Then his eyes became wet.
“But I remember you.”
He looked at the strawberry shortcake bar Ellie was now holding.
“You always ordered that one.”
Something stirred in my memory.
Not a complete picture.
Fragments.
A white truck.
Summer evenings.
Coins warm in my hand.
A friendly man behind a window.
And always, somehow, my strawberry shortcake bar ready before I asked.
“You were that man?”
“That was me.”
His voice was almost a whisper.
“I used to have yours ready when I saw you running down the street.”
I stood there, trying to understand how a forgotten piece of childhood had somehow appeared in my adult neighborhood.
“But Millbrook is four hundred miles away.”
“I know.”
“And you’ve been here three summers?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
His expression changed again.
This time there was something heavier underneath it.
Then he reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out an envelope.
