A letter from Papaw — Before light. Kitchen's already warm.

Pulled a photograph out of the drawer this morning looking for a fuse. Ruth on the back steps, summer of I don't know when, holding a dish towel and laughing at something I said or didn't say. She folded them in threes. Always did. Ran her hand down the crease like she was pressing the day flat.

Hank went down on the linoleum around ten and stayed there. Big brown puddle of a dog. Didn't lift his head when I stepped over him to get to the sink. The heat had him. Storm came through in the afternoon, sky cracked open, and he didn't move for that either. Just breathed.

I sat at the table with a glass of water and watched him breathe. Watched the rain hit the screen. Somewhere in there I remembered Ruth laughing through that same screen door on a summer evening — didn't remember what at, just the sound of it — and it came to me plain.

That photograph sat in a drawer twelve years while I walked past the drawer looking for fuses. Ruth's laugh sat in that screen door thirty summers before I bothered to hear it again. A whole afternoon was in that flat dog and I nearly stepped over it too.

Hank wants out now. Storm's eased.

Love,