I was looking for a cardigan when I found it, a small wooden chest in the hope style, filigree inlay with beautiful detail, velvet lined and carefully partitioned, not yet full but still thoroughly occupied by more than two dozen vials, each beautifully labeled in private school cursive. Name and date, rank filing of precise chronology, a planting calendar of seed that never bloomed, millions doomed, dead since laid to bed. Laughing pridefully below the surface of her wit, Cynthia calls it the cream of her crop, a sick deciduous harvest, chilling even in the growing warmth of spring.

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