Yellow Ceramic Mug and Red Silk Scarf in a Red Buick

against the pale blue sky.

“He asked me for forty thousand dollars,” I said, my voice quiet as I set another bulb in the dirt. “Before he signed the waiver in your office.”

Raymond stopped his work, the trowel suspended an inch above the ground. He looked at me, his face lined with the accumulated wisdom of fifty years of watching people continue reading …