Michael does remember. He loves remembering. It was Lee for the first time—her voice, her movements, her perfume, the way she ate the sandwich. All the things he suddenly knew and didn’t know and wanted to know, and the shock of wanting to know anything at all. He remembers it, and it seems undeniable.
“You didn’t,” he says, tucked by her side, small and exhausted. For the first time that day, he sounds certain about something. Devoted to it. Lee disappeared, vanished into nothing, and came back again. People talk about trials sent from God. They talk about miracles. Michael doesn’t believe in those things no matter how many times he says the prayers, but standing on the wet sidewalk on the other side of devastation, he knows he believes in something. It pulls him to Lee like a chemical bond.