Seeing an Old Friend

“I don’t want you to go,” Sara says.

“Which tie,” I say, holding up the mauve one, enjoying my indifference while my wife frowns. She leans in the doorway, folding her arms, shaking her head.

“But you told me he left you when you went crazy,” she says as if this makes any difference. “When you tried to find him again, he gave you the wrong address.”

“I think the navy one.”

I fold the tie and put it in the suitcase. When the breeze drifts through the bedroom window, curtains sway into the room like sails, and the sun climbs the blue sky and black birds perch on power lines that hum when the air grows hot.

“You always go away and leave me to look after the kids. I don’t go anywhere.”

I close my eyes.

“I’ll be gone for a couple of days, sweetheart. Don’t stress.”

Sara slumps into the armchair and watches me pack. “You don’t talk about him. Were you close?”

And so I tell Sara about Grant and me growing up in a small rural town with…