"I appreciate that," I told her.
"My Walter passed in '09. The first month, I forgot how to eat. So I'm not asking if you're hungry. I'm just leaving this here."
I almost cried into the casserole. I didn't, but it was close.
I didn't bother writing back.
I started going to the little country church up the road on Wednesdays. Nobody there knew who Garrett had been. They just knew I sang alto and brought a pound cake when it was my turn.
Slowly, I stopped waiting for the phone to ring. I stopped rehearsing what I'd say to Margaret if she ever apologized. I started believing the silence was the rest of my story, and I told myself I could make peace with it.
I stopped waiting for the phone to ring.
***
Then, two weeks to the day after I buried my husband, I was pinning sheets to the clothesline behind the trailer. I heard tires on the gravel.
