Everything in the four side drawers was neatly filed in folders and big envelopes and clearly labeled. The top middle drawer contained personal items. Although I promised myself not to look through anything as I packed, I broke the promise almost immediately when I saw the paper with my name and “statistics” on it—the exact information about me that he had recited our first night together. He had obviously had a connection with someone in the registrar’s office. I smiled at the fact that he had gone to the trouble of checking up on me. Had I really appeared that forbidding?

The next thing I came across was a yellowed newspaper clipping that included a picture of Frank and five other scholarship winners in his high school. I stood there staring at it because it was so poignant: compared to the others, Frank was conspicuously ill-dressed. Instead of a sport coat he wore a snowflake-patterned sweater far too small for him; the sleeves ended a good four inches from the wrists, that remaining space taken up by a clashing checkered shirt. My God, I thought, he really was that poor. Looking at him in that outfit, I immediately flashed back to my high school senior prom. No dress in Cedar Run or in any of the neighboring towns was good enough for me. I had made my mother drive over a hundred miles to go shopping for something better. Even when I settled on something better, it was the style I wanted but not exactly the color and I complained about it right up to the minute my date rang our doorbell.

I took a large envelope and put the clipping in it so it wouldn’t yellow or wrinkle any more than it had. Someday, I thought, if our children ever complained about what they didn’t have, I could pull the clipping out and show them how far their father had come on next to nothing.

I removed the last layer of memorabilia—some concert and play programs from university productions—and found one remaining item in the corner of the drawer. It was a photograph of Frank and a girl, taken when he was probably fifteen or sixteen, both of them dressed raggedly and sitting under a tree. The girl’s face was turned and smiling up at Frank. She was a pretty thing, but her sagging shoulders coupled with her low brow line gave the impression she was somewhat “slow.” In striking contrast to the girl’s smile was the smoldering expression on Frank’s face: his jaw was clenched so hard it looked as if it had been wired shut, and his eyes were two slits behind his eyeglasses. I had never seen him look at anyone in that way; I knew if I had been the one holding the camera to take that picture, Frank’s face would have withered me on the spot.

I had finished filling the box for this drawerful, and I laid the picture down on top of everything else. A couple of times later in the afternoon, I stopped to glance at it again, although that face was already imprinted on my mind. It was not just an angry face. It was livid.