When I finally, when we finally . . . that was when I realized: she honest to God cared about me. She . . . It . . .” A quick involuntary catch of breath. “That blew me away. Just blew me away.” The wonder in his voice. He sounds like a teenager, lifting with joy and amazement, he sounds so tender you could bruise him with one wrong touch. Time after time it’s left me gobsmacked, how people will tell you things they should keep locked inside for life; how ferociously they need the story to be out in the air, in the world, to exist somewhere outside their own heads.
