could.
And then something happened that I hadn’t expected.
After canceling Ashley’s summer schedule, I stayed at the cottage.
All summer.
June belonged to me.
July belonged to me.
August belonged to me.
I swam early one morning before anyone else on the road was awake.
At seventy-one.
The water was so cold I gasped and laughed.
In July, I invited my sister-in-law Ruth for several days.
I invited her.
That distinction mattered.
On the Fourth of July, the week Ashley’s parents had expected to occupy, I hung Daniel’s old
