When I got back, I spent much of the evening putting my study together. The cot went into place under the window. It’s okay, not great for a bed, but it will do as a couch. I hung Mom’s picture of the Golden Gate to the window, with Tim’s help. He enjoys putting rooms together. All of my knick-knacks came out of their boxes, some for the first time wince we’d moved from North Carolina. The dolls were arranged at one end of the bed. One of the oldest, who, when I was a kid, was variously named “Lavinia,” “Madame Frost” and “Madam Dagger,” looked pretty when I covered her bald head with a pale blue shawl. The room is shaping up. It looks like a room now, though there is still much I need to do, like bracing the bookshelves and hanging a few more pictures.

Typing this hurt my heart.

Digging up these old diary entries can be like a faint, familiar scent drifting up from an old chest that has not been opened for years. Do I remember that moment of setting up the room with Tim’s help? Not directly. But I know what the light was like in that room, and what it felt like for us to be working together, setting up a space I would use. I can feel him next to me, raising his arms to help me put up the picture.

The ghost of old hopes. We were in our twenties and thought we would be together forever.