I stood at the double porcelain sink in the kitchen, washing the two lunch plates and the water glasses the kids had left on the counter.

The evening air drifting through the open window screen smelled of dry earth, mesquite smoke, and sweet orange blossoms from the trees beyond the fence.

On the wall next to the breakfast nook, the coat of yellow paint I had put on two days earlier was fully dry.

It matched the soft buttermilk color of my old breakfast nook in Tucson, exactly like the little paper swatch I had kept tucked in my leather wallet for twenty years.

The carpenter from the hardware store had finished the solid oak table at noon, bolting the broad top straight into the wall framing so it would never wobble or tip under a heavy dish.