Quiet.

PART 31

One Saturday, Paige brought over a small wooden box she had found among her wedding keepsakes.

Inside were photographs from my earliest years with Gordon, school portraits, ticket stubs, and a recipe card Walter had written in his uneven handwriting.

I expected the pictures to hurt.

Some did.

There was a photograph of me at twenty-six, standing in the condo kitchen with paint on my cheek, smiling at the future as if it were already certain.

Another showed Gordon holding Paige as a newborn, his expression genuinely tender.