“I took her face in my hands and pulled her forehead against mine, and in that instant I felt our present and past selves in the room, the two of us in college choking back our emotions, a tsunami of love and longing and fear, as we slow-danced with our heads pressed together in a honky-tonk bar, peanut shells cracking under our feet, a trio playing bluegrass music, the fiddler soloing with a wild keening blast of fervor on that hot summer night we discussed the baby growing inside her, how she’d drop out of school, how we’d move up our plans to marry, how we’d spend the rest of our lives together.”