We came home from the airport at three in the morning, still tasting airline coffee.
The next morning, I was at the sink with last week’s pots. Judy came up beside me with a dish towel.
She took the first plate I handed her and said, “I think about her sometimes.”
I knew who. The one before me. The one her father ran off with his job transfer. Judy was nineteen then too, same as when we met.
I kept scrubbing. The water was hot enough to sting my knuckles.
She said, “I never got to say goodbye right. I just got on a bus with a suitcase and a fold-out map.” She traced a route in the air with her wet hand. “All those years I thought that door was welded shut.”
I handed her the last bowl. She dried it slow. Then she said, “I’m glad it’s you I’m washing dishes with.”
That’s the thing about forty-one years. The hard conversations come easiest when you’re not looking at each other.
I never met the girl on that bus route. But I know her. She’s the one who taught Judy how to leave—and how to stay.