Then they disappeared. Off for a walk among the tomatoes or into the aspen forest surrounding the field. I wasn’t her keeper, simply her friend. I just enjoyed the party, dancing, drinking beer, and talking with Juliet and Alex, my first husband, who came with me to the party.

He was alive then. So alive.

Sky wasn’t yet born.

We weren’t married. Just in love.

So long ago.

We had gone canoeing that afternoon, floating down the Huron. Lazily, without any desire to get down the river, trusting the current to carry us the right way. We pulled over at the arboretum and ate salami and cheese sandwiches, drank the wine I had packed, watched ducks, with half-grown babies behind them, cruise the water.

As we danced, his gray eyes searched mine. I caught glints of them in the flickering bonfire. His hands were warm on my back, his breath tickled my ear, ruffled my hair. He smelled of musk, his T-shirt now slightly flavored with the harsh aroma of burning chokecherry. His erection prodded my navel and I pressed into him and slid down the length of him, encouraging his plea.

He moaned. “Let’s go home.”

I pressed closer to him and slithered my hand under his shirt, his flesh wrapped the hard muscles of his back.

“I want you.”

My hand pressed down his pants, cupping his ass. “Soon.”

He laughed. His hardness rubbed my stomach and his beard rasped my forehead. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” See, I said it. It was easy then. I love you. We were in agreement. We loved each other. We were a couple. I told him a million times because I assumed we’d last forever.

“We’re so fucking good. My life is wonderful with you in it.”

“Mine, too. Can’t you imagine us sitting on a porch in rocking chairs thirty years from now? Our grandchildren playing around us.” See how I assumed we’d last forever? Convinced our agreed-upon love would place our lives on a predictable trajectory, safe, accompanied, and witnessed? My life would follow a customary path. Married to one man. Children. Jobs. A house with a garden that I kept neat and attractive. Friends.

“That’s what I want.” He wrapped his arms tighter around me and then grabbed my hair, gently pulling it further down my back and tilting my head for a kiss. His mouth warmed my body and his erection promised bliss.

He was so alive. Flesh warm and eager. He opened the blinds each morning and sang, “Let the sun shine in.”

Spun me around when he came home.

Excited each spring about pitching for the baseball rec league.

Difficult to consider that eight years later he passed. No. Not passed. He died. He fucking died. Like a snap of fingers. That fast. Out of the blue.