Roland and I married when I was twenty-three.
I remember almost nothing about the ceremony itself.
Only the way Roland’s hands shook slightly holding mine, more nervous than I’d ever seen him before or since.
In a small church on the edge of Ashgrove Hollow, the same town where we still live today.
We bought our house two years later.
The realtor called it « full of potential, » a phrase we later joked meant « needs constant work, » which turned out to be entirely accurate.
A modest colonial with a wide backyard and a flower bed neither of us had any real talent for maintaining.
We raised two children there.
Owen, our oldest, now thirty, living overseas with his wife.
Working in shipping logistics out of a port city neither of us could pronounce correctly on the first try.