“The sale is off, Rachel,” I said.

She stopped at the bottom step, her eyes wide.

She looked at David, then at Harold, and then she let out a long breath.

“Oh,” she said softly.

The sky above us was growing darker, the clouds heavy with the promise of rain.

“We should go inside,” I said.

“Not the house,” David said.

He turned around and looked at the yellow light bulb burning inside the workshop.

“Let’s go in here,” he said.

He unlocked the padlocked door and pushed it open.

The hinges gave a dry creak.

We followed him inside, one by one.

The smell of the workshop hit me immediately, a familiar mix of sawdust, motor oil, and cold iron.

It was the smell of thirty years of my marriage.

It was the smell of Arthur.

The room was cold, the concrete floor drawing the chill right through the soles of my shoes.

David walked over to the workbench and touched the handle of a heavy iron vise.

“I can’t do it,” David said.

“Can’t do what, son?” I asked, stepping closer to him.