“You’ll be sitting in an empty house come winter,” he said.

He turned and marched to his sedan, his heavy boots crunching over the driveway stones.

He never looked back as he pulled out onto Elm Street, his tires throwing up a cloud of dry red dust.

I stood on the porch until the sound of his engine died away.

The front door clicked shut behind me as I went back in.

The house was cold now, the draft from the open door still hanging in the hall.