The wheel is too hot to grasp. The vents blow cold directly on my wrists, just under my chin — chill spots that remind the rest of me to breathe.

I can't see anything. Asphalt and green. Rolled hay bales for a taste of agelessness. Burnt out bungalow for tragedy — raw plywood stopping the gaps as if to silence the tales the black soot licking up over the baby blue siding tells. Across the yard the scattered excavations of what we thought would save us, the metal bones of small appliances.

Tucker's face gone stony from some small thing I said. "Be glad your house didn't burn down," I want to say, but can't because who am I to say it hasn't.