For twenty years, I begged my husband Arthur to replace our old brown couch. Its cushions sagged, the armrests were torn, and anyone sitting in the middle slowly slid toward the person beside them. Arthur always smiled and said, “This couch makes you sit closer to me, Franny.” I thought it was ridiculous, but it always made me laugh. My name is Frances Delaney, and I’m seventy-one. Arthur and I shared forty-two years of marriage before a heart attack took him in March. After his funeral, I couldn’t bear sleeping in our bedroom. Instead, I spent six months curled up on his side of that old couch, wrapped in his flannel blanket. When my daughter Kate visited in September, she gently suggested that I needed to let go of some things. The next morning, I photographed the couch and listed it online for forty dollars.
A young father named Eli Navarro contacted me. He wanted furniture for his apartment, where his daughter Mila visited on weekends. When they arrived, Mila jumped onto the cushions and laughed as she slid toward the middle. “It feels like it’s hugging me!” she exclaimed. I nearly cried.
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