The mantel held a photograph of Dad, the one Wendell had insisted made the place look “stuck in the past.” Ruth put it back where she’d always wanted it.

“This house was ours,” she said, touching the frame.

“But I want it to be mine now, too.

Not because I have to forget him.

Because I don’t.”

That evening we worked through dusty boxes from the attic.

Ruth found old receipts from the bookkeeping business she once ran.

She read them like letters from a distant friend.