“Deal.”
That evening, we sat on the crooked porch of 14 Foxglove Lane with a can of green paint between us and the rain-washed street glowing orange.
My mother was inside, humming, hanging a photograph of a man laughing on a roof.
It would hang over the stone fireplace for the rest of her life.
Through the screen door, I could see the pencil lines on the kitchen frame, all of them, all the way up.
Fourteen months.
