It rained on and off for several weeks. A canopy of gunmetal grey hung over everything and Bella was gone. The morning after her mother’s funeral she had disappeared and the house on Albemarle Road felt empty without her. Without the red heat from the stoked furnace of her pillowed belly, or the raunchy giggles of her personal perfume it just wasn’t the same. Stanford and Elmer found her room a shipwreck. A violent jumble of sheets and pillows crouched on the bed like a pack of wild dogs. Dresser drawers hung open, their contents spilled. The vaulted doors of the waterfall chifforobe stood splayed. Scarves bled onto carpet, dresses sat in heaps next to hats scattered like lonely life preservers. Only a few keepsakes seemed to be missing; the sliver chain necklace with its St. Anthony medal, her charm bracelet, and the two photos; the one of the baby and the silver-framed picture of the strongman with Bella on his shoulders.

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