Chapter 25
When I slipped back out, Herman was walking around my backyard, puffing on a cigarette, his face hidden under the cover of darkness. I stepped down to him and stopped close. I glanced at Shirley’s house, but her windows were all black. For a moment, I wondered how her date with Roy had gone. Then I remembered that I was standing next to Hank’s father, in my yard. It seemed that we were from different worlds he and I, but were we really? I hadn’t known my own father, but maybe he’d been a little like Herman?
“Debbie used to have a garden,” Herman said, not looking over at me. “It was a thing she did. Spent her summer days fussing around in it. Those are my memories of her, her face under a big ol’ straw hat.”
I wasn’t sure which wife he was referring to. But I took a chance. “
