Chapter 14

“Hey there, Johnny,” Frank Hanson said softly. 5

With over fifty years gone since the last time he’d seen Frank in the flesh, he should’ve been confronted with an old man. And he was, no mistake there. Though he was still tall, his shoulders had started to stoop, his face was weathered, and the light brown hair from their youth was replaced by a neatly trimmed ring around his bald scalp.

But John saw the twenty-year-old version, too, like a double exposure, the quick grin, the blue eyes, the dimple he’d loved and been so jealous of. Everything he’d tried not to think about over the past few weeks—and failed—ricocheted to the forefront with such a rush that he could’ve stepped straight into the past and not missed a beat, back on that night when Frank had changed his world forever in this very balcony.

Frank. Here.

A movement at the corner of his eye distracted him, and he glanced across to see the Eaker woman edging closer to Frank.

She called him Dad.