“Margaret, someday I’ll buy you a diamond ring.”
We were seventeen.
Thomas had almost no money.
He did not own a car.
He rode a bicycle with a bent wheel.
But I believed him anyway.
Then life pulled us apart.
Thomas left for college.
I stayed home to care for my widowed mother.
Our letters slowly stopped.
Eventually, I married Robert, a good man who loved me faithfully.
Thomas married Evelyn, a good woman who built an entire life with him.
We raised our families.
We buried our spouses.
And somehow, more than fifty years passed without Thomas and me seeing each other again.
Then one afternoon, he found me at a church bake sale.
He stopped in front of my table and stared.
“You still wear your hair the same.”
I smiled.
“And you still talk too smoothly.”
It was ridiculous how quickly the years disappeared.
We began talking.
