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gone, you can never get it back.
Party lights hang over the street, yellow and red and green. Sadie stumbles over someone’s chair,
but I’m ready for this and catch her easily by the arm.
“Sorry, clumsy,” she says.
“You always were, Sadie. One of your more endearing traits.”
Before she can ask about that, I slip my arm around her waist. She slips hers around mine, still
looking up at me. The lights skate across her cheeks and shine in her eyes. We clasp hands, fingers
folding together naturally, and for me the years fall away like a coat that’s too heavy and too tight. In
that moment I hope one thing above all others: that she was not too busy to find at least one good
man, one who disposed of John Clayton’s fucking broom once and for all.
She speaks in a voice almost too low to be heard over the music, but I hear her—I always did.
“Who are you, George?”
“Someone you knew in another life, honey.”
Then the music takes us, the music rolls away the years, and we dance.
January 2, 2009–December 18, 2010
Sarasota, Florida
Lovell, Maine