My parents gave me one last chance to leave the man they called a loser. I married him anyway — and our wedding day unraveled the moment he opened a small cardboard box.
The kitchen smelled like the cinnamon tea Graham had left steeping for me before his morning shift. I was twenty-seven, almost a decade into loving the same man, and most mornings I still caught myself smiling at little things like that. A note under my mug. A single yellow tulip in a jam jar on the counter.
Graham worked double shifts at the hardware store on Miller Street. Every extra dollar went to his mother’s medication.
He never complained. Not once in nine years.
“You cannot build a life on carnations.”
“You should sleep in tomorrow,” he told me the night before, kissing my forehead. “I mean it. I’ll handle Mom’s pharmacy run.”
“You always handle everything,” I said. “When do I get to handle something for you?”
