Temporary.
I looked past him into the hallway. I could see the framed photo from their wedding—the one where I was smiling like a fool because my boy looked happy and Lena, my wife, was still alive then, thin from chemo but smiling anyway. She’d worn a scarf that day and red lipstick. Dylan had cried when he danced with her.
That was four years ago.
Lena had been gone for eighteen months. The medical bills had taken the house we’d spent twenty-six years paying for. I had sold my truck, then my fishing boat, then most of my tools, and what was left of me moved into Dylan’s spare room under the excuse that it was “only until I got back on my feet.”
I had built his backyard deck with my own hands that spring.
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