She comes back a couple of times a week, picking through the ash to look for things from a past life: cup, cracked plate, cheese grater, mixing bowl. The Japanese plum tree is gone. The pool is murky and dark, and she remembers how she had searched for the perfect tiles to catch the sun at certain times of day. All the doors have fallen. The chimney stands like a broken bone. It is quiet amid the black shards, the way it is after a storm. She wipes a tear, but hangs on to her inimitable air.