Chapter 1

His folded hands are pale and fragile in the

early morning light, the faint veins beneath translucent skin like

faded ink on forgotten love letters written long ago. His fingers

lace through mine; his body curves along my back, still asleep

despite the sun that spills between the shades. I lie awake for

long minutes, clasped tight against him, unable or unwilling to

move and bring the day crashing in. Only in sleep am I sure that he

fully remembers me. When he wakes, the sun will burn that memory

away and I’ll have to watch him struggle to recall my name. After a

moment or two he’ll get it without my prompting but one day I know

it will be gone, lost like the dozen other little things he no

longer remembers, and no matter how long I stare into his weathered

blue eyes, he won’t be able to get it back.

Cradled in his arms, I squeeze his hands in

my arthritic fists and pray this isn’t that day.

After some time he stirs, his even breath

breaking with a shuddery sigh that tells me he’s up. There’s a

scary moment when he freezes against me, unsure of where he is or

who I am. I hold my breath and wait for the moment it all falls

into place. His thumb smoothes along my wrist, and an eternity

passes before he kisses behind my ear, my name a whisper on his

lips. “Henry.”

I sigh, relieved. Today he still remembers,

and that gives me the strength to get out of bed. “Morning, Jim.” I

stretch like an old cat, first one arm then the other, feeling the

blush of energy as my blood stirs and familiar aches settle into

place. Over my shoulder I see Jim watching, a half smile on his

face that tells me he still likes what he sees. As I reach for my

robe, I ask him, “How about some eggs this morning? That sound

good?”

“You know how I like them,” he says, voice

still graveled from sleep. His reply wearies me—I don’t know if

he’s forgotten how he prefers his eggs or if he simply trusts me to

get them right. I want to believe in his trust, so I don’t push it.

After fifty years of living with Jim, of loving him, I choose my

battles carefully, and this isn’t one either of us would win.

Leaning across the bed, I plant a quick kiss

on the corner of his mouth. “Be down in ten minutes,” I murmur.

His gnarled fingers catch the knot in the

belt of my robe and keep me close. My lower back groans in protest,

but I brush the wisps of white hair from his forehead and smile

through the discomfort as he tells me, “I have to shower.”

“Jim,” I sigh. When I close my eyes he’s

eighteen again, the fingers at my waist long and graceful and firm,

his gaunt cheeks smooth and unwrinkled, his lips a wet smile below

dark eyes and darker hair. It pains me to have to remind him, “We

showered last night.”

He runs a hand through his thinning hair,

then laughs. “Ten minutes then,” he says with a playful poke at my

stomach. I catch his hand in mine and lean against it heavily to

help myself up.

* * * *

We met in the late spring, 1956, the year I

graduated from State. It seems so long ago now—it’s hard to imagine

we were ever anything but the old men we’ve become. My youngest

sister Betty had a boy she wanted me to meet, someone I thought she

was courting at the time, and she arranged an afternoon date. I

thought she wanted my approval before she married the guy; that’s

the way things were done back in the day.

But when I drove up to Jim’s parent’s house

and saw those long legs unfold as he pushed himself up off the

front steps of the porch, I thought I’d spend the rest of my life

aching for him. I could just imagine the jealousy that would eat me

alive, knowing my sister slept in those gangly arms every night;

family gatherings would become unbearable as I watched the two of

them kiss and canoodle together. By the time he reached my car, I

had decided to tell Betty she had to find someone else. That nice

Italian kid on the corner perhaps, or the McKeever’s son around the

block. Anyone but this tall, gawkish man-boy with the thin face and

unruly mop of dark hair, whose mouth curved into a shy smile when

those stormy eyes met mine. “You must be Henry,” he said, before I

could introduce myself. He offered me a hand I never wanted to

release. “Betty’s told me all about you.”

Betty. My sister. Who thought I should spend

the day with her current beau, checking up on him instead of

checking him out. My voice croaked, each word a sentence as final

as death. “Jim. Yes. Hello.”

I vowed to keep a distance between us but

somehow Jim worked through my defenses. He had a quick laugh, a

quicker grin, and an unnerving way of touching my arm or leg or

bumping into me at odd moments that caught me off guard. He skirted

a fine line, too nice to be just my sister’s boyfriend but not

overtly flirting with me. Once or twice I thought I had his

measure, thought I knew for sure which side of the coin he’d call,

but then he would be up in the air again, turning heads over tails

as I held my breath to see how he would land. That first afternoon

was excruciating—lunch, ice cream afterward, a walk along the

boulevard as I tried to pin him down with questions he laughed off

or refused to answer. I played it safe, stuck to topics I thought

he’d favor, like how he met my sister and what he planned to do now

that he was out of high school. But his maddening grin kept me at

bay. “Oh, leave Betty out of this,” he told me at one point,

exasperated. “I know her already. Tell me more about you.”

I didn’t want to talk about myself. There was

nothing I could say that would make him fall for me instead of

Betty, and I just wanted the day to be over. I didn’t want to see

him again, didn’t want to thinkabout him if I could help

it, and in my mind I was already running through a list of excuses

as to why I couldn’t attend my sister’s wedding if she married him,

when Jim noticed a matinee sign outside the local theater. “You

like these kind of movies?” he wanted to know. Some creature flick,

not my style at all, but before I could tell him we should be

heading back, Jim grabbed my elbow and dragged me to the ticket

window.