The live oak tree that sprawled across the front yard drooped its heavy limbs low to the earth in a gesture of lazy welcome. Something shiny, tucked in the notch of the tree where a limb met the trunk, caught Linnea’s eye.

“What’s that?” called out Hope, spotting it too. She took off for the tree. It was easy climbing for a child. She scampered up and across the low-lying limb, then higher, on a beeline for the shiny object. Linnea was right behind her. Reaching way up, Hope grabbed hold of a paper airplane and a small tin box. She crouched on the limb, hunching over the tin like a bird mantling its prey.

“Come down,” called Linnea.

“Okay.” Hope placed her own note to John up in the notch of the tree, then scooted down to show Linnea her loot.

“It’s candy!” Hope exclaimed, holding up the box. “Will you open it?”

Linnea took the tin and said, “What does the note say?”

Hope unfolded the airplane, then handed the paper to Linnea. “It’s long. Read it.”

“Please,” Linnea prompted.

“Please,” Hope responded, taking the tin back from Linnea and examining it. Inside were colored candies that looked like Skittles.

Linnea smiled. “It’s another poem. This one is by A. A. Milne.” She read aloud.

“When I was One,

I had just begun.

When I was Two,

I was nearly new.

When I was Three

I was hardly me.

When I was Four,

I was not much more.

When I was Five,

I was just alive.

But now I am Six, I’m as clever as clever.

So I think I’ll be six now for ever and ever.”

Hope put her hand over her mouth and giggled. “I can be six forever!” Then more seriously, she said, “I like being six.”

Linnea joined in her laughter, thinking how wonderful it was that a child had no real sense of time. She wondered if living in the present wasn’t the wiser course after all.

THE WI-FI CONNECTION to Gordon Carr in Oxford, England, was poor that evening. They had to ditch their usual FaceTime and instead used the phone only. Their long-distance relationship had evolved, at least in her mind, from a boiling summer affair to a simmering, confusing relationship. They’d had a connection from the moment they met. Maybe it was because she was on the rebound, but Linnea had jumped into that relationship—and his bed—without qualms. They’d shared an idyllic summer.

And then Gordon was gone.

She’d hoped to visit Gordon in England sometime over the spring, but the coronavirus had effectively quashed any hope of that. In the flush of their good-bye at summer’s end, they’d planned to talk on the phone at least once a week, but that goal had proved elusive as well. Gordon’s erratic schedule working two jobs—one as a professor at Oxford University and the other as a researcher in the field of marine biology—made regularly scheduled calls difficult. Gordon was in the publish-or-perish period of his life when he needed to make his mark in the world.