She Walked Out, and Ten Years Later She Showed Up With Expensive Gifts at a Twelfth Birthday Dinner

“A ticket’s fifty-two.

I asked the clerk at the depot before I came up your driveway.”

I took a folded cotton towel from the dish rack and wiped a stray drop of tap water off the stainless steel sink.

“You showed up with three store bags from the mall,” I said.

“They were empty boxes,” she whispered, her eyes flicking toward the open hall where Mark stood in the shadows.

“The clerk gave me the gift boxes for nothing because the satin ribbons were missing.”