The road is straight, and she keeps an even course while she holds the bag up to the light of the windshield to examine its contents.The amazement is that it still looks like a finger—there it is, like a magic trick, like all of a sudden the whole rest of the body is going to pop out from behind a curtain and reattach itself to the finger with a lot of showy prestidigitation. The nail is still painted cotton candy pink, and the skin around the edge of the wound is drying out and shriveling slightly.Strange to think how it used to be a part of everything she did for her whole life, and now it’s on its own. She goes to put it back in the duffel but changes her mind and puts it in the glove compartment instead.SUBDIVISIONS. THOSE magnificent bone-white homes duplicated row after row on grids that seem to grow like crystal with the sharpness and precision of God’s artisanship, with softly sloping sidewalks and square patches of overgrown lawn and garage doors like gleaming toothy grins.
