The swing creaked rhythmically beneath me as I pushed off against the porch boards with my big toe to gain momentum. January’s icy fingers crept under the blanket and layers of my clothes. It was a wasted effort, because I was already frozen inside. My eyes fell on the half-withered Christmas wreath hanging on the brightly colored purple front door. I needed to take it down. I needed to get back to work. I needed to go to my room and put on the deodorant I had forgotten. Obviously, there were a ton of things I needed to do. But everything felt like a mountain to me, as if going back inside the house and climbing the stairs to my room required the same amount of energy as climbing to the top of Everest. Sorry, Knockemout. For now, you’ll have to make do with a librarian who smells of sweat. I took a deep breath of the icy air, which sliced through my lungs like a razor. How strange that I had to remind myself to do something as instinctive as breathing. Grief had a way of seeping into everything, even when you were prepared for it.
I lifted my dad’s mug with the motto TEARS OF THE OPPOSING PARTY and took a sip of my morning wine for a boost. I would spend the rest of my day in the suffocating heat of Eternal Knockout, as the irreverent name of the funeral home in Knockemout went. Its thermostat never dropped below twenty-four degrees Celsius, so the elderly, chilly clients it usually hosted would feel comfortable. My breath came out in a silvery puff. When it dissolved into the air, my line of sight to the neighboring house was restored. It was an ordinary two-story house with beige siding and a practically arranged yard. To be fair, my eccentric Victorian home with its wraparound porch and eye-catching turret made most other houses look dull. But the house next door had something lifeless about it that made the contrast even more striking.