She’s cleaning out closets, boxing up unused crockery and sorting through bookshelves.
Everything is a landmine of memory.

She’s promised her neighbour a bagful of bib overalls -the kind men wore, men wear, when they
work the land, work machinery or work at life full throttle.

He was a spark plug of a man, her husband, an odd compliment to her neighbour, a long drink of
water—but in this neck of the woods no one refuses a widow’s good will.

She sits on an overturned bucket in the mud room- cracks the window from force of habit- and
lights a cigarette. For a moment she can pretend it’s the wayward smoke that’s making her eyes
water.

She stubs out the cigarette with one of her best Sunday shoes- the nearest on the shoe rack – and
steadies herself to open the door to the still silent house.

Upstairs she finds her seam ripper and sets to work on the overalls – pulling out each stitch from
the hem with as much care as she’d used putting them in.