“Patricia passed away, didn’t she?” I asked softly. “I saw the notice in the county paper two years ago.”
“She did,” he said, his voice dropping. “It was a long illness. The house has been very quiet since she went.”
“I am sorry, Garrett,” I said. “My husband, Thomas, passed away last year. The silence takes some getting used to.”
He reached across the table, his fingers tapping the edge of my saucer.
“I remember sitting behind the football bleachers with you during the homecoming game in November of our senior year,” he said, his crooked smile returning. “It was freezing, and I told you I would buy you the biggest diamond ring in Indiana one day.”
I looked down at my bare hands, the pale band of skin where my wedding ring used to sit before my fingers swelled.
“We were nineteen, Garrett,” I said. “We did not know anything about the world.”
“Some promises take fifty-three years to keep, Eleanor,” he said.
He looked at me with an intensity that made me pull my hands back to my lap, where I immediately began to smooth the fabric of my skirt.
