My neighbor Phil quit smoking three years ago, but there's still a lighter on his windowsill.
I noticed it when I brought over his mail last winter. He caught me looking and just said, "For the candle."
Every evening around dusk, he lights a small white candle on his kitchen table. The flame is for his wife, who died five years ago.
The prescription bottle on his counter has her name still on it. He keeps it because the pharmacist, a quiet woman named Rosa, remembers their refills without checking the computer.
She knows Phil's heart medication by heart because she used to hand him both bottles — his and Marie's — every month.
I asked him once if it was hard, having that lighter around when he used to smoke two packs a day.
He just shrugged and said, "I'd rather light something for her than burn myself up."
The other day I saw Rosa at the grocery store, buying candles. She said they were for her kitchen table.
I think about Phil's lighter, and Marie's name on the bottle, and how sometimes the smallest objects hold the biggest fires.