He stood when he heard me come in.
For one full second, my brain refused to make sense of what I was seeing. It was like looking at someone from a dream I had buried so deeply I no longer believed he was real.
Then it hit me all at once.
My knees weakened. I sat in the closest chair.
“You,” I said, but it came out broken. “What are you doing here? This can’t be real!”
It was like looking at someone from a dream.
He looked older. Of course he did. So did I.
His hair had gone gray at the temples, and he was thinner than I remembered, and more tired, like life had sanded him down.
But it was unmistakably him.
