The line went dead with a soft click.
I walked over to the bookshelf and pulled down the heavy leather album.
The first page showed our parents on their wedding day in front of the old Methodist church.
Their smiles looked stiff even then.
I turned past the pictures of Clara and me in matching yellow dresses at age six.
A folded yellow clipping fell out from between the pages covering our tenth summer.
It was the short notice about the car fire on the old highway.
The reporter listed two names in the brief paragraph.
Only one body had been recovered from the front seat.
I smoothed the brittle paper against the wooden tabletop.
The ink was fading from black to a dull brown.
A pencil note was written in the margin in my mother’s handwriting.
“File closed by order of the sheriff,” it said.
The sheriff had retired three months after the accident.
His son still ran the hardware store down the street.
I laid the clipping beside the telephone and walked to the window.
A grey sedan slowed down in front of the house and then drove past.
The curtains in the living room across the street parted for a second.
Mrs. Gable was watching from behind her lace panels.
She let the fabric drop back into place when she saw me looking.
I went back to the kitchen and picked up my mug.
The tea inside was completely cold.
I set the blue coffee mug on the wooden table and poured the dark water into it until the steam reached the rim.
The mail carrier walked past the front window carrying a bundle of white envelopes and did not look up at the porch.
I carried the cup across the room and set it beside the small stack of papers that had arrived on Saturday.
“The light is better in the kitchen today,” I said to the empty chair.
The front door remained shut and the deadbolt stayed turned against the morning wind.
I pulled out the wooden chair and sat down without opening any of the envelopes on the counter.
The surface of the coffee showed a reflection of the small window above the sink and nothing else.
“There is no one coming over,” I said.
The clock above the stove made a small clicking sound every sixty seconds and nothing else moved in the room.
I wrapped my fingers around the ceramic handle and waited for the water to cool down enough to drink.
A car turned onto the gravel road outside and slowed down before driving past the house without stopping.
I watched the red taillights disappear behind the line of bare oak trees at the edge of the property.
The kitchen remained quiet except for the low hum of the refrigerator in the corner.
I set the cup back down on the wood and smoothed out the corner of the paper placemat with my thumb.
“The repairs on the back step can wait until next week,” I said.
The sun moved an inch across the linoleum floor and touched the leg of the table.
I picked up the blue coffee mug again and drank the warm water slowly.
The morning sun warmed the kitchen counter.
