When We Were 19, My Best Friend and I Promised That If We Were Both Single at 60, We’d Find Each Other – I Turned 60 Last Tuesday, & My Old Landline Rang

We had a deal.”

 

My friend slowly

raised his pinky.

His hand shook.

“If we’re both single at 60…”

I hooked mine around his.

“We stop being idiots and find each other.”

Tears ran down his face.

“Still single?”

“Yes.”

“Me too.”

I glanced at the ring.

***

I stayed with my best friend through the next day. We talked more in those hours than I thought possible. He told me about Peter and his daughter, Anna. I told him about my students and the years I’d spent teaching.

We talked about my mother, about Margaret, and even about my father.

I was angry with my father, but I also understood something I hadn’t understood at 19.

My father had been scared for me the way my maternal grandfather had been scared for