The toll booth on the highway was the last stop before the Greenville exit. I rolled down the window of my Buick, letting in the humid morning air that already smelled of asphalt and cut grass.
I handed three dollar bills to the collector. While he reached for my change, I used my thumb to adjust my mother’s silver watch on my left wrist, sliding the metal casing back to the center of my skin. It was a nervous habit I had never been able to break.
“Going to be a real scorcher for Father’s Day,” the collector said, dropping two quarters into my palm.
“Yes,” I said. “It looks that way.”
I drove the final three miles toward Elm Street, the sixty-two dollars for a tank of gas feeling like a small price to pay. On the passenger seat lay a paper bag containing a first-edition World War II biography and a warm tin of homemade lemon bars. Gary loved the lemon bars my mother used to make, and I had spent the morning trying to get the crust exactly right.
The two-story brick home looked unchanged as I parked on the gravel driveway. The hydrangeas near the porch were blooming in thick, heavy clumps of blue and purple.
Arthur, our next-door neighbor who had lived on the street for thirty years, was standing near the property line watering his lawn. He wore his faded blue baseball cap pulled low over his eyes. He turned when my car door shut, his gaze dropping immediately to the heavy biography in my left hand.
“Afternoon, Jenna,” Arthur said. He cleared his throat, a dry, hesitant sound.
“Hi, Arthur,” I said, stepping onto the grass. “I brought this for Gary. I just wanted to make sure he had something to read on his favorite porch chair.”
Arthur stared at the book’s cover, his hand twitching against the green garden hose. He seemed to want to say something, but he looked toward the front door of our house instead.
“Gary’s inside,” Arthur said, his voice dropping a register. “He got off his security shift early this morning.”
