"That was the summer I graduated from nursing school," Naomi said. "Mom put the banner up herself. She made me stand under it for photographs until I begged her to stop." Robert smiled faintly, and for an instant she saw a resemblance between his face and the man in the locket, particularly around the eyes. The resemblance hurt more than she expected. Robert pointed toward another photograph, this one of Eli holding a paper airplane, and asked if the boy was her son.
"He's ten," Naomi said. "He thinks every problem in the world can be solved with duct tape and a screwdriver." Robert let out a small laugh. "Daniel was like that. He once took apart our kitchen clock because he was certain he could make it keep better time." Naomi folded her arms. "Did he fix it?" Robert shook his head. "Not even close. We had to tell time by the radio for a week."
The laugh that escaped Naomi surprised them both. It was tiny and gone almost immediately, but it had existed, and Robert looked as if someone had handed him a glass of water after a long walk. He told her that Daniel had been a restless child, curious about engines and afraid of thunderstorms until he was nine. He had loved tomato sandwiches and old country records and always carried a notebook full of ideas he rarely completed. Robert talked about him not like a saint whose death had improved every memory, but like an actual person who had left tools on the stairs and forgotten birthdays and tried very hard to help when someone was in trouble. Naomi listened until she could bear no more, then asked him to go back to bed.
The next morning the storm had eased but the plows had not reached their street. A white curtain of snow stood outside the kitchen window, taller than the flower beds Loretta had planted. Naomi made oatmeal and toast, moving carefully around the kitchen as the old couple sat at the table. Evelyn's cheeks had regained some color, but her eyes were swollen from a night Naomi suspected had contained little sleep. When Naomi placed a bowl in front of her, Evelyn thanked her and looked down instead of trying to begin another apology.
After breakfast Naomi went to the hall closet and took down a blue metal biscuit tin. It held her mother's important things, though Loretta had never considered them valuable enough for a lock: a hospital badge, a church program, old recipes, and envelopes tied with yarn. Naomi had opened it after the funeral and closed it again because sorting through her mother's handwriting felt too much like losing her a second time. Now she brought the tin into the living room and sat with it on her knees. She was not ready to share it with the Wards, but she could not go another day without looking.
The first letters were familiar, written in Daniel's slanted handwriting on the inexpensive stationery he used when working out of town. He called Loretta "my favorite stubborn woman" and described a little apartment near the lake where he hoped they might live someday. There were ordinary complaints about broken ambulance heaters and long shifts, and an argument about whether a secondhand couch would fit through a narrow doorway. The letters were tender without being polished, full of plans that people make when they assume the future will give them time. Naomi had read them as a teenager, but she understood them differently now that she was old enough to recognize how much love was hiding in the practical details.