A year and a half after they had said goodbye, and still they laughed about those cards, now placed side by side on the mantel in the bungalow.
They laughed about the way he came upon her in the back garden that day, and stood in the same place she had stood the first time she came to see him. She had turned in the same startled way, nervous as he’d been nervous, and when it started to sink in that he was not part of her imagination, she felt herself smile, and he came toward her with his arms out, and my God, how long did they stand there holding on to each other for dear life?
Now, most mornings June watched from bed while he dressed. He liked to make breakfast before she came downstairs, to be alone in the kitchen first thing, with the birds and the quiet and the chance to watch the elk undisturbed. It was summer, and they ate yogurt with granola on the front porch in their pajamas. June liked to pick blackberries by herself, off along the edges of the forest, collecting them in the white pail she’d given to Jameson that day for the birdbath. She’d return with a calm mind and her pail half full, her fingers the stained colors of her dreams.
Some days June accompanied Jameson at work. She’d read in the yard or she’d write by hand in her notebook beneath the shade of a tree. When the rain returned she’d take cover on a porch or in a living room, and they would share a picnic lunch inside, and she would read to him from the things she wrote and ask what rang true to his ear and what hadn’t yet hit the mark, and he understood the history of words in a way she did not, the paths they’d followed to arrive where she could use them, and she found it strange that he knew such things, and that he’d known just when to come back, and she wondered how it was that they had found each other at all, in a world so large and grievous.