He kept oatmeal cookies in a metal tin on the counter. In winter, he made soup. In summer, he served lemonade in glasses that had belonged to his wife.
Her name was Helen.
They had met at a county fair when they were seventeen.
“She beat me at a ring-toss game,” Ezra told me. “Then she refused to give me the stuffed bear she won.”
“So you married her to get it back?”
“That was the plan.”
“Did it work?”
“No. She kept it for fifty-eight years.”
Helen had passed