So now you know why I was standing there in that waiting room with my knees shaking, watching the back of a gray head, wondering if I should just sit back down and let him walk out and never know I was there.

I’ll be honest with you, part of me wanted to. Thirty-seven years is a long time to be right about something. I’d built a whole life on being right.

But then the nurse handed him his clipboard, and he turned around, and he saw me.

He didn’t say my name. He didn’t say sorry. His face just sort of came apart, the way an old man’s does when he’s trying real hard not to let it. And the first thing he said, the very first thing after thirty-seven years, was, “Your heart bad too?”

That’s it. That’s all. “Your heart bad too?” Like no time had passed at all. Like we’d just been out in the field and come in for water.

I started laughing. I couldn’t help it. And he started laughing. And there we were, two old men in a waiting room, laughing that same laugh, the one Mama could never tell apart. The young nurse looked at us like we’d both lost our minds. Maybe we had. I had to grab the back of the chair to stay standing.

We sat together for that appointment. Then we sat in the parking lot in his truck for three hours after, just talking, the heat running, neither one of us willing to be the first to leave. Turns out he sold the farm in ’04 anyway. Couldn’t keep it up after his knees went. He said he’d thought about calling me a thousand times and never once picked up the phone.

I told him me too. We’re both liars, I think. But it didn’t matter anymore.