I was six months old when we moved next door to Dale’s family. I was six years old when he taught me to ride a bike. I was sixteen when he first kissed me, not on a date, but on a dare from my older brother, Richie. Richie thought I would faint or something and tell my father I’d been ravished. Richie was and is an ass. Dale was nineteen then, home from college for Christmas, growing a convincing mustache and desperately seeking kissing experience before returning to Northwestern to finish his freshman year.

It was a kiss that lasted two weeks and a day. Then he went back to school and fell in love with Linda. End of story. Until she left him.

That’s when something happened. Dale’s son, Tom, was away at Indiana University in Kokomo at the time. It was Tom’s freshman year, and he’d refused to come home for Christmas. After eighteen unhappy years in Riversbend, Linda had gone back to Chicago, where she and Dale had originally met, and she had unilaterally filed for divorce. In fact, Dale had just been served the papers that day.

He came to the library, and he fell asleep in a chair in the magazine section, reading Sophocles. I didn’t have the heart to send him away at closing time. I let him sleep. He slept until midnight, and when he woke, he found me reading The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters in the original French. I remember what I was reading, because I’ve never finished the book. It’s on my list. He was wearing a green sweater that needed mending. I walked over and touched the frayed gap at his wrist, and told him I would fix it. He was barely awake, and I think maybe a little drunk, and he let me pull the sweater over his head. I adjusted the collar of his shirt and told him to go straight home, and when he could stand without embarassing himself, he got up and left.