Chapter 54
We were gathered in each other’s arms, and Philip whispered into my ear, trying as always to lighten the mood. “Do you want to fool around?”
“Maybe later.”
Before the slit in the sky opened up and a new day broke the horizon, I told Philip I didn’t want him to leave me.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said. 2
One Week Earlier
My world collapsed when the phone rang at ten P.M. on the last Monday in July, during the worst summer heat wave to blanket the small upstate New York area of Milestone in two years.
Philip and I had gone to the farmer’s market that morning at eight, after our morning constitutional around the grounds at the Old Air Force Base. We’d both adopted a new daily ritual. Get up early and run three miles.
That same day, we’d planned to bake an after-dinner strawberry rhubarb pie.
Our plans changed.