it,” I said, “come back and ask me.”
That night, Pearl came over with the rest of the pound cake. We sat on the porch in the dark and watched the lights of the shrimp boats out past the inlet.
“You were magnificent,” Pearl said.
“I don’t feel magnificent.”
“You never do, after. That’s how you know you did it right.”
We ate pound cake.
“Are you going to open the letter?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “It’s not mine to open. Nile wrote it for Cullen.”
For eleven days,
