I had invited her after months of cautious lunches and brief telephone conversations.

She was learning to ask before giving advice; I was learning that not every question concealed criticism.

We stood beside the empty space where Walter’s old tree had been.

The arborist had removed it safely, saving a cross-section of its trunk for me.

I planned to mount the wood in the workshop, where its rings would show all the winters it had endured.

Patricia held the young tree steady while I filled the hole.