“Troops, it has been an amazing summer. A truly amazing summer. I cannot begin to express how proud of you I am, how honored I have felt to be the General of such a kick-ass army.”
This was Tawny speaking, of course, addressing the rest of us from atop her rock. Such words could come from no one but Tawny Nelson.
“Our accomplishments have been extraordinary! Our ingenuity and tenacity have no rival! Whenever they hit us, we hit back harder!”
Cheers all around.
“It is my sincerest regret for this summer to come to an end,” Tawny went on. “But time stops for no man. School starts on Tuesday, no matter how much we want the War to go on and on forever.”
I snorted, quietly, so only Fiona could hear. She was sitting next to me, holding Nat’s hand, and she threw me a sympathetic look. If I could wish for anything, it would be that War not go on and on forever.
Well, no. If I could wish for anything, it would be for one particular boy, who was too good for me, who I would probably never see again.
“It’s always sad to see the summer end,” Tawny went on, “but this year is sadder for me than any other. Because, as you all know, I’m . . . going to college.”
I was stunned to see Tawny blink hard a few times, like she was holding back tears. In the five years I had known her, I had never seen Tawny cry. Not from pain, not from sadness, not from joy. She was a fighting machine. Two summers ago, the Civil Warriors stole a necklace that had been a gift from Tawny’s godmother before she died from ovarian cancer. Tawny didn’t even think about crying. Instead, she led a raid on Reenactmentland that liberated not only her necklace, but also one of the Civil War’s cannons in the process. Crying was not in Tawny’s repertoire.
Yet here she was, standing on the tip of her rock, her voice wavering with emotion. “This place . . . and you all . . . mean so much to me. I look forward to the War all year round. But this is . . . This is it for me. I’m too old to fight anymore.” She sniffled, and I saw a few other girls dabbing at their eyes too.
“I’m just glad I got to go out with a bang,” Tawny said, her voice barely louder than a whisper.
So that’s it, then. Tawny Nelson does have real, human feelings. They’re caused by weird things. But they are, nonetheless, real. That may have been the biggest surprise of this entire summer.
“As of next week, you will no longer be able to count me among these ranks,” Tawny went on, louder now. “Which means that it’s time to elect a new General. Nominations are now open. Who among you do you want to be your leader?”
Bryan’s hand immediately shot up. “I nominate Bryan Denton,” he said. “I think he’s been really dedicated to the War effort for many years now, and this summer, in particular, he has come into his own, especially during the Undercover Operation, which he pulled off masterfully.”
“He’s talking about himself in the third person, right?” I muttered to Fiona. “Is that actually what’s happening here?”
She looked pained. “It’s all so unclear.”
Nat raised his hand too—his right hand, the one not holding Fiona’s. “I nominate Chelsea Glaser,” he said.
A smattering of applause.
“This has been a rough season, but Chelsea contributed more than the rest of us combined. The intel she scoped out has put us in a position of power for years to come. Reenactmentland won’t recover easily from losing their Barnes Prize, and that’s all thanks to Chelsea. She’s shown herself willing to take unpopular stances, if it’s for the overall benefit of Essex. And from serving as Lieutenant to Tawny’s General, she already has experience leading our troops. So that’s my vote, and I hope it’s yours, as well. Chelsea Glaser for General!”
Nearly everyone, even Tawny, burst into applause. I didn’t do or say anything for a minute. I was flattered, of course, just as I’d been flattered two months ago, when they’d asked me to be Lieutenant. But being flattered wasn’t reason enough. And Nat’s understanding of what I’d done for the War this summer, and why I’d done it, was just so far from my reality, it was hard even to believe that he was talking about me.
Some people started chanting my name—“Chel-sea! Chel-sea!”—and it was like that first War meeting of the summer all over again. Only this time, it wasn’t going to end with Dan kidnapping me, because I hadn’t heard from him since the evening he showed up at my house and told me I was a bad person. I had called and texted him countless times since, trying to explain, begging him to forgive me. But for all the response I got, I might as well have been apologizing to myself.
So this meeting wasn’t going to end with Dan showing up. But it wasn’t going to end with me becoming General, either. That was one thing I could control.
I stood up before the cheering got too out of hand and said, “Essex!”
Everyone quieted down right away.
“Essex, I appreciate your confidence in me. But I’m going to have to say no. No, I don’t want it.”
Silence. Confused looks from my compatriots.
“I don’t want to be always at War,” I explained. “That’s not me. And whatever I’ve done for our War efforts this summer, I promise you, most of it was unintentional. What I really want is to be at peace.”
Still more confusion. If there’s one thing drama kids don’t really want, it’s to be at peace.
I figured, Oh, what the hell, and continued, “But there is someone among our ranks who would rise to fill the role of General. Someone who is more dedicated to the cause of Essex than I am. Someone who will never let you down. I think we all know who that someone is.”
Nope. Everyone was coming up blank.
“Bryan Denton,” I said. “For next summer’s General, I’m endorsing Bryan Denton.”
I sat down. There was a moment of silence, then a voice slowly started chanting, “Bry-an, Bry-an.” And it wasn’t even Bryan who started the chant. It was someone else. It spread through the rest of the Colonials. Soon everyone was cheering “Bry-an! Bry-an!”—myself loudest of all.
“Bryan, do you accept this honor?” Tawny shouted over the roar of the crowd.
“Yes! Yes!” He shot to his feet and started jumping all over the place, nearly landing on Patience. He kept pumping his fists in the air and waggling his head about.
“You just couldn’t help yourself, could you.” Fiona sighed.
“Nope.” I smiled, at peace. “I for sure could not.”
“Bryan, come on up here!” Tawny hollered.
But before he got the chance, Anne, apparently overcome, darted over to him, whirled him around, and planted a big wet one right on his mouth. He kissed her back valiantly, enthusiastically, his tongue flailing.
All the other Colonials hooted and hollered. “All right, man!” Nat shouted.
Fiona and I just stared at each other. “Anne has a thing for men with power?” Fiona suggested.
“Anne has a thing for amphibians?” I guessed.
Fiona shook her head. “We may never know.”
Anne sat down on my other side as Bryan ascended to the rock of power. “Thank you so much for endorsing him,” she whispered to me, her eyes shining, cheeks flushed. “I just know he’s going to be great at it.”
“I’m sure,” I agreed. And then—I mean, far be it from me to say anything derogatory about someone else’s love interest, since it’s not like I have such foolproof taste, but the words just slipped out. “You do know he’s like a toad, right?”
“Yeah.” Anne shrugged, her adoring gaze still fixed on Bryan. “I don’t really mind that.”
Bryan went on for a while, spittle flying out of his mouth, about all the brilliant historical plans he had for next year. I mostly tuned him out. I wasn’t sure if I would be back here next summer. And even if I worked at Essex again, I didn’t want anything to do with the War.
Anyway, this year wasn’t over just yet. We still had one last week to get through.
So instead of listening to Bryan, I looked around at all the other Colonials in this grove of trees with me. Fiona was resting her head on Nat’s shoulder. They had been almost inseparable since Maggie’s party, nearly three weeks ago. I had even heard Fiona call him her boyfriend, though she quickly explained that she was just using the word as shorthand.
Ezra and Maggie were sitting together a ways behind me. I had to twist around to look at them properly, so I didn’t look for long. They had gotten back together the day after Maggie’s party. Maybe they would work out this time around. Maybe he would finally get it together, and she would get it together, and they would make each other as happy as Ezra and I had never been.
I didn’t think Ezra had told Maggie that, during the twelve hours they were broken up, he had kissed me. I didn’t think anyone knew about our kiss in the woods that night except for me and him. And Fiona, obviously, because I told her.
Seeing Ezra and Maggie together, like they were now, still made me feel a little jealous, a little hurt. I guessed that I would always feel that way. I didn’t want what they had. But I wanted something.
There was less than a week left to summer, but that didn’t stop the moderners from visiting Essex. If anything, there were more of them, and they were more high-strung, anxious to squeeze in the last bit of their children’s summer enrichment before the school year began. I spent my third-to-last day of work running all over the graveyard, talking constantly, without a moment of downtime. I must have given two dozen families directions to the bathroom.
All three of the felled headstones had been put back up last week, and they looked as good as new. Or as good as old, I guess. None of the moderners gave them a second glance. The only way I could tell that they had been knocked over at all was because I remembered it.
Shortly before my lunch break, things calmed down a little. Moderners get hungry too. In fact, moderners get hungry way more than I do. It’s because they’re on vacation.
“What a day,” Linda said to me. She sounded potentially depressed by the day we were having. But, then again, it was so hard to say.
“Seriously,” I said, like I shared her emotion, whatever it was. “It’s been crazy. I must have talked about the dead baby hill fifteen times.”
Linda replied with her version of a smile. “You know, there might not actually be hundreds of dead babies buried there.”
“What?” I exclaimed. “You’re kidding me.”
“At the Granary Burying Ground in Boston, there’s a hill that resembles this one, where we’re pretty certain the Colonials buried a large number of unbaptized infants. So we believe that this hill served the same purpose. But no one’s ever dug it up to check, and the Colonials had no reason to keep careful records of the deaths of such young children. So . . .” She put out her hands and shrugged.
“But I’ve been telling people about those dead babies all summer long!” I felt betrayed.
“Me too.” Linda looked unconcerned. “Hey, it’s a great story either way.”
She was right: It was a great story, true or false. It said what we wanted it to say. Tourists liked to hear about it. I liked to hear about it too. So it shouldn’t have mattered to me that it might be a fiction, an accidental or purposeful misrecollection, yet somehow it did.
In my life, I wanted just one thing that wasn’t a story. I didn’t want to be far from authentic. I wanted one thing that I knew was true.
“I’m going on lunch now,” I announced, and I didn’t stick around to hear whether Linda said that was okay or not. I gathered up my petticoats and walked as fast as I could out of the graveyard, down the main road. I didn’t stop for moderners requesting directions, I didn’t stop by the milliner’s to chat with Fiona, and I didn’t stop at the silversmith’s to get my sandwich. I just kept walking straight out of Essex, and, as soon as I hit the other side of the main gates, I broke into a run.
I ran across the street as fast as my Colonial shoes would let me. I ran up the main drive to Reenactmentland, I kept running . . . until I saw the ticket booth.
I had forgotten that it cost money to get into Reenactmentland. And honestly I would have paid the entry fee. I would have forked over my entire salary right then and there, just to get inside, to find Dan before the summer was over, before he went back to his modern world and disappeared from mine forever.
But Colonial women aren’t allowed to carry money on them, because they are the property of their fathers or spouses, and property isn’t allowed to own property.
I didn’t have the time to return to Essex, go to the break room above the silversmith’s, get my wallet, talk to my parents . . . More than not having the time, I just couldn’t wait. I needed to do this now.
So I straightened my mobcap, dropped my petticoats, and strode slowly, sedately, straight past the ticket booth.
To anyone who knows anything, Colonial clothing has no resemblance to Civil War–era clothing. This would be like if someone walked into a twenty-first-century mall wearing a dress from 1925. Everyone would notice.
But apparently, to the ticket sellers at Reenactmentland, historical dress looks like historical dress, because they didn’t bat an eye at me. I walked straight through like I belonged there.
Someone should tell the rest of the Colonials that sneaking into Reenactmentland didn’t require as much sneakiness as we’d always thought. Someone should absolutely tell them, but it wasn’t going to be me. After today, I was getting out of the War business once and for all.
Reenactmentland was quieter than when I’d been there earlier in the summer, quieter than Essex was today. The scarcity of moderners was no doubt due to the Barnes Prize scandal. We had won the War this year, anyone could see it. Our victory was thanks to the Civil Warriors who had decided to cheat in the first place, and thanks to me.
But unlike Ezra, I didn’t care about winning.
This time, I knew where I was going. Purposefully, calmly, I walked to the big field filled with tents. The tent selling gentlemen’s clothes, the tent selling weapons, the tent selling books. The tent where Dan and his family worked. I walked to the middle of the field, and then I stopped.
I waited. I didn’t have to wait long.
The short girl, the Civil War General, came out of a tent and marched up to me. “What are you doing here?” she hissed, getting up in my face.
“I came to apologize.”
She took a step back, seeming thrown by my answer. “This is War,” she said, looking at me like she couldn’t tell if I was kidding or stupid or what. “You don’t apologize in War.”
“Maybe you don’t, but I do. I am.”
She didn’t reply for a moment, just sized me up, and I could tell she was thinking it over, getting ready to say, “Okay, we forgive you. Okay, we welcome you.”
What she actually said was, “I’m going to give you to the count of ten to get the hell out of Reenactmentland. Start running.”
Sometimes what I think is going on in people’s heads is not, in fact, what is actually going on in people’s heads.
“One . . . two . . . three . . .”
I didn’t move. I didn’t know what would happen when she reached ten, but whatever it was, I would take it.
Here is what happened when she got to ten: In the absolute farbiest move I have ever seen in all my years of reenacting, she pulled a cell phone out of her shirt and typed in a text message.
I opened my mouth to say So what wireless carrier did the Confederate Army use? before reminding myself that I was supposed to be here on a peace mission.
Moments after she sent the text message, other Civil Warriors started emerging from their tents. They walked straight over to us, forming a tight huddle around me, so no one could see in, and I couldn’t get out.
“Who let her in?”
“The better question,” said their General, “is, what are we going to do with her now that she’s here?”
They closed in tighter around me. Someone behind me shoved my back, hard. I went falling forward into another Civil Warrior’s hands. He threw me to the ground, and the back of my skull knocked into someone’s knee. I tried to stand up, but they immediately shoved me back down.
The name-calling started.
“Farb,” one of them hissed.
“Cheater.”
“Liar.”
“Bitch.”
Someone spat on me, and I realized that, just because there were moderners and adults around somewhere, that didn’t mean this couldn’t get out of control. That didn’t mean I couldn’t get seriously hurt. These Civil Warriors weren’t playing. They were angry.
“What the hell is going on here?” a familiar voice demanded.
I looked up to see Dan shoving his way through the crowd. The Civil Warriors stopped and just watched him, waiting to see what he would do.
“Hey,” I said, and tried to smile, but I hurt all over.
He stared at me in silence for a moment, then around the circle at his friends, like he didn’t know where to begin.
It occurred to me then that he could just walk away. He could tell them, “Do what you want with her, I don’t care,” and walk away.
If he did that, then it would be really, truly over. If he left me here, then I would know for sure that we were never going to be together. And I would get over him, I knew—Fiona would make up another arbitrary time constraint for me, and I would erase the few precious text messages he had sent me, and I would work really hard, and I would get over him. I’d done it before, and I could do it again. If he walked away.
He looked at the other Civil Warriors, and he ordered, “Get your hands off of her.”
Everyone backed up slightly, giving me a little room to breathe.
“Dan, all of this is her fault,” the General said.
“Yeah, I’m aware of that,” he snapped.
“So we thought you’d want us to . . .” One of the guys gestured toward me.
“Then you thought wrong,” Dan said.
“Christ, could you be a bigger pussy?” another guy asked him. “Okay, so you think she’s hot. So what, man? She’s still a backstabbing bitch, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“I’d noticed,” Dan replied, killing any hope I might have had that he rescued me because he still liked me. He went on, “Haven’t enough people already gotten hurt in this War? How many more people have to suffer before you can all be happy?
“And you.” He turned his gaze on me. “What are you doing here, Elizabeth Connelly? Didn’t you even consider that if you came over here in the middle of the day, sashaying around in your Colonial dress, that you’d be in danger? I guess you just never have any clue what impact your actions might have, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure this one out.”
What hurt me most wasn’t his tone or his criticism. It was that he called me by my Colonial name. Like he’d stopped caring who I really was. It was only our roles that mattered.
“Well?” he said, staring at me.
“Well?” I repeated blankly.
“Well, what the hell was going through your mind?”
“Oh. I thought that was a rhetorical question.”
Dan looked furious. “No, when I ask you what you’re thinking, it’s because I want to know what you’re thinking.”
And with that sentence, I loved him. I sat on the ground, bruised and muddy and spat-upon, and I just loved him. In a weird way, that was one of the nicest things that anyone had ever said to me.
“Yes,” I said, starting to smile. “I knew this was going to happen.”
“But you came over here anyway,” Dan said.
“Yes. I wanted this to happen.”
“Freak,” one of the Civil Warriors coughed loudly. Neither Dan nor I glanced at him.
“I wanted this to happen because I wanted to try to make things even between us,” I said. “I’m sorry, Dan. I needed to tell you that before the summer ended. I betrayed your trust and damaged your whole family. I used you to try to win back people who weren’t worth winning. I was trying to win an unwinnable war. I’m sorry. And I wanted to give you a chance to hurt me as much as I hurt you.”
“Stop it.” Dan exhaled a long sigh. “Just stop. I don’t want to hurt you as much as you hurt me.”
“Now that,” commented the Civil War General, “is actually real sweet. Why weren’t you that sweet to me when we were together, Dan?”
“You guys used to go out?” I blurted out, looking up at her.
“When we were twelve,” Dan said.
“I broke his heart,” the General added smugly.
A voice came from behind her. “Excuse me! Yoo-hoo! Civil War people!”
The circle around me opened up to reveal a family of moderners. A mom, a dad, and four scowling little blond boys in matching cowboy hats.
“Can we get a photo with all of you?” the mother asked. “Y’all look so fabulous in your costumes!”
“Of course,” we chorused. Even me. If there’s one rule that every reenactor knows, it’s that you always say yes to a photograph, War or no War, heartbreak or no heartbreak.
The modern woman stared down at me. “You okay there, hon?” she asked.
“Yes,” all the Civil Warriors and I said together.
“I fell,” I explained, wincing as I stood up and tried to brush some dirt off my gown.
“She fell,” the Civil War General agreed.
“Well, hop to. It’s photo time!”
The modern woman proceeded to arrange everyone exactly how she wanted us. “Caleb, honey, you kneel here, in front of this lady. That’s right. Now, you two, pretend like you’re carrying that basket. Ooh, I love that!”
“Do you actually want me in this photo?” I asked the moderner. For one thing, I’d just been beat up, and I looked it. For another, I came from an entirely different century.
She looked puzzled and said, “Of course. Get on in there! Say cheese!”
I wound up placed next to Dan. “I assume this is what it’s like to work with Ansel Adams,” I muttered. The corner of his mouth twitched in what might have been a smile.
After the moderner had snapped a dozen photos of us and her ferocious-looking towheaded offspring, they left us alone, the children running ahead of their parents and aiming toy guns at one another. I could hear them screeching “Pow-pow! Pow-pow!” even after they’d disappeared from my view.
“I’m going to escort Chelsea out,” Dan said. “And she won’t come back. Will you?”
“No way,” I said.
“I’m done here.”
We left behind the other Civil Warriors in their field and headed toward the exit. We must have looked so mismatched together: him in a Civil War costume, me in a Colonial costume, walking side by side.
“There’s blood on your gown,” he said, staring straight ahead.
I glanced down. He was right. “The summer’s practically over,” I said. “So, unless I do this next year, I won’t even have to wash it off.”
His mouth curved a little again, like he was trying not to laugh.
“I’m going to tell you a story,” I said. “I’m going to tell you a story that is one-hundred-percent true. Do you remember how I mentioned my ex-boyfriend, Ezra?”
“Sure. The one who sucks.”
“He doesn’t suck,” I said automatically. And then I added, “He’s incredibly misguided and careless with other people’s feelings, and he has the emotional maturity of a toddler, but sucks is such a vulgar word. Anyway, he wanted to get back together with me a couple weeks ago.”
Dan shrugged as if to say, that has nothing to do with me.
“And I told him no,” I went on.
Dan glanced at me.
“I told him no because he hadn’t changed at all since we broke up, and I hadn’t changed at all, either. Neither of us had changed, either by accident or on purpose, either because we didn’t know how, or because we didn’t want to, or because we didn’t know that we should. So if he and I got back together, then our relationship would have been exactly the same as it was before. And, as it turned out, our relationship wasn’t very good.”
Dan didn’t say anything, but I could tell he was listening.
I took a deep breath. “I know that the things I did to you are as cruel as the things Ezra did to me. What I did was probably worse. But I want you to give me another chance. I’m asking you to give me another chance, because I have changed. I am trying to change. I want to do it right this time.”
We walked past the ticket booths and stopped at the front gate of Reenactmentland. Dan said, “What about the thing where all of time is happening simultaneously, and all of history is actually one moment, so you can’t ever move beyond it? Or did you forget about all of that?”
“No, I still believe that,” I said. “I believe that history is always here, and we can’t ignore it, and we can’t escape it. But people aren’t history. Ezra used to love me, that was true, he meant it when he said it. And then he stopped loving me, and that’s also true—but that doesn’t mean that he never loved me. Just like how I used to love him. And now . . . now I don’t, anymore. So that’s how I know that people can change, if they want to. And I want to.”
Dan looked at me for a while, like he was memorizing me.
I cleared my throat. “Anyway, that’s all I’ve got. Also, I’m sorry, if I didn’t remember to say that.”
“You might have mentioned it once or twice,” he said.
“Great. I’m going to go back to work, and then I’m going to put ice on these bruises, and then—well, I’m not sure what comes next, but, whatever it is, I’m going to do it. I am all about doing whatever comes next.”
“School starts next week,” Dan stated.
“I know.”
“And then you won’t work at Essex anymore.”
“Until next summer, maybe,” I said.
“And I won’t work at Reenactmentland anymore.”
“Until next summer, maybe.”
He shook his head forcefully. “Ever.”
“Okay, ever. So we’ll never be enemies again.”
Dan took my hand. “That’s a lot to look forward to.” He kissed me on the cheek, lingering there for a moment before pulling back. “I’ll see you soon, Chelsea Glaser.”
Then he turned to walk back into Reenactmentland, and I turned to walk back to Essex. We kept holding on to each other’s hands for as long as we could.
Labor Day weekend means many things: the last days of freedom before school starts. The last days that my friends and I work at Essex. The last days that Dan and his friends work at Reenactmentland. And the first days of the Virginia Renaissance Faire, which runs from Labor Day through Halloween. This year, for the first time ever, the Ren Faire wasn’t taking place at the fairgrounds in Richmond. Instead, it was going to be set less than a mile down the road from Essex, and from Reenactmentland.
There is nobody farbier than these Ren Faire interpreters. I don’t have to know anything about sixteenth-century history to know how badly they’re misrepresenting it. The women there blatantly wear modern makeup. Their costumes are made out of polyester and cotton. There are visible speakers all around the fairegrounds, piping in horrifying chamber music.
My parents took me to the Ren Faire one weekend when I was little, because they thought it would be a fun family outing. When we saw the stage of half-naked dancers, we immediately turned around and left. Not because my parents thought it was inappropriate for their child to see barely dressed women. Just because they thought it was inappropriate for their child to see such offensive historical inaccuracies.
And now the Ren Fairies were here, infiltrating Essex. Practically in our backyards.
So Labor Day also marked the second War Council of the season. Once again, the top Civil Warriors met with the top Colonials at the ice cream shop. But this time, the issue on the table was, How can we combine our powers to take down the Ren Faire?
“A jousting match,” the Civil War General was saying with conviction. “We sneak in one of our people, enter him into the jousting competition, and then, boom! He knocks a Ren Fairie off his horse. Maybe even stabs him through the heart with a sword.”
Everyone pondered this suggestion.
“I see some issues here,” I began.
“Yeah,” agreed Bryan, our new man in charge. “Like, how would we convince them that our man is really a Renaissance jouster?”
“Never mind,” I muttered.
“Well, how did y’all sneak in as Confederate soldiers?” the Civil War General asked, making a note on a pad of paper. “Because if we could just use that technique . . .”
“I’ll tell you,” Patience beamed.
“Also, does anyone here know how to fence?” Ezra wondered.
Nearly everyone in the room raised their hands.
Fiona and I left them to their plotting and went up to the counter to order ice cream.
“What was that thing you said once?” I asked her. “Like, ‘My enemy is actually my friend if I have another enemy who is also the enemy of my first enemy’?”
Fiona shrugged. “I might have said ‘enemy’ a few more times than that. But yeah, it’s still true.”
The ice cream scooper was the same one who had been working during the previous War Council.
“You guys came back,” he noted, dipping my Moose Tracks in sprinkles. “I guess you must really like ice cream, huh?”
“We do,” she assured him. “We really like ice cream.”
“Too bad it’s almost fall,” he commented as he rang us up. “This is just about the end of ice cream season.”
“No,” I said. “It’s always ice cream season.”
We took our cones to the door. Dan stood up. “Can I come with you guys?”
Fiona and I nodded. “Of course.”
I pushed open the door, and the little bells on top of it tinkled. Everyone paused in their strategizing for a moment to stare at Fiona, Dan, and me.
“Aren’t you going to stay and help us plan how to take down those farbs?” Bryan asked, his eyes bulging.
“No,” we answered. We took our ice cream and walked outside together into the fresh air.
And that was the summer. All these moments are in the past now, but they don’t disappear, and I don’t forget. They are still part of me whenever I drive around with Fiona, whenever I jump on my trampoline with Dan, whenever I see Ezra and Maggie together.
Sometimes still I am bowled over by these memories. But then I pick myself up, and I keep moving forward, one foot in front of the other, relentlessly into the present.