Remembering Gail(Darrell Case) They met in kindergarten, or kendergarden, as he called it back then. An awkward boy, not knowing anything. He clung to his mother’s hand. She came running up and stood before him. “Hi, I’m Gail. You’re new. You haven’t been here before, have you?” He shook his head. “Come on, I’ll show you around.” She waved at him from the middle of the room. His mother looked at him with moist eyes. He didn’t understand then. But he would when he took his little boy to kindergarten. His mother smiled. “Go on. She wants to be friends.” She said, letting go of his hand.

Gail showed him the story books. “Miss Mation reads to us every afternoon. And this is Bussey. He’s our pet rabbit. We can’t take him out now, but can just before lunch.” She leaned in close and whispered. “Sometimes he poops on the floor and Miss Mation cleans it up. She says he’s not potty trained.” She giggled. He smiled.

He ate his lunch with her and sometimes he gave her the candy bar his mother packed for him. He traded it to her for bananas. So, they went through the grades together. In summer he appeared at her house before lunch and some days she came to his. They would eat lunch giggling about some secret they had between them. Their mothers became friends.

One afternoon in the schoolyard, a bully knocked Gail down. He outweighed her by several pounds. He stood over the weeping girl, taunting her. The bully never saw him coming. He hit him in the stomach with his head. Bowling him over, he pummeled him with his fist. Before the teacher could stop him, he bloodied the bully’s nose and loosened several of his teeth. The bully ran screaming for help. He got a detention slip and had to stay after school. When he came out of the school, he found her waiting for him. Together, they walked home. For a long time, she called him her hero.

When he bought his first car, she helped him wash it. He squirted her with the hose. She chased him with a soapy sponge. They both ended up wetter than the car. That night, he took her on their first date. They were apart only during his college years. He came out with a law degree. She helped him study for the bar and cheered when he passed.

Two days later, he asked her to marry him. She looked him in the eyes and said. “Of course.”

He stood at the altar of their church, shifting from one foot to the other. The music started. He watched this beautiful woman on the arm of her father float down the aisle.
They bought an old home. In two years, she transformed it into a thing of beauty. In the spring, their home bristled with flowers. Then the baby came. Their first child was a boy. A year after that, another boy. He only lived a little over six months. He died suddenly one night just before Christmas. They wept together at the tiny grave. Two years later, a girl. Lean years, good years.

The day he opened his own practice. Then the new home, the big house. Ten years ago, he sold the law firm to his partner. They sold the house in town and bought a horse ranch. A small thing just big enough for a few horses for the grandchildren.

Now he stood alone at her grave. They buried her next to the baby. The marker already engraved with the date of his birth, soon to be the date of his death. He leaned on the cane. In his mind’s eye, he saw her in the middle of heaven waving her arm as she had in kindergarten, saying. “Come on, I’ll show you around.”

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