I listened.
“Later, you begin noticing what they left in the room.”
“The box?”
He smiled.
“Not only the box.”
He pointed toward the roses.
“The garden. Mrs. Alvarez. Helen. Her charitable work. Apparently your mother.”
I looked at him.
“And us?”
Arthur became quiet.
“Yes, Caleb.”
He closed his hand around the ring.
“You too.”
That summer, Grace applied to nursing school.
She didn’t tell Arthur.
She didn’t tell Helen.
She barely told us.
For six weeks, every time the mail came, she acted as if she wasn’t waiting.
Then one Wednesday afternoon, there was a large envelope.
Grace stood in the kitchen holding it.
“Open it,” I said.
“I will.”
She didn’t.
“Grace.”
“I’m enjoying not knowing.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It makes perfect sense. Right now, I have both possibilities.”
Annie entered carrying crayons.
“Did you get in?”
“We don’t know.”
