The boy asked Keisha if Grandpa was in the sky. Keisha said she did not know the sky and she knew he had loved the boy. Both sentences. The boy accepted both. Children could hold two facts if adults did not force them into one. Keisha was done forcing. The parlor had been two facts in one row. She had separated them. Her mother had finished the separation. The locket had left. The chair had emptied and then become a chair again. That was the work. It was not holy. It was a house. Keisha would come later with the boy or she would not. Either was a full day. Nadine would not come. That absence was ordered and kept. The lilies were gone. The wood of the casket was not her table. Her table had a cup and a salt and a window on a street she had chosen. She sat down. She stayed. She could raise a boy in a house. She did.
Nadine moved the box to a higher shelf when she cleaned in the spring. Higher was not gone. Higher was enough. Loretta said you could donate the chain. Nadine said not yet. Not yet was honest. The photo in the locket was a lake. The lake had been a day. Days did not donate easily. She left it. She went to the park and walked through. The dog missed the ball again, or a different dog. She smiled, small, at the miss. The smile was hers. It did not belong to a aisle. She went home. She slept. The bell of Vera’s name rang less. When it rang she did not drive. Driving had been the mistake after the years. The years were the first mistake. She could list them. She did not need to recite them to a widow again. Once had been the whole recitation. Eleven. Sundays. Labor Day. A toothbrush. A name at the door. Leave. She had left. The list could live on a shelf.
A year after the lilies, Vera hosted nothing and accepted a pie from a neighbor. The pie was apple. She ate a slice with Keisha. They did not toast. Toasts were for rooms that lied. They ate. The plant on the step had made it through a cold month. Vera said it was stubborn. Keisha said it learned that here. They laughed once. The laugh did not betray the parlor. The parlor was finished. The laugh was a kitchen. Kitchens were allowed to continue. Vera put the rest of the pie in the fridge next to the greens. Neighborhood. She could live in a neighborhood. The east side could live without her. It did. She did not look it up. Looking up would have been a second guest book. She had one drawer. It was enough paper. The rest was days, salted correctly, a boy’s print washed by rain, a rail that did not wobble, a name said at a door that had not saved a marriage and a sentence said at a casket that had saved the years after. She kept those. They were hers.