We lived in a quiet working-class neighborhood outside Columbus, Ohio. It was the kind of place where everyone waved from their driveway, where children rode bicycles until the streetlights came on, and where people still shoveled each other’s sidewalks after snowstorms.
Our house wasn’t much.
A small two-bedroom with faded white siding, a porch that leaned slightly to one side, and flower beds Emily insisted on filling every spring despite insisting she had « absolutely no talent for gardening. »
She always laughed when the flowers somehow survived anyway.
I worked sixty-hour weeks as a warehouse supervisor for a construction supply company. My days revolved around forklifts, inventory reports, damaged shipments, delivery schedules, and employees who always seemed to have another emergency.
It wasn’t glamorous.
But it paid the mortgage.
It paid the electricity.
