I did not want to stay in the empty rooms where Victoria’s anger still lingered.

I walked through the kitchen and opened the back door.

The wind hit me instantly, cold and carrying the scent of incoming rain.

I stepped out onto the gravel path of the garden.

The flowerbeds were overgrown with weeds and dead brown stalks.

Garrett had loved this garden when we were young.

I walked toward the edge of the property where the old iron gates stood.

They were tall, black gates, rusted at the hinges and surrounded by overgrown ivy.

As I stared at the dark metal, a memory surfaced from forty years ago.

Garrett and I had been teenagers, sitting on the grass near these very gates.

His father had just told him he could never see me again.

Garrett had taken a cheap silver ring from his pocket, one he bought at the county fair.

“They can’t keep us apart, Eleanor,” he had said, his young face serious.

“If anything ever happens, I will leave a sign for you.”

“Where?” I had asked, touching the cold metal of the ring.