When We Were 19, My Best Friend and I Promised That If We Were Both Single at 60, We’d Find Each Other – I Turned 60 Last Tuesday, & My Old Landline Rang

raised his pinky.

His hand shook.

“So you are.”

“If we’re both single at 60…”

I hooked mine around his.

“We stop being idiots and find each other.”

Tears ran down his face.

“Still single?”

“Yes.”

“Me too.”

I glanced at the ring.

Tears ran down his face.

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***

I stayed with my best friend through the next day. We talked more in those hours than I thought possible. He told me about Peter and his daughter, Anna. I told him about my students and the years I’d spent teaching.

We talked about my mother, about Margaret, and even about my father.

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I was angry with my father, but I also understood something I hadn’t understood at 19.

He told me about Peter.

My father had been scared for me the way my maternal grandfather had been scared for my mother. Dad had made the wrong choice because he thought