Of the fifty families represented in the Sandwood Place Apartments, only fourteen people showed up to help with the garbage cleanup. Aaron didn’t know why Doug wouldn’t listen to him — the whole thing was just a great big waste of time. The whole process made him sick, and he couldn’t stop thinking about his mom lying in those woods for all those weeks, just behind all that garbage. He wondered where her body was now. Lying on a table somewhere? In a coffin? The police had taken her off to do some tests or something, but he didn’t know when they’d give her back. It troubled him to think that she hadn’t been buried yet. But if they gave her to him, what would he do? Where would he dig the hole to bury her? Planting a rosebush in her honor was one thing, but putting his mother in the ground was another. He started to feel sick, so he wandered back toward the building. “Aaron, where are you going?” Kay asked. “To my apartment,” he said. “I need to get something.”
