As a firefighter, Leo knows that his life is at risk every day that he
goes to work. The possibility that
something could happen to him is so real that, on several occasions, he has
joked with his best friend about marrying his wife if anything should happen to
him. One night, after several drinks,
Leo gets Garrett to agree to this arrangement.
He’s not anticipating something happening, but in the event that
something does he’ll be able to go knowing that his family is taken care
of.
Several years later Leo is killed in a skiing accident. True to his word, Garrett makes arrangements
to be with Leo’s widow, Audrey. In time,
friendship turns into romance, but when Audrey gets wind of the pact that the
two men made, she’s less than happy about why he came into her life.
It’s always amazing to me the lengths that we’ll go for our
friends. Many of us don’t stop and think
about the love that friends (especially male friends) share. In this book, that is the relationship that
struck me the most. To know that you
have a friend who will not only be there for you during the good times in your
life, but to fulfill their promises after you leave this world, is a beautiful
thing.
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About the Author:
Polly Dugan lives
in Portland, Oregon, and is a reader at Tin House magazine.
A former employee of Powell's Books, she is an alumna of the Tin House Writer's
Workshop. Dugan's first published story, "A Matter of Time," was Line Zero's Spring 2012 Literary Contest Winner,
"Masquerades" (as "One At a Time"), was Narrative's Story of the Week (December 2012), and "Kitten
Season" was an Honorable Mention Recipient in Glimmer Train's Short Story Award for New Writers (August 2009).
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