He stepped inside, leaving the door open behind him.

The sound of his breathing was raspy in his ears now, but it was the only sound he heard. He took a few more steps, putting out a hand to lean on the scrubbed wooden table at the center of the room. She had set the table for two, with rose-patterned porcelain plates, fine polished silverware, crystal goblets, and a cream-colored candle at the center.

His head swiveled toward the sideboard on his right, where she kept the dinnerware as well as a dozen empty ketchup bottles, lovingly displayed, a small portion of her vast collection. These were some of her most prized bottles, dating back decades, to the early years of the previous century. A warm swell of emotion flowed through him as he fondly recalled what had started her obsession with those bottles so long ago. They were scattered all over the house now, on shelves and in cupboards, arranged carefully in glass cabinets, and many more stashed away in closets and cardboard boxes.

Probing slightly ahead of him with his cane, as if he were looking for soft spots in the floor, he moved forward, through an archway and into the living room. Here the ticking of the ornate grandfather clock in the corner filled the silence in an almost intrusive manner. He was tempted to shush it, to tell it to quiet down. Instead, he pursed his lips in annoyance and looked around. The faded, overstuffed sofa and armchair were carefully brushed, fluffed, spotlessly clean, and decorated with large white doilies, which she had made herself back in the sixties, she’d told him once with not a hint of pride. Photographs in mismatched frames stood on a side table against one wall. Many of them showed her with her husband, a tall, gaunt, dour gentleman who never smiled in the photos and always wore a coat and tie. In the photos, he had noticed years ago, husband and wife stood side by side but rarely held hands or touched.

He shook his head sadly, thinking of what might have been.