The yellow paint near the back door was peeling off the plaster in long, paper-thin strips that caught on my sleeve whenever I walked past.

I had been meaning to fix the porch mailbox all week, ever since the rusty top hinge snapped and left the metal lid hanging sideways by a single screw.

“I need to take a screwdriver to that porch mailbox before the lid falls off into the bushes for good,” I said to the stove.

“Dad has a new mailbox,” Lily said.

“It has a light on it.”

If I stayed home on May fourteenth, Max would spend the whole reception telling anyone who would listen that I was hiding in the dark in Oakwood with a tub of store-bought ice cream.

He would say it to his mother, to his two brothers, and to the people from his Saturday golf league who used to come over for summer cookouts in our backyard.

The girls would spend the whole afternoon answering quiet questions from relatives about why their mother was sitting home alone while their father stood under white silk flowers.

“Are we going to the party?” Lily asked.

“We have to see about the schedule,” I said, setting Chloe back on her feet by the table.

“I want the pink dress,” Chloe said.

“We’ll see,” I said.

I picked up the phone and wiped the dried coffee ring off the back glass with the corner of my apron.

I had six weeks to figure out how to walk into that room without looking like something Max had tossed out on the curb.