a plastic bag, I recognized the way he studied the locks and windows.
I never told him to be grateful.
I simply handed him the key.
Evelyn’s winter coat still hangs beside my front door.
Her recipe cards sit in the kitchen.
The notebook remains inside the shoebox, open to the page where I reduced her life to a house and a date.
I keep it because shame can become dishonest when we hide the evidence.
On the first anniversary of her death, I visited her grave and told her something I had been too afraid to say while she was alive.
I loved her.
Not at the beginning.
Not cleanly.
Not in a way that erased what I had intended.
But I loved her before the end.
I had married Evelyn because I thought her death would finally give me a home.
Instead, she taught me how to build one while I was still alive.
