The kitchen door frame

The painter asks if he should sand the kitchen door frame too. I tell him not that one. Paint around it.

Along the edge there's a ladder of pencil marks: Marta, two thousand nine. Marta, two thousand eleven. Pablo, his date half rubbed out and an arrow pointing up.

They grew the way they all grow: away from the wall, without telling anyone.

Now they walk in, drop the keys, ask what's for dinner, and none of them looks at the frame.

I look at it every day. It's the last place in this house where they still have some growing left to do.