I loaded the chairs and bags.
When I started the engine, the stereo connected automatically to my phone.
Music filled the car.
An acoustic guitar.
A low voice singing the first line of an old song.
I reached to turn it off.
Noah spoke.
“You come in too early.”
My hand stopped.
“What?”
He looked at the dashboard.
“On the chorus.”
I stared at him.
The song continued.
Noah’s brow furrowed.
“You sing over the last line of the verse because you never wait.”
My pulse began to pound.
“How do you know that?”
He looked at me.
“I don’t.”
The chorus approached.
I had sung the song hundreds of times during drives to the coast. Noah always complained that I missed the entrance by half a beat.
The habit was less than three years old.
It belonged entirely inside the lost time.
Noah’s lips parted.
“Sing.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because you remembered.”
Fear crossed his face.
