"No, hold on. You're telling me, that you guys started talking literally due to Wuthering Heights, watched the Halley's effing comet together, cried over an President and conversed in Dolly Parton? You guys are impossible."

Although I highly disagreed with that very offensive statement on my love life, I chuckled and said, "I don't know about myself, but yes, your Grandma is pretty much 'impossible'."

Laughing heartily, he added, “Wait, didn't you tell me there were nine notes?”

“Aren't you a musician?”, I quipped, “I thought you'd know better!”

He seemed puzzled. After a very long and awkward pause, I questioned,
“Chris, what is the ninth note in musical chords?”

“They're the same as the second. But what's that got to do with this?”

“Exactly. Whether you use a note that’s a second above the chord root or a ninth above— it should be called a ninth. The order of pitches in a chord will not change the chord name.”

“I think you're missing a couple of technicalities... and I disagree.”

“You get my sentiment.”
“Not really.”

I sighed. Only if the beautiful things in life were self-explanatory.

“Chris. It's been fifty-six years since we— us. You know that?"

"That's a lot of years,” he smiled amusingly to himself, “but now that I think about it... it must've been tough for her, right? You guys are like, living testimony that love is friendship that has caught fire.”

Lil walked up behind me holding a tray of her favourite macaroons.

Intercepting the conversation like she always did, “Right. But as Doll always said, 'He always lived who I was, and I always loved who he was, and we never tried to change each other.”

“That's pretty sick,” he declared, “and these macaroons are delicious!”

Turning sideways to look at my wife, I shaked my head and said, “You're just like Kevin, ”

“Kevin who?”
“Kevin Bacon, child.”

✴✴✴

Lily disliked school buses very intensely. But not today.

This would be the only time she would pull off a stunt like this, so better stinky than sorry.

If not for the driver's good senses, she would've cried and wailed but the bus woudn't have stopped.

Hopping on the bus, she noticed the bleak, tasteless staring.

Double checking herself, she said nonchalantly, “I'm not wearing a potato sack, so... can y'all um, return to reading Playboy... please?”

Although highly amused by her demeanor, reluctantly, everyone got back to work.

“Third from the bacl, third from the— yes.”
Stumbling upon his seat, she shoved a Sony Walkman into his lap.

“You left these in my garage four years ago,” she laughed beautifully, and the temperature in the bus rose a couple of degrees and as he couldn't help but stifle a grin too.

“Like Footloose?”
“Exactly like Footloose.”

And somehow, they were twelve again.

And in case you were wondering... yes, she changed. She was stronger that way. Not like in the movies, not overnight, but slowly, drop by drop, stirring through time.