One of the school secretaries, Linda, had known him and his late wife longer than anyone. She told us that the birthday cards had started because of June.
“They used to write them together,” she said. “She’d sit at the kitchen table with a list of names and remind him not to spell anything wrong.”
That detail undid me.
After June died, he kept doing it by himself.
Friday arrived colder than expected, with a clear sky and a sharp wind.
It was the kind of afternoon that made little kids zip their coats all the way up to their chins.
Ben and I got to the school parking lot early because he was so excited that he might have combusted if we had waited until the last minute.
The place looked unbelievable.
Parents carried poster boards. Teachers unloaded trays of cookies. Middle schoolers held giant hand-drawn signs that said things like “WE REMEMBERED YOUR BIRTHDAY TOO.”
Former students were everywhere. Some brought the old cards Mr. Walter had written for them in plastic sleeves, and one woman had even framed hers.
I spotted Linda talking to a young woman I did not recognize.
The woman looked like she was in her early 30s. She wore a dark coat and held a small wrapped box in both hands. She seemed nervous in a deeper way than everyone else, as if she had come for more than a party.
