I watched him through the window as he stood near his workbench
I watched him through the window as he stood near his workbench, his back to the house. He picked up a piece of pine and turned it over in his hands, his fingers tracing the rough edges as if searching for a flaw he could fix.
The coffee in my mug grew cold, a dark skin forming over the surface. I looked down at the note again, the paper soft from being handled.
The forty-one thousand dollars in savings bonds we had set aside for her college fund were still sitting in the safe deposit box at the bank, completely untouched. Now, those bonds felt like paper weights holding down a past we could not change.
By ten o’clock, the house had grown entirely still, save for the hum of the fan upstairs. I went to the hallway closet and reached for the top shelf, where the cardboard boxes were stacked.
My fingers found the stiff, square edge of the black mortarboard cap.
Author
Andrew Collins
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