Sometimes we talked about completely meaningless things.
The weather.
The food.
Our grandchildren.
A neighbor’s dog.
Anything except the one subject neither of us wanted to say aloud.
Death.
On the third night, Carol woke me around two in the morning.
“David.”
I opened my eyes.
She was looking at me.
“What is it?”
“Come closer.”
I moved my chair beside her.
She reached for my hand.
Her fingers felt incredibly weak.
“I need you to promise me something.”
I frowned.
“Anything.”
She looked away.
“Don’t say anything yet.”
“Carol—”
“Promise first.”
I hesitated.
She had never spoken to me that way before.
Finally, I nodded.
“I promise.”
She took a slow breath.
Then she said a name I hadn’t heard spoken in almost forty years.
“Anna.”
I stared at her.
For several seconds, I thought I had misunderstood.
“What?”
“Anna.”
My heart seemed to stop.
There are some names that belong to a different version of your life.
Names you haven’t spoken in decades but somehow remember instantly.
Anna was one of those names.
Before Carol.
Before marriage.
Before children.
Before mortgages and jobs and gray hair.
Anna had been twenty years old.
So had I.
We had met during college.
