Arthur sat on the painted metal glider, his eyes scanning the quiet street where the oaks were dropping their gold leaves. He reached into his breast pocket, his fingers tracing the outline of the small silver frame inside that held the black-and-white picture of Martha.
“Martha and I had a blue glass jar on the dresser,” he said, his voice dropping into that rhythmic cadence he used when he was looking backward. “We put five-dollar bills in it every Saturday night after the grocery shopping was done.”
“For the trip?” I asked, sitting on the top step.
“For the championship,” he said. “We saved for four years, but then the water heater burst in seventy-three, and then your father needed braces, and the jar just never filled up again after that.”
He paused, his eyes following a dry maple leaf as it rolled across the concrete sidewalk and tumbled into the gutter.
