The guest bedroom held old holiday decorations.

A small sunroom looked onto the garden Caroline had planted and which Nathaniel’s groundskeeper now maintained.

“I thought about selling,” he admitted.

“But I couldn’t bear to make the decision.”

Ruth examined a shelf of children’s storybooks Caroline had collected for a mentoring program.

“You don’t need to sell it.

You do need to stop treating every room like a memorial nobody can enter.”

Together they sorted items for donation and kept the ones that carried the most meaning.