“He was really handsome and had an IQ of about two. He was five years older, and we were on our way to get married and he started talking about what he wanted and he wanted a toy bulldog and fresh vegetables on the table every night and I said, ‘Turn the car around. I’m not going to be cooking every night, and I don’t like bulldogs. I don’t want a bulldog!’ I was a junior in high school then.
“Then when I was forty and out at the Elks Club, Evan walked over and said, ‘I’m going to marry you.’
“I was sitting with Warren and he had just proposed. He said, ‘You got that wrong, fella. She’s marrying me.’
“‘No, she’s not,’ Evan said.
“I said, ‘Listen, I’m not marrying anyone, all right?’
“Then Evan got my address at work from my girlfriend and sent me flowers every day for two weeks. And I had never seen him before.
“We had forty-five years together. He still visits me. Sometimes he comes in the night and sits on the edge of the bed and asks how I’m doing. The other night there was a big storm and terns were circling in the wind and Evan came in and said, ‘Look, there are birds everywhere,’ and I sat up and looked out the window and there was a big moon and I saw them and I said, ‘I see them,’ and he was standing up, getting ready to go, and I said, ‘Why can’t I go with you?’ And he said, ‘Not yet, dear girl, it isn’t time yet, but I’ll be here to take you when it is, and we’ll be together, just like always.’
“I wish it was now.
“I’m awfully tired now.”