“Do you remember this?” I asked.

She smiled at the image.

“We thought the dining room was enormous.”

“It still is.”

“Not compared with what we were planning to fill it with.”

I sat beside her and looked at the photograph again.

My wife had walked into that empty house believing we would build a life together.

Somewhere along the way, I had mistaken paying for the walls as proof that I was doing my part, while leaving her to defend her right to stand inside them.