It was September and that season she knew all too well as having a reputation for disaster. The cardboard piled high, like little castles she would have played in as a child. Her ratty silk nightgown lay loose on her shoulders, smelling of smoke, grazing her thin thighs. She vowed to never wash that nightgown until he rose from his grave in that dusty black church suit. He always told her to she needed some meat on those bones of hers; grandmother would never approve of tiny city girls. She was sure he was the one who needed the thickness to cover his skeleton these days. The boxes never seemed so empty when they first moved in but no longer could she fill them with their photo albums flowing with snapshots from Hawaii and that white gown she wore so well in her younger days of them as a whole, not pieces she collected to place into moving vans. The last six years of solitude and laughter all seemed so minimal when she stuffed them tightly into these cases, marked ‘this side up’ in ink. Lighting a cigarette, though she had quit just months before everything ended, she exhaled under her breath, asking for a new addiction with less withdrawals. She knew those label were meant for her. Fragile. Handle with care.