A housewarming gift

My husband seemed to be in every room— even though I knew he was in heaven

- KATHY BOYD THOMPSON CONVOY

Sofa pillows arranged about me for comfortable viewing, I tucked the throw around my legs and picked up the remote for the TV. A good movie at the end of the day could give me a lift. But when I hit the power button, all I got was a bright pink screen. What now? I waited, pressed some buttons. Wavy images appeared and disappeared. Dejected, I turned off the TV and an­swered the phone with a tired hello.

“Hi Mom, what’s going on?” my daughter Amanda asked.

“Believe it or not, my TV just broke.”

“Are you serious?”

Amanda knew how many home repairs I’d had to deal with in the past few months. The refrigerator. The stove. The air conditioner. Now the TV. My husband, Byron, had died only three months earlier, and it seemed fitting, somehow, that things were breaking down all around me, as if the house itself was mourning his pass­ ing, just as I was.