He listened the way you listen to someone you are just beginning to know.
What James Understood, Sitting on That Bench, That He Hadn’t Expected to Find There
Time passed without either of them fully noticing.
The light shifted — the way afternoon light does in late summer, going from overhead and direct to low and warm. The willow moved slightly in whatever breeze was moving through. Somewhere in the park, children were running and a dog was barking and the ordinary noise of a Sunday afternoon carried over everything.
James sat in the middle of all of it and noticed something.
He didn’t feel alone.
For the first time in three years on that bench, he didn’t feel alone.
That wasn’t what he had expected to find when he finally came back. He had expected grief — the particular grief of a place that used to hold two and now held one. He had expected it to feel like closing. He had prepared himself for that.
