Until now.
I stood beneath the old station clock holding fifty-six roses.
In that moment, I felt twenty-three again.
Not young.
Just terrified.
At precisely eleven o’clock, an elderly man slowly rose from a bench near the far wall.
For one impossible second, my heart stopped.
He was thin.
Stooped.
Ancient.
I allowed myself to believe.
Then he removed his cap.
“Mary.”
I recognized him immediately.
“Adrian?”
He was carrying an old olive-green military duffel bag.
Across the faded fabric was James’s name.
I nearly dropped the bouquet.
“Mary, please—”
“Where is he?”
Adrian stopped.
“Where is James?”
His eyes closed briefly.
And somehow I already knew.
“Is he alive?”
I forced the question out.
“No,” Adrian answered.
“No, Mary. He isn’t.”
I had believed my husband dead for fifty-six years.
That answer should not have destroyed me.
But for forty-three minutes that morning, James had lived again.
And now Adrian had taken him away for the second time.
I shoved the card against Adrian’s chest.
“Then who wrote this?”
He stared at it.
“I did.”
My stomach turned.
“You wrote this?”
“Yes.”
“You wrote in my husband’s voice and made me believe James was alive?”
“I know what I did.”
“Why?”
“Because I needed you to come.”
“You could have called.”
“You wouldn’t have come if you knew it was me.”
I stared at him.
“You gave me my husband back for an hour just so you could get me here.”
His hands trembled against the strap of the duffel.
“I’m sorry.”
“No.”
I raised my hand.
“You don’t get to say that yet.”
Then I pulled the paper rose from my pocket.
“Where did this come from?”
Adrian reached toward it.
I immediately pulled it away.
“Don’t touch it.”
His hand fell.
“James made it.”
Everything inside me went still.
“You told me James died in an explosion.”
Adrian looked toward the abandoned tracks.
“That was the lie.”
My heart leaped again.
He immediately shook his head.
“The attack happened. James was there. So was I. But neither of us died in the explosion.”
“What happened?”
“We were captured.”
The station seemed to disappear around me.
Adrian continued.
“James was badly wounded before they took us. But he survived the attack.”
“How long?”
“A few weeks.”
A few weeks.
For fifty-six years I had comforted myself with the idea that James died instantly.
