She saw no county fairs in her future.
The first slow, scalding tears began to come. “Oh, Johnny,” she said. “Everything was supposed to be different, wasn't it? It wasn't supposed to end like this.”
She lowered her head, her throat working painfully -and to no effect. The sobs came anyway, and the bright sunlight broke into prisms of light. The wind, which had seemed so warm and Indian summery, now seemed as chill as February on her wet cheeks.
“Not fair!” she cried into the silence of BOWDENS and MARSTENS and PILLSBURYS, that dead congregation of listeners who testified to nothing more or less than life is quick and dead is dead. “Oh God, not fair!
“
And that was when the hand touched her neck.
…and that night was the best night for us, although there are still times when it's hard for me to believe there ever was such a year as 1970 and upheaval on the campuses and Nixon was president, no pocket calculators,
no home video tape recorders, no Bruce Springsteen or punk-rock bands either. And at other times it seems like that time is only a handsbreadth away, that I can almost touch it, that if I could put my arms around you or touch your cheek or the back of your neck, I could carry you away with me into a different future with no pain or darkness or bitter choices.
Well, we all do what we can, and it has to be good enough… and if it isn't good enough, it has to do. I only hope that you will think of me as well as you can, dear Sarah. All my best,
and all my love,
Johnny
She drew her breath in raggedly, her back straightening, her eyes going wide and round. “Johnny…?”
It was gone.
Whatever it had been, it was gone. She stood and turned around and of course there was nothing there. But she could see him standing there, his hands jammed deep into his pockets, that easy, crooked grin on his pleasant-rather-than-handsome face, leaning lanky and at ease against a monument or one of the stone gateposts or maybe just a tree gone red with fall's dying fire. No big deal, Sarah-you still sniffin that wicked cocaine?
Nothing there but Johnny; somewhere near, maybe everywhere.
We all do what we can, and it has to be good enough… and if it isn't good enough, it has to do. Nothing is ever lost, Sarah. Nothing that can't be found.
“Same old Johnny,” she whispered, and walked out of the cemetery and crossed the road. She paused for a moment, looking back. The warm October wind gusted strongly and great shades of light and shadow seemed to pass across the world. The trees rustled secretly.
Sarah got in her car and drove away.