55 YEARS AGO, MY THREE BEST FRIENDS AND I PROMISED TO MEET AT OUR LAKE. YESTERDAY WAS THAT DAY

I walked down to our old bench.

And instead of my three friends, I found three large boxes waiting there. Each with my name on it.

Each sent by a man who had never, in fifty-five years, forgotten the promise we made as boys.

PART 2

I sat down on that bench — our bench, the same wood, grayer now, the way we all were — and I opened the first box with shaking hands.