“Yeah,” I said. “They’ll look amazing with the gigantic ABCs I’m planning to stencil all over the bathroom wall.”

John looked scared.

“Kidding,” I said. “I get enough practice on my letters at school. Anyway, it’s going to be a great bathroom, unique but not so over-the-top that it will hurt the resale.”

“Resale?” John said. He rubbed his index finger back and forth across his lower lip. “Why would you bring up resale?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess because that’s what they always say on HGTV.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Even though we had to stand in line forever to get to the register, our purchases were such a meant-to-be that all the Ikea boxes fit into the trunk of John’s car. We wound our way back home, Christmas lights twinkling at us from way too many of the houses we passed.

“I am not going to feel guilty if we don’t get any lights or decorations up this year,” I said. “We’re under construction.”

John turned to smile at me. “If we don’t get to it this year, we’ll do it next year. We have plenty of time.”

The classic rock radio station switched to Christmas songs. Elvis Presley’s “Blue Christmas.” Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Round the Christmas Tree.” Bruce Springsteen’s “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.”

John and I sang along with them all, until Eva Cassidy’s soul-soothing version of “Silent Night” began to play. We stopped singing and just listened to the purity of her voice, the simplicity of her guitar.

“Her voice always gives me goosebumps,” I said when the song ended. “There’s something so magical about it. I felt that way before I knew her story. But can you imagine dying at thirty-three, virtually unknown, and then being discovered a couple years later?”

“At least she spent her life doing what she loved,” John said.

“That’s true. I remember the first time I heard her singing ‘Fields of Gold’ on the radio. I actually pulled off the road just to listen.”

“I’d never even heard of Eva Cassidy before I met you.” John put on his blinker, pulled over to the side of the road, pulled up his Eva Cassidy playlist.

“See,” I said. “Whatever happens, you can thank me for that.”

John stared straight ahead for a moment. Then he put his blinker on and we were back on the road again.

Eva was singing “Autumn Leaves” as we crunched over the crushed mussel shell driveway. We pulled in behind the pink ice cream truck, my trusty old Honda Civic, Polly’s car, Johnny’s car.

We sat there until it ended, the old sad song about missing someone most of all when autumn leaves begin to fall. Under the light outside the kitchen door, a few dry leaves twirled to the ground as if their movements were choreographed to the song.