her forearm through his bent elbow.
She adjusted her grip on the long-stemmed red rose I had picked up from the main street florist two hours ago for fifteen dollars cash.
My father took his first full stride toward center court, his hips stiff, his shoulders held as square as fifty-one years on an Iowa dairy farm allowed.
Every footfall was measured, deliberate, the hickory cane taking his weight before his right shoe touched down.
The squeak of that worn rubber tip sounded against the floor with every step they took together across the maroon letter painted at center court.
In the second row behind the visitor bench, Harlan Meyer stood up from his wooden bleacher seat.
Harlan was seventy-six years old and farmed forty acres down the lane from my father’s west pasture.
He began to clap, his calloused palms making a low, heavy thud in the high room.
