The cardboard box is about the size of a miniature refrigerator and coated by the dust that accompanies decades of solitude. Once every couple of years or so, Youvene Whistler thinks about digging deep into her bedroom closet, past her slacks and winter jackets and shoes and scarves and whatnot, about opening the box and facing the most piercing pain she has ever known.

And then -- on the verge of reliving the death of Lyman Bostock, her beloved husband -- she will do nothing.