I nursed a lamb when I was eight or nine. Its mother had forsaken her, and Dad, sensing a good learning opportunity, tasked me with feeding her every morning. She had watery eyes with dark, horizontal irises; a wet, pink nose; and kinky, brown wool that felt fantastic against my cheek. We called her Rosie.

Jake tried to kill me, Lizzie had said.
A lie, of course. But she spread it far and wide before she left California for Indiana: He tried to choke me, she’d repeat.
But—Christ!—it was just a hug, and it went down like this:
Hannah had burst into our room, turned on the light, and demanded to know which one of us was taking her to practice. Lizzie kicked me under the sheets—evidently it was my turn—but I kicked her back, club swim had been her stupid idea, just grant me a little rest.

Hannah’s death was doubly final. Lizzie burned her, then took the whole urn with her when she left for Indiana—you don’t get any part of her, Lizzie told me.
And then Lizzie buried her.
Heaven and Earth are full of thy glory, the preacher said.
But I keep her toenails around my neck, in a locket strung on a silver chain.
Hosanna in the highest, the preacher said.
Holy shit.

I used to be an oak tree. Or maybe it was a maple. Regardless, there was a nest in my branches, a twiggy little thing woven with scraps of yarn, strands of dental floss, and kiss-curls of hair. I gave it to the sky, but it was always empty.

She died in June, just shy of fifteen.
Dust to dust, the preacher told us.
Lizzie refused to look at me, but I knew what she was thinking: our daughter’s death was my fault.
Ashes to ashes, the preacher told us, Lord have mercy.
I wanted to sock the platitudes right out of his fat-lipped mouth—how can there be mercy death? No, Hannah’s death had no mercy.