I told myself, that day, that once the house was done we might not have a reason to speak again, and I was sad about it in a distant, resigned way.

I did not yet know how much reason he’d given me.

The kitchen still smelled of cinnamon and dust and the lemon oil Mama rubbed into the cabinets every spring.

I set a cardboard box marked DONATE by my feet, though after the eleventh can of beets I wasn’t sure who I imagined donating them to.

Then I reached up for the flour tin.

Chapter 3 — Too Heavy