We all come back for it, me and Andy and Markus and them. Even Chris, sometimes, like when the Olson kids played for Paul and Lynn and even Andy sang a little and New York didn’t seem so far away from Port Orchard. We come for the music under the apple tree, and the view of the water and the tiny downtown and the fireworks once it’s dark enough, and for the brick-patio-sometimes-turned-dancefloor, depending on the year, tucked against the house where you make bobbing circles with Grandma Nestby and the Bulthuis nieces and Kurtis who’s always drunk and high and perfect. It’s like wedding dancing, but with more red and blue to balance out the white. We’ve had twenty-five years of this? Thirty? The twinkle lights in the apple tree started not too long ago, maybe four or five or ten years, and some of the people are new, too, but I see my old pastor here, and the family who owns the pizza place, and Joe who helped with youth group and led my small group, and I remember being known.
andy and emily and markus and me
