parents never returned to the driveway.
They moved out of town six months later, unable to face the quiet judgment of a community that knew exactly what they had tried to do.
On a cold, clear December evening—almost a year after the day I picked her up from that nursing home lobby—Grandma Eleanor and I walked onto the front porch to watch the first light snow fall over the garden.
The air was crisp and still.
Snowflakes drifted softly through the pine trees, dusting the porch railing in pure white.
