Gene said, “She’s a good customer, Dale. I don’t rush good customers.”
Everybody laughed.
I didn’t.
It was the nicest thing anyone had said about me in two years.
But I was married forty years to one man and I’d like to know the next one the way I knew Ray.
Slowly.
All the way through.
In May, Gene showed up on a Sunday with a flatbed.
On the back was a recliner.
Brown. Same model. Same year.
He’d found it at an estate sale in Temple and spent three weekends restoring it.
He set it by the window.
Next to Ray’s.
Not instead.
Next to.
“Now there’s two,” he said.
“One for whoever wants it.”
I sat in the new one.
He sat on the couch.
Ray’s stayed empty, dusted, by the window.
That’s how we watch the news now.
Three chairs.
Two people.
It works.
Last Thursday, I drove out to Cedar Hollow Road a little early.
