And that is it. But he isn’t here to say it. I see how he wanted this moment to unfold—passing me the note, me reading it and then—but he’s gone. My lips tremble. “I love you, too,” I say. In the periphery of my vision, a shadow moves across the sun, and that is exactly how I feel. Happy beyond happy and at the same time the saddest I’ve ever been. I look up expecting to see the cloud-covered sky. I want to shout why? But the eagle’s there. It circles once, twice, and then flies off. “Oh, Even, I love you, too.”
