“Room 12,” he repeated softly. Like he was saying it to himself. Filing it away.
We went upstairs. The door creaked when he opened it.
And there it was.
The same window looking out over the water. The same old brass bed. They’d changed the wallpaper and the curtains, and there was a flatscreen TV on the wall where there used to be a painting of a duck. But the window was the same. The view was the same. The lake spread out silver and blue all the way to the dark pine trees on the other side.
I stood at the window, and Mark came up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist and put his chin on my shoulder. Exactly the way he did twenty-six years ago.
“Hi, Lee,” he whispered.
“Hi.”
“I remember this,” he said. “I remember everything about this.”
I closed my eyes and leaned back against him and held onto his arms.
