Cold hands,” he said. “I remember having cold hands once.”
She turned and walked to her car.
She drove to the gas station down the road, bought a Sprite from the machine inside, and drove back.
He was still in the yard.
She walked up to him and put the cold bottle in his hand.
He looked at it. Green label. Water beading over his fingers, the way condensation beads on a cold bottle on a warm day.
All the color drained from his face.
“There was a machine,” he said.
She said nothing.
He was still looking at the bottle. “I remember my hands getting wet. I remember being mad because you were taking too long.”
“Yes.”
His breathing changed — a careful, measured thing, like a person walking toward something they’re not sure will hold their weight.
“I had a red shirt.”
“Yes.”
“I went around the side because
