She and Lester wrote to one another frequently. She found a job that she liked, Lester learned, and she was pleased that she didn’t have to work nights anymore. In the ensuing years they rarely alluded to the barrel ride, but notwithstanding the troubles the couple had had beforehand, Lester understood Sam’s death to have been Cindee’s great tragedy, her defining event. He came to reconsider this point after she called him once late at night, drunk and angry with her current boyfriend. She was sputtering over his many shortcomings when Lester asked if any man for her would ever live up to the one she had lost. She laughed like an accordion, staccato wheezing into the telephone. He had no idea what to make of it. Still later they met in Winnipeg, where they were both doing Christmas shopping. They ate supper together in a restaurant that revolved on top of a tower. It was very expensive but the food was quite carefully prepared. They were older and less nervous and sad than they had been.
