He’d marked the page with a toy dinosaur.
“You always fall asleep at the good part.”
I carried it downstairs and promised myself I’d finish the story that night.
I didn’t.
***
My mother died when I was twenty-three.
She left me a few pieces of jewelry, handwritten letters, and the necklace I’d worn at my wedding.
My mother died when I was twenty-three.
I kept everything in a blue wooden box on the bottom shelf of my bedroom closet.
The paint was chipped near one corner.
My mother had bought it at a flea market when I was little.
Sometimes, when I was putting laundry away, I’d touch the lid.
I kept everything in a blue wooden box.
Diane knew about the box.
She’d seen it years earlier when Nathan and I were moving into our house.
“Still keeping all that old stuff?” she’d asked.
“It’s my mother’s.”
“Oh.”
She’d said nothing else.
