I walked past my future home, looking for signs of renovation progress. There weren’t any, of course, because Rafe had been at my place until nearly eleven the night before, and he routinely arrived at the middle school an hour before classes started. Still, I looked. My imaginary X-ray vision saw the upstairs master bathroom as I’d seen it last. Unfinished drywall, unfinished flooring. No sink, no toilet, no tub, no cabinets.

Though going downstairs to use the bathroom wasn’t a real problem, I was concerned that if I accepted the unfinished status before moving in, the house would never be completed. One of these days, it was going to get done, I was sure of it. But I vastly preferred that day to be before our tenth wedding anniversary.

“Or our first,” I said to the seagull who was squawking at me, and waved it off. “Nothing for you today. Or ever, to tell you the truth.”

“Making new friends, are you?”

I turned to see a white-haired man walking toward me, smiling and waving his cane in a friendly fashion. “Good morning, Mr. Goodwin,” I said, smiling back. “How is my favorite library patron?”

“Let me guess,” he said. “That’s what you tell everyone who walks into the library.”

“You think we’d give kitchen privileges to just anyone?”

“Yes.”

He was right, of course. But we’d only opened up the staff break room to all library patrons after we’d learned of Mr. Goodwin’s near addiction to caffeine. “Are you coming in today?” I asked. “We haven’t seen you much this summer. We’ve missed you.”

“And I’ve missed you, but the grandchildren kept us remarkably busy. Took me two weeks to recover. These old bones, you know.”

I didn’t believe a word of it. I’d long ago learned that the cane he carried was more hiking stick than elderly assistance. Mr. Goodwin’s morning walk was a five-mile loop that included hills steep enough to make a car downshift two gears. More likely he and his wife just needed some peace and quiet after school started. Then again, Mr. Goodwin had to be close to eighty years old. I peered at him, trying not to look like I was giving him a visual physical. “Your bones look the same as they did in June.”

“Only on the outside, my dear. Only on the outside.” He smiled and headed on his way, and I continued on mine.