he rose from a chair near the fireplace and welcomed me with open arms.
“Look at you.”
“Look at you.”
“You got old.”
“So did you.”
“Impossible.”
I hugged him. He smelled faintly of airport coffee and his father’s familiar cedar aftershave. Within ten minutes we were recalling summers at Buckeye Lake. Ten minutes later he brought up my disastrous attempt to show off on a dock. By the half-hour mark, I was laughing until my eyes watered.
That was when Daniel entered. Rachel came into view first, in a
