At 7:12 on a Saturday morning, a crow dropped a walnut onto the roof of the dumpster and startled everyone awake. The clang rang down the quiet street in Pasadena. Inside the old bungalow, Mara stood ankle-deep in packing paper, staring at the kitchen she had promised her late father she would clear before the house changed hands. Outside, the rented dumpster waited beneath a jacaranda tree, its steel sides cool with dawn and its open mouth ready for the first heavy thing.
