On the small wooden nightstand beside the narrow staged bed sat the framed photograph of Mark’s high school graduation from twenty-six years ago.

In the picture, Mark wore a stiff blue cap and gown, standing tall on the wooden steps of our old house in Columbus, while I stood beside him in my gray factory work coat, my hair pulled back with a brown plastic clip.

I had worked thirty-two years at the rubber shoe plant on the east side, taking double shifts on winter weekends and saving every spare dollar in a coffee can so he could go to college without taking out loans.

I looked at the young man in the picture for a long moment, seeing the soft line of his jaw before corporate titles and country club memberships turned his voice to ice.