Sandra had driven me to the specialist after my hip surgery when Frank was too sick to take me. The car was cold that morning and she had the heater running before I even got in. “Let me know if you need to stop anywhere,” she said.

I told her I did not need any special treatment. She nodded and kept her eyes on the road the whole way there.

I shifted the journal from one hand to the other. How many times had she written about me in those pages? How many times had she asked for patience when I gave her none back? My knee was starting to ache from standing still so long on the porch.

I thought about knocking and then I thought about leaving the journal on the step and going home. That would be easier. She would find it and know I had seen it without me having to say anything out loud. But then I remembered what Frank said the night before he went into the hospital for the last time. “Don’t let pride keep you from the people who care about you.” He was looking at the ceiling when he said it. I did not answer him then. I just held his hand until he fell asleep.

The water in the sink shut off inside. Sandra was drying her hands on that yellow towel she always kept by the stove. I could see her through the screen, humming a little under her breath the way she did when she thought nobody was listening.

I raised my hand and knocked before I could talk myself out of it again. The sound was louder than I meant it to be.

She turned and saw me standing there. Her eyes went to the journal first, then to my face.

She came to the door and opened it without saying anything at first.

“Come on in,” she said after a second. “The soup is almost ready if you want some.”

I stepped inside and the warmth from the stove hit me right away. “I should not have opened this,” I told her. I held the journal out between us. “But I did.”

Sandra took it and set it on the counter. She did not flip through the pages. “I left it here by mistake. I was not trying to hide it from you.”

“I read what you wrote after Frank died.”

She was quiet for a long minute. The only sound was the soup bubbling on the stove. “I did not know what else to do,” she said finally. “You were hurting so bad and I could not do anything about it.”

I pulled out a chair at the kitchen table and sat down. My purse was still on my shoulder but I did not take it off. “You kept praying even when I treated you like you did not belong here.”