The rain ticked against the window. Somewhere down the hall a monitor beeped and went quiet.
I thought of a hundred reasons to say it was foolish. We were old. She was dy!ng. People would talk. My congregation would talk. Carol’s sister in Fenwyck would certainly talk.
And then I thought of the bleachers, and the pull tab, and the way she’d held her hand up to the light.
I thought of how happy I had been in those days. How happy she’d made me without even trying.
“Yes,” I said. “Yes, June. I’ll marry you.”
She closed her eyes. A single tear ran down her cheek and caught in the corner of that crooked coral lipstick.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “Oh, Gordie. Thank you.”
When I left that evening, Wes was standing in the hallway by the vending machines, his hands jammed deep in his jacket pockets. He’d clearly been waiting.
