“You came back because of that date.”

Evan looked at me, his face giving away nothing of what he was holding inside.

He reached out with both hands and shut his laptop, the plastic latch snapping closed while the autumn wind rattled the kitchen window frame.

The brass bell over the post office door rang twice when I pushed my way in at ten the next morning.

Arthur, who’d been working the postal counter since my early years at the library, put down his rubber ink stamp and pushed up his metal reading glasses.