My heart thudded once, hard, and then seemed to forget what came next.
I knew the woman lying in that bed.
It was June.
June Bright. The girl who used to steal the pickles off my burger at the drive-in. The girl whose laugh carried across the whole football field. The girl I’d kissed for the first time behind the concession stand, both of us shaking like leaves.
Then August had come, and I’d gone east to college and she’d gone west, and we’d written letters for a while, and then fewer letters, and then none. And somehow, without either of us deciding it, forty-five years had passed.
I couldn’t make my mouth work. I couldn’t make my feet move.
“June?”
It came out as barely a whisper.
She looked up from the blanket. Her brow creased. She tilted her head and squinted at me the way she used to squint at a math problem she was determined to beat. I watched her eyes travel over my gray hair, my bifocals, the pastor’s collar, the wrinkles I’d earned the hard way.
