She did not argue with me.
She just sat there, her fingers tracing the yellow flowers embroidered on her sleeve.
She looked perfectly content with her secret.
“He said we would have a house of our own,” she added quietly.
“With a yellow door,” she said.
I looked at her, my throat tightening slightly.
“That is just a story, Rosie,” I said.
“It is a promise,” she repeated.
My bedroom was quiet except for the steady hum of the radiator in the corner.
I sat at the small walnut desk and opened the bottom drawer.
I reached behind the old tax folders to find the cardboard box.
The photograph was bent at the upper left corner.
It was taken at the county fair when we were seventeen.
Ben stood beside me with his hands shoved deep into his pockets.
His shoulders were hunched against the October wind.
I had been laughing at something he said about the blue-ribbon sheep.
In the picture, his face was turned slightly toward mine.
His eyes were squinting against the late afternoon sun.
