bracelet. “Just a cracked radiator hose,” I tell the stranded driver. He peers at the closed hood like the sun will hit just the right angle to reflect hidden instructions in the shiny finish. The wind lifts his sparse white hair as he leans on his metal crutches. They’re the kind that only come up to your elbows. The kind they give to people who aren’t going to get better.

My husband is dead; I can finally tell the truth.

Endings have always been hard for me. The end of this story, my telling of what happened, how it unfolded like the wings of an origami crane and then kept unfolding until it was nothing more than blank paper too wrinkled for use, will probably go awry. I’ll be compelled to tidy up,