Excerpt: Vanishing

Afterwards, she learned to fold herself into smaller and smaller spaces. Flat and inconspicuous. An unopened letter in the pile of old mail, a brown leaf adrift on the neighbor’s lawn, a puff of dust behind the sofa. She could unfold parts of herself as she needed to – two fingers to test the bath water, an ear to listen for the coming train, two hands to write a letter saying, “I’m fine. Don’t worry. All is well.”