“Eventually.”
I stared at him. “Do you have her letters?”
I think she wanted me herself.
His expression changed. “I burned them.”
“You burned them?”
“I couldn’t keep reading the words that stole you from me.”
It sounded heartbreaking.
At the time, I thought it was.
I burned them.
Helen called that evening.
I declined it.
She called again.
I turned off my phone.
The next morning, she came to my door. “Sis? I know you’re home.”
I stood behind the curtain and didn’t move.
It sounded heartbreaking.
Danny touched my shoulder. “Don’t hate her because of me.”
I looked at him. “She stole fifty-five years from us.”
“We don’t have enough time left for hate.”
That sentence convinced me more than anything else.
What liar defended the person who’d ruined his life?
If only I’d known I was asking the wrong question.
Don’t hate her because of me.
***
Over the next three weeks, Danny and I became nineteen again.
Almost.
We talked until midnight, remembering people I’d forgotten and places that no longer existed.
“Remember the diner?” he asked.
“Remember spilling a milkshake on my dress?”
“You bumped my arm.”
I was asking the wrong question.
“You were staring at the waitress.”
“I was staring at you.”
I laughed. “Still a liar.”
His phone buzzed on the table.
Danny glanced at the screen and turned it facedown.
Danny and I became nineteen again.
“Aren’t you going to answer?”
“No.”
“Who is it?”
“Someone from my old life.”
There was something in his voice that made me pause.
Danny turned it facedown.
Then he smiled and took my hand. “That life doesn’t matter anymore. This one does.”
I wanted to believe him badly enough that I did.
***
A few nights later, he held both my hands. “Why are we dating at seventy-five?”
I laughed. “What should we be doing?”
Someone from my old life.
“Getting married.”
I stared at him. “Danny…”
“You’re already my wife.”
For the first time in fifty-five years, I stopped thinking about everything I’d lost and started thinking about how much time I might still have.
Getting married.
***
We planned a tiny backyard wedding.
Danny wanted it soon.
Very soon.
He also started asking practical questions. “Is the house paid off?”
“Yes.”
How much time I might still have?
“Do you have a will?”
“Why?”
“We’re not twenty anymore, sweetheart. We should know how to take care of each other.”
“You’ve thought about this a lot.”
“About us? Of course.”
We planned a tiny backyard wedding.
“I meant the money.”
