If I asked, he would stare at the floor as though it might open under him.

He died when I was twenty-nine.

By then I had met Thomas, moved to Texas and built a life on the assumption that every person I had loved before my husband was gone.

I brought the photograph to Mrs.

Alvarez that afternoon.

“Do you think I should go?” I asked.

She examined it carefully.

“I think you shouldn’t go alone.”