Clara's been two hundred miles south for six weeks now, helping her sister through chemo.
I'm out here alone in the exurbs, rattling around the house like a loose bolt.
My niece comes by three afternoons a week to practice driving in my old F-150. She ground the gears so bad yesterday I thought the transmission was gonna cry.
Money's tight. I figured I'd sell my old welding helmet. The one with the gold shield and the scratch from when I leaned into a beam too fast in '89.
Joe at the pawn shop looked it over. He's known me thirty years.
He handed it back. 'I can't take this,' he said. 'Clara would come looking for it. She remembers when you bought it. I'm not gonna be the one who sold her husband's hands.'
I drove home with the helmet on the passenger seat.
The mousetrap I set behind the toolbox three weeks ago is still there, untouched. I keep forgetting to check it.
I called Clara that night. She answered on the first ring.