At sixty-one, I thought I understood what it meant to lose someone.

I had buried my wife after more than thirty years of marriage. I had watched my children grow up, leave home, build families of their own, and slowly become too busy to visit as often as they once had. I had learned how to cook for one person, how to spend holidays in a quiet house, and how to smile when people asked whether I was enjoying retirement.

I had even learned how to sleep on one side of a bed that suddenly felt far too large.

But nothing prepared me for what happened on the night I married Anna Mitchell, the girl I had loved when I was seventeen.

I had imagined that night countless times during the weeks leading up to our wedding. I imagined us laughing about our gray hair, teasing each other about our aching knees, and remembering the foolish things we had done when we were young.