Only rags and patches of snow remained. People packed up their parking-place markers, the broken lawn chairs and death’s head signs. They put away their anger, too. Janet even smiled at Melanie, but the Ladue-ite ignored her, preferring to nurse her grudge. Maybe Melanie would make a good city woman after all. My own sadness was also going, melting like the snow. But something about Ralph’s death bothered me, nagging at me like a name I couldn’t quite remember. I figured if I didn’t try to force it, whatever it was would come to me. That night, I had the dream again about Ralph dying in the plaster-covered room. I saw his dusty hair. I saw his ladder. And when I woke up, I knew what I didn’t see and nobody mentioned: Where was Ralph’s inhaler? Even if it was empty, it would still be around somewhere. Ralph didn’t take out the trash—he drove it. When Ralph rehabbed a house, he dumped his burger bags, chicken boxes, and soda cups in the room where he was working. When he cleaned up the room and literally shoveled out the old broken plaster, the trash went out with it.
