“Earl worked a double shift at the plant today,” Clara read out loud, her voice cracking slightly as she squinted at the script. “He came home with grease under his fingernails and fell asleep at the kitchen table before he could finish his pork chop.

He left this card by my plate. He thinks I wanted a big dinner.”

Clara looked up at me, her eyes wet. Then she looked back down and finished the note. “He thinks I don’t see how hard he works to pay the pediatrician. He doesn’t have the words to tell me he loves me, but his tired hands do.”

My stomach dropped. I sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the little birds on the front of the card. I’d forgotten about that pediatrician bill. Clara had been a baby then, sick with croup, and the medicine had cost more than my weekly take-home pay.

“Oh, please,” Martha muttered from the doorway, though she didn’t reach for her trash bag this time. She crossed her arms, leaning against the doorframe. “That was just June being sentimental. She always tried to make things look better than they were.”

But Clara was already reaching into the box, pulling out the card from 1978. It had a drawing of a single red rose. I remembered that year. We’d had a terrible fight the night before her birthday about the radiator in the living room that had started leaking.

Clara turned it over. June’s writing was there, dated November eighth, 1978. “We fought about the money for the radiator last night. Earl didn’t yell. He never yells. He just went out into the freezing rain and patched the copper pipe with his bare hands until it stopped dripping.”

Clara read the rest of the note. “He signed my card ‘Love, Earl’ this morning before he left for work.

That signature is his way of saying he’s sorry. I know he hates when we don’t have enough, but he always fixes what breaks.”

I looked down at my hands. The knuckles were thick now, scarred from years of working with cold steel and heavy wrenches. I’d always felt so small compared to Martha’s husband, Richard, who went to college and could talk about history and art for hours. I always felt like June had gotten the short end of the stick.

“Let me see that one,” Martha said, her voice losing some of its sharp edge as she stepped closer to the bed. She took the 1985 card from Clara’s hand, turning it over. Her eyes scanned the back, and her jaw went slightly loose.

The 1985 note was written in black felt-tip pen. “Clara had the measles this week,” June had written. “Earl stayed up three nights in a row, sitting on the hardwood floor outside her bedroom door because he was too big to fit in her twin bed. He wanted to be close if she cried out in the dark.”