Some promises take a lifetime to fulfill, and my high school sweetheart was one of them. Just when I believed our story had finally reached its happy ending, everything started falling apart.
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Mornings moved slowly in my town, and after my husband Howard passed away, that suited me perfectly. Marriage
I kept myself occupied with church bake sales and Wednesday shifts at the food pantry, allowing the silence of the house to be enough company.
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One Saturday in April, I was arranging lemon bars on a long folding table at First Methodist when someone behind me spoke my name as though it still belonged to him.
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“Eleanor.”
I turned and saw Garrett standing there, 53 years older but wearing the same crooked smile he’d had after kissing me behind the bleachers in 1972. Back then, he’d promised, “Eleanor, someday I’ll buy you a diamond ring.”
—
“You still wear your hair the same,” Garrett whispered at the bake sale.
“And you still talk too smoothly,” I told him.
We laughed until tears filled our eyes, right beside the brownies and the pitcher of iced tea. Pastor Wells politely pretended not to notice. My choir friend Marlene noticed everything, and I knew Sunday would bring plenty of questions.
Garrett asked whether he could buy me coffee, and I said perhaps a slice of pie too, if he was feeling generous.
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He stayed through the bake sale, then paid for both coffee and pie before escorting me to my car as though we were still living in 1972, before life had separated us.
