If you are holding my ring, I want you to know I took it off only when they made me.
I pressed my eyes shut.
“Stop.”
Wade did not move.
I was talking to Randall.
“I said stop.”
But dead men obey nothing.
I opened my eyes.
I am sorry for the way I left. I am sorry for every morning you woke believing it meant our life had meant nothing to me.
My hand shook.
It meant everything.
I covered my mouth again.
Thirty-five years compressed into two words.
Everything.
I saw Randall at twenty-nine, standing at an altar with hair too long over his ears because he had refused to let his mother bully him into a haircut. Randall at thirty-six, asleep upright with newborn Jonah against his chest. Randall at forty-eight, dancing badly at Elise’s wedding. Randall at sixty-one, on the roof despite my threats, clearing leaves from gutters. Randall at sixty-eight, showing me ocean brochures at the kitchen table.
