He was right of course. I was forty-one. He looked about twenty-five, just out of medical school I should think. Although it’s hard to be certain. Once you pass a particular age yourself your perspective shifts. People of that age become little more than children. You drag the horizon of youth along with you, like the reverse of walking to the end of the rainbow.
I suppose his calling me “Miss Castle” didn’t help. And “ not as young as you used to be”. That’s a phrase for ninety-year-olds. I was Sally and I was young before he said that. After he said it I was Miss Castle and I wasn’t young any more. It happened as suddenly as that, my entry into middle age.