“You’re going to remember tonight for the rest of your life,” he told Jesse. “Make it count.”
Jesse nodded.
“I will.”
My mother reached up and straightened his tie, though it was already straight.
“Home by midnight,” she said.
“I know.”
“Not twelve-fifteen. Not twelve-thirty.”
“Midnight,” he promised.
Then he leaned down and kissed her cheek.
As he passed me, he squeezed my shoulder.
“Don’t wait up, Tess.”
It was a joke.
He said it whenever he went anywhere.
My mother always answered the same way.
“I’ll wait up,” she said from behind him. “I always wait up.”
Jesse laughed.
The screen door banged shut behind him.
Through the front window, I watched him walk to his old Honda, the one he had bought with two summers of mowing lawns and fixing neighbors’ fences. He got in, started the engine, and backed out of the driveway.
