haven’t left and you remember better, I’m sure. But I’ve lived ten, twelve places since here, and I really had forgotten a lot of it, a lot of those times and days. Until I saw you.” He turned back to me and touched the side of my face. I backed away in a slight movement.
“Sorry,” he whispered. “I came in the dark so you wouldn’t see me. Guess that plan didn’t work.”
“Why didn’t you want me to see you?” I leaned against his truck.
“I didn’t want you to think I was trying to mess with your life, since you’re engaged and all that.”
I laughed. “Now why would I think that?”
“Because I am,” he said, and pinched the tip of my nose.
“You’re what?”
“Wanting to mess with your life.”
“Jack—”
“But I won’t. I promise.”
“You’re not messing with my life.”
He faced me with his left shoulder against the truck. “Do you remember the ring I gave you?”
I nodded.
“You really do?”
“Yes, I really do. In fact, I still have it.”
In the light of the flickering gas lamp, his eyebrows rose. “You do?”
“I do. It’s dented, but I have it.”
“I bought that for your fifteenth birthday. I thought I’d give it to you down by the footbridge and ask you to go steady with me.” He laughed. “Steady? No one says that anymore, do they?”
“No,” I said.
“I bought it at the downtown jewelry store—McRorey’s. Do you remember that place?”
“It’s still there, still run by Mr. McRorey.”
“Wow, how old is he now?”
“Jack—it’s only been thirteen years . . . or so. He’s in his sixties, I think.”
“Thirteen years—seems like a lifetime. Well, he talked me into that ring when I was going to buy you a star pendant.”
“For our game of who saw the first star. . . .”
“Well, Mr. McRorey told me the ring stood for love, loyalty, and friendship. And well, then—back then, I mean—I thought that’s what we stood for.”
“That is awful sweet.”
“Or just awful, huh?” he asked.
“No. Just sweet.”
“I don’t know what happened to that boy.” He sighed. “Why don’t you just go on in”—he waved toward my house—“and forget you saw me. I really didn’t mean to bother you. I just came to take a little walk down memory lane.”
“You’re not bothering me. I’m . . .” I fought for the right words and came up with something completely inadequate. “Glad to see you.”
A clap of thunder met my lukewarm declaration. I jumped as rain pelted us in a sudden downpour. Jack grabbed my hand, pulled me toward the side of the lawn, toward our tree cavern of the past.
We ran toward the line of oaks. I laughed, immediately soaked. “I don’t think we can squeeze in there anymore.”
We ducked together under the branches. Jack pulled me to him. “Looks like we still fit.”
I didn’t know whether he meant that we fit together or that we fit under the tree. I scooted backward on my bottom. “Wow, I do still fit in here.” I looked up at him. “I haven’t come in here since you left.”
“Really?”
“I waited.” I picked a leaf off the lower root, feeling I could say anything, that the thoughts and emotions would stay here, under the tree, and not be carried outside with us.
“You waited for me?” He touched my bottom lip, held his finger there.
Everything in me stilled: thoughts, reactions, rationalizations all quieted. I touched his hand. “A long time. Then I finally had to stop. . . .”
He leaned toward me now, never moving his hand. “Am I too late? Did you wait too long?” Then his hand moved as his lips touched mine, found my mouth.
Thunder pounded our hideout; I jumped back. “Jack . . .”
“Wow, this place is so full of . . . so much.”
“I know.”
He pushed the wet hair off my face. “How could you still live here and not feel the past all the time? Your mama, my daddy, us?”
“Just because you stay in one place doesn’t mean life doesn’t go on as it went on for you—new experiences, new people. You don’t have to leave to move on.”
“But sitting here with you, under these roots, it’s like time never moved, like—”
An unbidden tear escaped my eye; I wiped it away. “Don’t, Jack. I’m confused enough. Don’t do this. You’re remembering what we had then, who I was then. Memory and love are elusive enough. I can’t confuse what I remember with what is real.”
“No,” he said, and put both hands in my hair now. “I know the difference.”
I turned away.