He studies her face, as though trying to decide whether he should actually say out loud what he is thinking. “You snuck onto McConnell’s farm to ride their horse every night for three straight weeks. You and London tobogganed off the roof that year the snowbanks were so high. You taught Serafina how to ride a bike with no hands. You won an MGB off of Peter Soloway in a drag race. You went to Paris,” he adds, leaning over to adjust the lace of his boot.

“Paris,” she says. The word floats in front of her, just beyond her grasp, as do all the others. She can see Walter’s body rocking back and forth with the rhythm of his breath. What must it be like, she wonders, to have to hold all these memories for both of them? How will he manage? Where will he put them all?

She folds the stone into her palm, squeezing. “I’m scared,” she says quietly, the words wringing out of her as she squeezes the stone tighter. “Soon it will all be gone.”

“I won’t,” says Walter. He pries her fingers away from the stone and takes it from her, slipping it into his breast pocket. “I’m not going anywhere, okay, Katie?”

Those words fill her with relief, although she doesn’t know why. On the horizon, she can see boats approaching, flashing lights and sirens, and this, too, seems familiar. “What happens now?”

“We’ll figure it out,” says Walter. “I’m ready. I’m not waiting anymore.”

His eyes are full of meaning that Kate can’t understand, but she knows what he has just said is important, so she reaches out and takes his hand. It feels strong, familiar. It occurs to her that she has never read Walter’s palm; she has never so much as looked at it, all those pathways, the map of his life. She wonders what she would see there. If this were the movies, she would look at Walter’s palm now and see one strong, thick, steadfast love line, matching her own. And she would suddenly realize, after all this time, that he had, in fact, been the one great love of her life. It would be a poignant closing chapter to their lives together, one last beautiful moment before she descends into the deepening darkness of her memory.

But this is not the movies. And so instead she just holds his hand in hers, hoping that this moment is one of the ones she will remember.

EPILOGUE

“What was going through your mind that morning?”

“Which morning are you talking about, dear?”

“She means the morning you went over the falls, Mom.”

“Oh, well. I suppose I was thinking about what a beautiful day it was. The sun was shining, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.”

—