I’m counting on it.”

She was quiet a long moment, the rain filling it.

Then she reached out her hand.

“Give me the umbrella.

You’re holding it crooked, and you’re pouring the whole thing down my collar.”

I laughed.

It came out of me before I could stop it, rough and startled — the first real laugh I had laughed in more years than I wanted to count.

I gave her the umbrella, and she held it properly, over both of us, and we walked out into the rain side by side.