They pointed its nose so they could see the water shimmering in the ruined flume.
“Remember when we came here after the basketball game?” she asked. He said,
“Remember the night you and I—and Wally and Sylvia—went swimming?”
“If Dad had seen us down there, skinny, he’d have skinned me alive!”
The recollections bubbled up, glimmered, broke.
“How long will you be gone this time?” she asked.
His shoulders shrugged a little; she felt it, on the seat. “No telling. Six more months—but I’ll be out, all things equal, in eight more.”
“It seems a long time!” She picked up his hand. “A long, long time. Chuck. It is a long time, don’t you think?”
“Yeah.”
“I wish you weren’t going away.”