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impulse, she pulled out her cell phone and dialed Rose.
    “Hi, Anne,” Rose said, picking up the phone after the first ring. “How are you today?”
    “Wonderful,” Anne said automatically, because…well, why wouldn’t she say it? “I’m just starting to work on my mother’s dress for the photo shoot.”
    “The magazine feature is going to be a big deal,” Rose said. “It should attract a lot of attention, to you especially.”
    “That would be nice,” Anne said. “Plus, it means I get a chance to go through all of my parents’ old things.”
    “Ah,” Rose said, “the boxes.”
    “The boxes,” Anne agreed, because Rose liked to tease her about the number of them taking up odd corners and closets. Keeping the phone pressed to her ear, she got out the sewing box Rose had given her one year as a birthday present, and started carefully using a needle to unpick the thread of the beading where it was worn. “My mother was always sewing, wasn’t she?”
    Anne thought back to her mother greeting the two friends after school with milk and cookies and then sitting with them to gossip about the goings-on at school while she deftly worked at beading with her nimble fingers.
    “Yes, I got the sense she loved it but was also trying to keep busy,” Rose said. “Especially when your father wasn’t there.”
    That was true. Her father had often been away, and it would be so quiet with just the two of them there together.
    “Lots of people spend time apart, though,” Anne pointed out. “Look at Tyce and Whitney.”
    “Yes, but as soon as Whitney graduates from vet school, they’re planning to live together full time.”
    “What about Phoebe and Patrick?”
    “They go back and forth between San Francisco and Chicago so often I never know if I’m going to have a florist or not from one day to the next,” Rose said.
    “But they’re deeply in love, aren’t they? Just like you and Donovan. I mean, you don’t always see him every day, because he’s so busy with work, but you’re committed to spending the rest of your lives together.”
    “That’s the plan,” Rose said lightly; then her voice turned a little more serious. “Is this about what happened yesterday with the investigator?”
    “I’m just saying, even if my father wasn’t here constantly, that doesn’t mean there was anything wrong .”
    “No, of course not,” Rose replied. “Your father had to tour the country for his work.”
    “Exactly.”
    Anne was suddenly hit with a vivid picture of the way her mother would stand looking out the window after the taxi had left to take her father to the airport again. She’d tried to keep such a brave face on, but her sorrow had been palpable.
    “I know Mom seemed so lonely sometimes, but that just shows how much they loved one another, doesn’t it? That they cared about each other so much it hurt every time they were apart. Is it like that with you and Donovan?”
    “I see him practically every day. In fact, I’m going to see him in a minute.”
    “Darn it, you should have told me I wasn’t calling at a good time.”
    “Anne, I have all the time in the world for you. And if you need to talk—”
    “Say hello to Donovan for me,” she said as she put down the phone and looked back at her mother’s dress.
    It was actually romantic, when she thought about it, the way her mother had all but counted the moments until the man she loved returned from the road.
    Thinking about it any other way…well, the alternative hurt too much, so Anne threaded a needle instead, getting to work on the beading. It was one of those jobs that wasn’t technically difficult but did require concentration and patience.
    All the images she had of her parents’ wedding came from photographs and her vivid imagination, but that didn’t stop her from feeling their love for each other every time she touched the dress. All she needed to do now was—
    “ Ow! ”
    She sucked her finger until it stopped hurting, and