I hung up the receiver and sat in silence for several moments, looking at the note I’d written on the pad next to the phone.

“Who was on the phone, honey?” my wife asked from the door to my office.

“Hmm?” I shook my head, lost in thought. “Sorry, dear. What did you say?”

“I asked who was on the phone,” she said again, indulgently.

“Mom.”

“Oh? You didn’t talk long.”

“No.”

Seeing the expression on my face, my wife grew concerned.

“Is everything all right?”

Looking up at her, I drew myself back to the present, shaking my head again to clear my thoughts.

“Yes… well… yes and no.”

She raised her eyebrows in silent question.

“Mom’s fine,” I reassured her. “She was calling to tell me that a friend had died.”

My eyes were drawn back to the notepad and my hastily scrawled note. I thought back to a summer… a summer many years ago. But perhaps not so many, the memories were so fresh and clear.

Sensing that I was lost in thought, and knowing she could ask me about it later, my wife quietly shut the door and left me to myself.

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