“It was seven.”

“Then seven.” He shrugged.

“I don’t keep a logbook, Patty.”

Somewhere in the house the furnace kicked on, and neither of us said anything over the noise of it.

Then he picked up the dish towel and wiped a clean counter.

I straightened the pineapple magnet on the refrigerator door and pushed it until it sat square.

Margaret had brought it to me from Florida years back, from a trip with her husband before he passed.

She never could walk past a souvenir shop without going in.