Danny jumped in to save his friend. “Mitch is a great guy. He’s an okay basketball player, but just about the best architect you’ll ever meet. He went to Geauga a few years ahead of us.”

Mitch got back to his natural footing and started talking about the high school, and some of the teachers there. Carolyn said her favorite was Mr. Ercolano, and Mitch mentioned that he’d heard he quit teaching to go write the Great American Novel, and on it went. Then Carolyn spotted Rachel, and said excitedly, “Danny, there she is. Come with me.”

For the rest of his life, whenever he heard the opening licks to “Sweet Home Alabama,” Danny would think of Rachel. Because the instant he took her hand, that’s the song the band broke into.

Rachel let out a screech of delight and started dancing to the music. “I just love this song! You want to dance?” she asked Danny, grabbing him by the hand as they disappeared onto the dance floor, not to be seen again for hours. Mitch and Carolyn eventually made their way outside where it was quieter, to a veranda that overlooked Lake Erie. They began the conversation that would continue to this day, fifteen years of marriage and three boys later.

Danny and Rachel, however, beat Mitch and Carolyn to the altar by three months.

For the next ten years, the couples were inseparable. Mitch and Carolyn bought a house in Chesterland, and it wasn’t long before Danny and Rachel found a place two blocks away.

When Rachel was pregnant with her first boy, Evan, Rachel and Danny wound up adopting Maryann, Rachel’s cousin, who was then twelve years old. Maryann’s parents had died within a year of each other, when she was six, after which she had been shuffled around from foster home to foster home. When Maryann called Rachel to tell her that her latest foster family was going to move out of state at the end of the month, and she wasn’t sure where she would wind up, Rachel did a typical Rachel move.

“Well, then you have to come live with me and Danny.”

“I couldn’t do that, Rachel. You’re pregnant, and what would Danny say?” But Maryann had been hoping that Rachel would offer to have her live with them, so she held her breath.

“Don’t worry. I’ll talk to him and call you back later.”

Rachel couldn’t stand the idea of her cousin being alone and unprotected. She knew what it was like to be a young woman without a safe home. When she broached the subject with Danny, she was delighted that he was instantly behind the idea. He understood that sometimes you just did the right thing even when it didn’t make sense on the surface. That was a lesson he had learned from Kevin Grant.