“Happy birthday.”
“You Remembered”
“You remembered my birthday.”
“Ruthie. I remembered every single one. Forty-one of them.”
I put my hand over my mouth.
Forty-one years disappeared in one sentence. That’s what I want people to understand. It took one sentence.
And then his voice broke.
“I Need You to Know Something Before I Die”
I closed my eyes.
“What?”
“I was in love with you when we made that promise. Under those bleachers. I was already in love with you.”
I couldn’t move.
“Jeffrey — “
“And I’d already bought the ring.”
My Eyes Came Open
“What ring?”
“The one I was going to give you before I left for school. It was in my dresser drawer for six weeks.”
The kitchen seemed to tilt. I got up off that floor.
“Then why did you marry somebody else?”
And my best friend started crying into a telephone.
“That’s what I’ve spent forty years wishing I could explain to you.”
