Twenty years ago, beneath this tree, everything changed forever, except for Bobby. He is so young, and the white shirt he wore that night is still just as clean. He rises to his feet and walks through the gra.s.s, and his grin grows wider when he sees his cousin, just as it always did when he"d throw stones at Julian"s window, then wait for him to tag along. Past the mangroves and the air plants, past the twisted live oaks. They never needed flashlights because they knew the way back home. They still do.
Julian has never seen anything more brilliant than the light above him.
A light like this could blind a man, but that doesn"t stop him from looking at the sky. He will always remember this color blue, and he"ll go on remembering it for the rest of his life. For a long time the gumbo-limbo tree will seem to shudder once a year, on the third day of May, but it will be nothing more than the songbirds in the tallestbranches, and Julian Cash will probably be the only one to notice, since he"s the only one who cares.
the end.