We waited in that parking lot for twenty-three minutes.
I know because I watched the clock on the dashboard as though it might tell me how to breathe.
Every car that turned in made my body tense. Every man who stepped out became Jesse for one terrible, hopeful second.
Then a gray sedan pulled slowly into the lot and parked several spaces away.
The driver did not get out immediately.
Through the windshield, I could see a man sitting very still behind the wheel.
Then the door opened.
He stepped out.
He was older, of course.
So was I.
His hair was shorter and threaded with gray near the temples. His face was leaner. There were lines around his eyes and mouth that seventeen-year-old Jesse had not lived long enough to earn.
