SEVENTY

THE BOX

She walks for a while.

And behind her she hears the distant pop, pop, pop-pop-pop of gunfire. She doesn’t know what that means. She’s not sure she cares.

Though, she admits, she might be fonder of Grosky than she thinks. Because suddenly there’s a little twinge of guilt if she saved his life only to have him lose it again to a brute like Tap-Tap.

But then she remembers Goldie’s death and . . .

Well. Who knows how that shakes out?

She finds a place on the rocks.

The tide comes in. The tide goes out.

The sun starts its slide behind her.

She takes the box and bashes it on the rocks until the lock pops. Like an otter cracking open a clamshell.

A bag spills out from the box. Miriam grabs it, opens up, and sees that in the bag are photos and a little ratty book.

Like a diary.

She picks out the photos. A pale, redheaded woman holding a pregnant, freckly belly. The same woman pinning clothes to a line. Sitting on a gravestone. On a porch swing. Standing again in a cemetery, this time among the graves. Miriam grunts. She’s not sure what this means.

So she picks up the book.

She picks a random page and reads.

She flips back and forth between pages.

“Holy shit,” she says. “Holy. Shit.”