Grandma had planted a hydrangea four inches over that line and lived forty years on the neighbor’s good patience.

I put the letter in the drawer with the rest of them and went out to the porch swing.

The light turned gold at five thirty, and the porch boards let out a small complaint when I sat down.

I had the four sheets folded once in my lap, the creases gone soft as cloth from being read so many times.

Down the walk the roses stood up in the dirt in their row, not yet amounting to much, just roots hanging on under the weight of a little water.

Helen’s porch light flicked on across the street.

Somewhere behind me the refrigerator hummed, and a car rolled by slowly the way cars do on a street where a woman is sitting by herself, thinking.

She had written it down in her own hand, that I was here because I loved her and for no other reason, and I was home.

The light settled warmly over four twelve Birwood Lane, right where I belonged.