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you.
Write me back at the Tennessee address, I’ll be there a couple more weeks.
With great love from your wayword and repenance Robert.
    I smile sadly at his mangled grammar and fold the letter back up, carefully slipping it back into the envelope
    He’ll build me a house at last, he says. I tip my head back on that old office chair and remember all the times he used to talk about it. He even used to sketch it, back when we lived in the bottom floor of that dodgy rental, when Anna was still drooling and gumming her pacifier.
    I can hear him now.
    “Baby,” he would say, “look at this. Would you like a picket fence?”
    I’d just gotten back into the kitchen from placing a drowsy Anna in her crib, having tiptoed down the short hallway for fear of waking her.
    I smiled at his drawing. “Why would we need a picket fence in the woods?” I kissed the top of his head, which smelled like tobacco.
    “Because picket fences are things husbands are supposed to build for wives.”
    He started sketching in the little picket points.
    I heard a soft knock on the door. “Must be Veronica. She’s coming to show off her engagement ring,” I told him, squeezing his shoulder. “Why don’t you just build me a nice gazebo? Put a hot tub in it and I’m yours forever.”
    “You better be mine forever, Maeve Callahan.”
    Veronica plunged into the house, left hand out first, almost like she was punching me. I chuckled and admired her ring and told her to keep her voice down so she didn’t wake Anna. We girls had white zinfandel and Robert cracked another beer and we sat in the kitchen, listening to her extol the virtues of her fiancé, Grant. His dad ran a huge boat dealership and repair service that he would take over someday, and his family had not only a cottage in Spring Lake and a house in Haven to be near the business but a loft in Grand Rapids, too . . .
    After a while, our smiles froze on our faces. Veronica seemed to forget we were even there, and by the time she left, I was giddy with suffocated giggles because every time she’d turned her head, Robert had pulled a face or kicked me under the table.
    When we locked the door behind her, Robert said, “What’s up with that broad?”
    “Oh, stop. She’s happy to be engaged, is all.”
    “She’s happier about that rock, I think. I’m surprised she remembers the guy’s name.” Robert circled my waist from behind me, squeezing lightly, resting his chin on my shoulder.
    “She’s not that bad.” We’d been friends since middle school, back when we were both new kids in school and neither of us had any money. Why shouldn’t she be a little extra giddy because she wouldn’t have to scrimp?
    I couldn’t say that to Robert, though. He’d take it personally and probably pop open another beer or three and be all fuzzy in the morning.
    Robert brushed my neck with his lips and murmured, “Would you love me more if you had a big diamond?”
    I turned in the circle of his arms to face him. “Oh, honey, you know size doesn’t matter.”
    Robert looked blank for a flash before he got the joke. Then he laughed and silenced his own laugh by kissing me hard on the mouth right there, the porch light splashing onto us through the small windows in the front door. I fumbled for the off switch and we fell into darkness.
    “I’ll teach you to joke with me when I’m horny,” he whispered, and scooped me up caveman style. We fumbled down the hall like that, taking care not to bang into walls or giggle too loudly, lest we wake the baby.
    The clanging phone makes me jump half out of my skin.
    “Nee Nance Store,” I mumble. “Yes, we’re open until ten tonight. Yep, bye.”
    The Nee Nance was supposed to be temporary. Just something to tide us over until we saved up enough to buy some property. What savings, to live and work in the same place! The landlord cut us such a sweet deal on the rent we couldn’t refuse. We named it Nee Nance Store after Anna’s baby-talk attempt