“So I left him there alone to watch history repeat the same events retold again and again on his own.”

“Fine," he repeated, and I wondered why it was I kept coming back to this, again and again, a word that you said when someone asked how you were but didn't really care to know the truth.”

“Watching them, I thought again of how we can't expect everybody to be there for us, all at once. So it's a lucky thing that really, all you need is someone.”

“This was our common ground, the secret we shared but never spokealoud. I should have beenwith him; she should have left him alone. Shoulda, coulda, woulda. It's so easyin the past tense.”

“Now we were both in motion again, moving ahead. So what if there were questions left unanswered. Life went on. We knew that better than anyone.”

“I'd been through so much, falling short again and again, and only recently had found a place where who I was, right now, was enough.”

“I wasn't ready for this, but then I probably never would be, and this year, like so much else, wouldn't wait. I had no choice but to get out of my car, with everyone watching and begin in earnest, alone. So I did”