The pieces did not trickle down at the start—they fell in sheets that peeled off like expired wallpaper, leaving a starless abyss gaping wide overhead.

It’s been months now. The deluge has slowed some: a chip here, a sliver there, carving a dark and crooked chunk from the otherwise perfect summer sky. But it’s always at its worst where I’m currently biding my time, on a gritty towel in the shadow of some oversized driftwood—she loved the beach more than anywhere else. Someone too much like her runs past, and my heart clenches. On cue, bits of the sun and clouds and high blue sky plummet into the sand like tiny ominous meteorites.

My response is a rehearsed routine. I rise with a choppy breath to collect the mess, appearing to onlookers as just some ashen unwell woman scooping up a handful of nothing from the ground, which I fumble into my pocket. By the time I leave, it’ll have...

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