Dell had forgotten how much he loved this park, how peaceful it felt, like a secret hiding spot, nestled amongst the trees. Even when half of them were mostly bare now, it felt safe.
Dell missed the ocean.
But this was still nice.
“Shit,” Chris said after a while. “My hands are freezing. You still good?”
Dell’s hands were freezing, too.
“Yeah. Good for a little while longer, if you are.”
“Yeah.”
After a minute, Chris moved a touch closer. Easier to hear each other.
“You’re still out in Oregon, right?”
“Yeah. Live by the coast now, though.”
“Sounds nice.”
“It is. How are you holding up here?”
Chris took a couple throws to answer.
“Made some dumb decisions for a while. But”—he threw the ball to Dell—“I’m sober now, so. Been working at the Department of Natural Resources down the road here for a while now.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. It’s a good job.” Another throw. “And, uh. You remember Alyssa Welch?”
Dell held the ball in his cold fingers an extra second, frowning as he tried to remember.
“Name sounds familiar. Can’t quite picture her face, though. You together now?”
“Yeah.” Chris caught Dell’s throw. “We didn’t hang out much, back in high school. But…you kind of get to know each other. When you’re the people who stay. You know?”
He didn’t say it like a judgment. Even if he knew Delldidn’tknow.
Georgia knew, though.
Most of the rest of the McClearys had been good at staying.
Mae came to him, as she often did, a gentle pink surprise in his memories. This time, she was lying sleepily on a colorful rug over a hardwood floor.
Books inspired me to get out of the small town I grew up in. And here I am, over twenty years later. And books have brought me back to another one.
A feeling pushed in, somewhere in the back of Dell’s mind, somewhere behind his ribs. A desire to know more about Mae’s own small hometown. Why hadn’t he asked more about it?
Flowering dogwood. North Carolina.
There were so many things he hadn’t asked.
More distant, something his mind resisted, but wrapped up in it all the same: a need to tell Mae more about this place, too. His Before.
“Makes sense,” he said, after his next throw. “Happy for you, Chris.”
“How ‘bout you?” Chris chucked the ball back, blew into his hands to warm them. “You with anyone, out there in Oregon?”
