Page 185 of Come Back to Me

“Aside from the fact we’re not criminals.”

“I am now. Grand theft auto, baby.”

“Only if I filed charges. Which I didn’t.”

“Howdidyou know I’d come back to the lake?”

I shrug. “Fifty/fifty chance. I wasn’t going to worry either way.”

“Why not?”

“Because the noisiest part of your body, Tee, is not your mouth. It’s your brain. You’d have come back for me eventually.”

“Ten years later.”

“More like that afternoon. Anyway, you do know I was a combat pilot, right? I’ve been trained for worse situations than a morning by a lake.” She blows a raspberry at me. “Have to admit I wasn’t expecting a triplet escort.”

“I got lost.”

“Thank God they were there, then, eh? Otherwise, you’d have been fucked.”

“The Three Wise Triplets. Who’d have thunk it?”

Hair whipping around her face, she turns away from the side of the road where a massive field lays spread before us. Though I can feel her focus is on me, mine’s on our acreage.

For the first time in a long while, the urge to take up our plane, to fly over our land hits me. Especially if she was my passenger and I got her to catch the bug too.

“What are you going to do about Elena?”

The question shatters my thoughts like a hammer to my windshield.

“Nothing I can do, aside from what I’ve already done.”

“Nonna said the family couldn’t afford a nurse.”

I grunt.

“You paid for one.” She smiles. “I knew I was right to fall in love with you epistolarily.”

“Is that a word?”

“I’m making it one.”

“What else did Nonna say?”

“That I was being dumb holding out on you. That you had knowing eyes and that I should enjoy them before they get cataracts.”

“Reassuring, Nonna.Thanks.”

My sarcasm has her hooting. “Nonna’s a pragmatist who was born right in the prime of Canada’s epic feminist era. I don’t know how it bypassed Mom entirely, but we can’t have everything.”

“She genuinely said that about the knowing eyes?”

“And a whole lot of other words between, but I’ll spare your blushes.” Her hoot shifts into a cackle. “Don’t look so distressed, lover boy. The cool shit might have skipped a generation, but I was raised at Nonna’s knee.”

“Thank God for that.”

“Amen,” she teases.

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