That afternoon, Wendell drove Ruth to Riverview Manor. The journey felt endless, although neither of them spoke much. Ruth watched the road through tear-filled eyes, remembering Jimmy’s crooked smile, their afternoons at Dairy Queen, and the dreams they had made together in 1982. She wondered whether he would remember her or whether the years had erased the girl he once planned to marry. She held the locket tightly in her palm, feeling its worn edges against her skin. For decades, it had represented heartbreak. Now, it was leading her toward a chance she had never believed would come.

Inside the care home, Wendell guided her down a quiet hallway to a room beside a window. Jimmy sat in a chair wearing a cardigan, his body thinner and older than she remembered. His left hand remained curled from the effects of his strokes. Ruth stopped in the doorway, unable to move. The young man she had loved was no longer there in the way she remembered, yet something about his face still felt familiar. She took a shaky breath and whispered the name she had carried in her heart for more than forty years.