Then I noticed she was looking past me, toward the doorway, and something flickered across her face, something quick and careful, there and gone.
“What is it?” I asked.
She squeezed my hand and shook her head.
“Nothing, Gordie. I just never thought God would actually send you through that door.”
Chapter 2: Forty-Five Years in an Afternoon
After that, I came to see June every single day.
I rearranged my whole calendar to do it. I moved the Tuesday men’s breakfast to Wednesday. I handed the Thursday Bible study to Deacon Pruneda, who had been waiting years for the chance and nearly hugged me. My secretary, Lorraine, raised one eyebrow when I told her I’d be at the hospital every afternoon until further notice, but she didn’t ask. Lorraine knows when not to ask.
June and I would talk for hours.
We talked about Mr. Dornan, who’d set his own eyebrows on fire demonstrating magnesium. We talked about the night we’d driven her father’s station wagon into a ditch on Coulter Road and had to get towed out by a farmer in his pajamas. We talked about the Dairy Dell, the roller rink, the summer she’d decided she was going to be a famous singer and practiced Patsy Cline in her bedroom with the window open until the whole street begged her to stop.
