“I know,” he said, “but I’m really—” —all right, he meant to finish, and then he looked up from his hands, looked into her dark eyes again, and what he saw there made it impossible to finish for a moment. There was a weary sadness in her eyes . . . or was it loneliness? Maybe both. In any case, those were not the only things he saw in them. He also saw himself. You’re being silly, the eyes looking into his said. Maybe we both are. You’re seventy and a widower, Ralph. I’m sixty-eight and a widow. How long are we going to sit on your porch in the evenings with Bill McGovern as the world’s oldest
...more
