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University of Northern Iowa Strange Things Can Happen around Midnight Author(s): James T. McGowan Source: The North American Review, Vol. 291, No. 6 (Nov. - Dec., 2006), pp. 10-19 Published by: University of Northern Iowa Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25150905 . Accessed: 12/06/2014 15:31 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . University of Northern Iowa is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The North American Review. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 62.122.79.31 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 15:31:26 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

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University of Northern Iowa

Strange Things Can Happen around MidnightAuthor(s): James T. McGowanSource: The North American Review, Vol. 291, No. 6 (Nov. - Dec., 2006), pp. 10-19Published by: University of Northern IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25150905 .

Accessed: 12/06/2014 15:31

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

University of Northern Iowa is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The NorthAmerican Review.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.31 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 15:31:26 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

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NAR

Strange Things Can Happen Around Midnight A STORY BY JAMES T. McGOWAN

The week of my father's dying, about a month after all

the hospice stuff started, what I would think about most

often was this: summer conditioning for freshman foot

ball, and my father and me running along the old coal roads that

ribboned Three Bear Mountain, his long, loping strides necessi

tating my shorter, choppier ones just so I could keep up. Sweat

streaming down his face and shirtless torso, his breathing loud

and deep, his arms pumping madly, whooping crazily every once

in a while out of sheer joy for how good a body felt when worked

hard. This is what he must have been like when he was a kid, I

remember thinking, as I also sweated and whooped, this was what

he was like when he was happy. When he'd start to slow down, he'd furiously

wave me on.

"Make the fourth quarter yours, Eddie," he'd gasp out, "Make

the fourth quarter yours."

I'd turn around and jog backwards for a bit so I could watch

him. Bent over, his hands braced on his thighs, his chest heaving, his gasps echoing right to me, the sweaty strands of his long hair

in tendrils, and then I'd go all out, and I'd run and run until my calves began to quiver and my thighs turned rubbery, as far up the

mountain as I could go. When Fd stop and wait until my

breathing became normal, Fd walk in a circle, my skin cooling even in a hot breeze, shaking one leg then the other as though

trying to rid my sneakers of a candy wrapper. He'd be out of sight

by then, but I imagined him doing the same thing, shaking each

leg so they wouldn't cramp. By the time I'd walk back down to

him, he'd be tamping out his second or third Pall Mall with the

tip of a sneaker.

"Remember," he'd say, hacking up phlegm and hawking it into

a bush, "Smoking's bullshit. Don't ever start."

For the most part in our hospice watch, I took the early

morning and early evening shifts to watch over him, while my older sister Eileen covered most of the day. We switched nights. The rest of the time, we relied on Elise, our hospice partner, a nurse whose unobtrusive ways blended easily into ours,

correcting us gently when we went about things the wrong way,

though there was not a whole lot to do. Dad slept most of the

time, stirring only when we fed him, or cleaned him up, or when the pain got too great and his thumb started going crazy on the activator for his morphine pump. It had been that way

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JAMES T. McGOWAN

since his third stroke, a result ofthe cancer?glioblastoma multi

forme?that was chewing up his brain. He also had aphasias,

Wernicke's and Broca's.

"They're common outcomes when the brain has been insulted

to the degree that your father's has," Doc Kraynock told Eileen

and me after we took Dad home this last time. He's been our

family doctor since forever and took over Dad's care again when

the neurologist signed off. "He probably won't recognize you, and

words will have no meaning. They're just sounds. Language doesn't exist for him anymore."

That turned out to be pretty accurate. If Dad were awake and

pain free, he'd turn his head to follow our movements and voices, but his eyes were wary and bewildered and softened only when we

fed him or washed him up. It was heartbreaking to see him that

way, of course. His limbs and head more bone than flesh, his

trunk flat-out awful, shrunken and quivering most of the time,

the skin on his face all motley and easily nicked when we'd shave

him, his mostly useless left side just there. I spent a lot of time

fussing about his room, following the protocols that Elise set up, but it didn't amount to much. Don't buy the idea that developing a routine helps in any way. It doesn't. Ever.

No one else really came around. Father Murtaugh maybe

once

a week, Doc Kraynock about the same. "I don't have that touch to

make friends," my father told me once, soon after my mother left

for good, moving clear across the country from Pennsylvania to

Vancouver, Washington. "For me, family comes first." By that, he

meant Eileen and me. He was the only child of elderly parents, both of whom died when I was very young, and he and my

mother just had lots of problems. She also was an only child, and

her parents moved a long time ago to Gulf Shores, Alabama. We

didn't see them often. Still don't. I was a senior in high school when our mother left, leaving me

and Eileen to help Dad maintain his latest business, lawn care, which he started the spring of that year, a couple of months

before our mother took off. Unlike all his other business

ventures?locksmithing, roofing, floor refinishing, furniture

restoration?the lawn business eventually was wildly successful

for him, and in my mind I somehow connected it with our

mother's leaving us, as though he?all of us, really?had finally been freed from her unfocused rages and inconsistent ways. Later

on, when he first started to feel bad and I got more involved in the

business, he laughed when I explained my theory to him.

"Jesus Christ, you can be stupid," he'd said, leaning back

in his office chair and blowing a smoke ring at the ceiling,

stabbing it with a finger. "It was her idea that I get into lawn care.

Said I needed something simple and loud so I'd keep my head

straight. She was right. Listen, the best thing she ever did for

herself and me was to dump my sad ass."

What even he couldn't deny, though, was how often Eileen

started coming around the house after our mother left, a rare

occurrence following Eileen's graduation from high school, three

years before me. She and our mother banged heads a lot, over

boys, hair, clothing, the tattooed Claddaghs on Eileen's ankles and

her pierced lip and left eyebrow, her future aspirations. Within a

week after high school, Eileen got her own place across town and

started a series of jobs that left her between nowhere and

nowhere, as she put it, but with the lawn care business, she'd come

into her own. She was terrific with paperwork, precise and unre

lenting, and did all of our advertising. She designed the ad for the

phonebook and newspaper, a picture of Dad in a tuxedo and top hat lounging atop a gleaming Viking MT780, a champagne flute

tilted elegantly at the audience, our slogan, "Hughie Faye's Perfect

Lawns," bannered across the top. She also handled all the calls, for

complaints or whatever, something Dad hated to do. Right about

then, she'd hooked up with the last of her "local wood ticks," as

Dad called all of her boyfriends up to that time. "She'll do better than that," he'd say, winking as she slid into a car or on a motor

cycle, smiling grandly at whoever she was with. "You watch." He

was right about that. On one of her infrequent trips out to

Vancouver, where our mother had opened a pottery studio, Eileen

met an outfitter's guide, Terrance, who wanted to start up his own

outfit, but the competition out there was ferocious. When he

heard about the Lehigh River from Eileen, that was that. Two

reconnaissance trips back our way, and he was settled in

with Eileen. Dad lent him the seed money to get going, but Terrance took it from there and now has the biggest

rafting/canoeing/orienteering business on the river.

Sports turned out to be great for me in high school?outside

linebacker/tight end in the fall, power forward in the winter, weight thrower in the spring. I topped out at six-three, an inch shorter than my dad, with a wider frame though less bulk. I took the foot

ball scholarship to Lock Haven and started as the middle linebacker

my freshman year, but it didn't work out. By the middle of spring football my junior year, I'd had it with everything. My girlfriend,

my classes, football, the whole goddamned town, so I just left. On

the Tuesday evening before our spring game, right after our two

hour study time, I said adios to my roommate, a darting halfback

from Wilkes-Barre, tossed what stuff I wanted into my Accord, and was back in Sykesville within three hours. Dad was on the top step ofthe porch when I got there. He didn't quite look at me as I slowly

made my way toward him, staring instead at the tumbler he rolled between his palms, as though it contained the most fascinating thing in the world. It was about a quarter full of Jameson's over ice, the bottle nestled between his thighs on the step below. Moon shadows were

everywhere, and the owls were loud.

"Coach Martin called," he said.

"I imagine he did," I said. He shook his head slightly then, draining his glass, clopping it

the top step beside him, setting his blue-gray eyes straight on me.

"What's going on?" he said.

"I don't want to be there any more."

"A free ride?" he said. "Football?"

"Dad," I said, setting my backpack on the cement steps, butt

leaning against the banister. "The classes bore me to death, and there ain't no NFL scouts roaming the sidelines of Hubert Jack Stadium."

"Janelle?"

"That's been dead and gone since Christmas."

A sigh came out of him then, and he set his elbows on his knees, his thick fingers steepled, tapping them against his pursed lips. He

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sighed again, spreading his fingers and hands wide, as though

ready to explain the incomprehensible, like faith or truth or love.

"Your mother?"

"I'll call her," I said. "I'll tell her it was completely my decision.

That you had nothing to do with it."

"She won't believe that."

"Then that's her problem."

I could hear the anger in my voice, and

it was apparent he did too. He clasped his

hands and stared at me, his eyes narrowed, his tongue probing his left

cheek, as though he wasn't quite sure who

or what he was staring at. I wouldn't look

away from him, setting my jaw the way he

did when Mom used to go off on him.

When he stood up, snatching the Jameson's bottle and the

tumbler with one hand, he winced, freezing himself.

"Goddamn back," he said, gingerly side-stretching right then

left, slowly rotating his trunk, all the while massaging his lower

back. "And tomorrow is going to be a bitch of a day." "I want to go with you."

"Yeah, well, we'll see," he said over his shoulder as he went

inside.

Surprisingly, my mother was almost serene when I told her

what I'd done. I caught her in her studio when I called her that

night, and the whole time I gabbed into the phone?my words

coming out way too fast, I felt?she said nothing. When I

finished, she let the silence build, though in the echoing hollow ness of her speaker phone, I could hear the muted rumbling of

her pottery wheel, punctuated by her breathing, the squish of her

fingers on wet clay.

"Would you like to move out here?"

"No," I said. "Nothing like that. I want to join Dad's business."

Again, the silence.

"Well," she said, "I think it unwise, but I guess you have to

follow your own whistle."

That was the mom I hadn't quite gotten used to yet. When

she lived with us, it was crazy. Too many times when Eileen

would get home from school or me from practice, she'd be

drunk, the house stinking of cigarettes, and she'd get on us for

hours about whatever. When Eileen moved out, it was mostly me who had a front row seat to her rantings. Sometimes, she'd start throwing things, her clothes off our back porch, all the

cushions in the house down the cellar steps, or rip up her

flowerbeds, tossing hostas and marigolds out into the street,

laughing the whole time. Dad pretty much just stayed away,

coming home real late when he hoped she'd passed out.

Sometimes she did, but if not, nobody got sleep. Occasionally, she'd check out for a weekend, holing herself up in Stan's

Roadside Inn on the edge of town, the three of us taking turns

sitting in the lobby so she wouldn't do something really weird.

We'd knock on her door every once in a while until she'd answer. Other times, for weeks on end, everything would be

fine. The house clean, meals cooked, she'd walk about singing or humming, replant her flowerbeds, paint some rooms. She

I'd had it with every thing. My girlfriend, my classes, football, the whole goddamned town, so I just left.

threw herself into getting the lawn business going, setting up a

filing system, securing bids, on the phone constantly, every

thing. Then she was gone, with no notice of any kind, just a

note taped to the refrigerator: "Vancouver, Washington!!! My new home!!! Be HAPPY for me!!!" It was a mess for a while after

she left, but eventually, everything sort of settled down. She

talked about her leaving with me only once, about a year after she left, on my

first visit out to see her.

"Eddie," she'd said, "I had to save

myself. The only way to do so was to sever

all my ties to the past, though I knew it would only be temporary for you and

Eileen, but I had to do it, and I do not

wish to discuss this any further."

So we haven't, and I don't see what would be gained by doing so. Eileen and I don't talk about it much either, and Dad had only

good things to say about her. In some ways, it seemed he clung to

the idea that she might end up missing Pennsylvania and would

find her way back, but I never thought so. If you saw her in

Vancouver, with new friends, new clothes, new hairstyle, new

everything, you'd think, not a chance.

The morning after I left Lock Haven, it was cool and overcast, and when I got to the business, a converted auto repair shop about a mile from the house, Dad was already there, hooking up his flatbed trailer to his truck, two riding mowers and a push

mower in the maw of a garage bay, where his two workers, both

older guys I didn't know, were checking this and that. Every year, he'd have a new crew, hired when I was at Lock Haven. When I got out of my car and waved, Dad jerked a thumb toward the office

and kept on fussing with the trailer. The two guys nodded at me

but kept their faces blank, and I nodded back. Inside, Terrance,

perched on Eileen's desk, looked up from what he was reading when the customer bell on the door tinkled, but my sister just

kept on keyboarding.

"Hey, Big Fella," Terrance said.

"Terry," I said.

"Here," Eileen said, snatching a sheet of paper out of her printer

and holding it out to me without looking my way. "Eileen," I said as I took the paper, a list of addresses and what

needed to be done at them. My voice was low, not quite

pleading but not far away either. Her piercings were gone, I

noticed.

"Today," she said, "is not a good day to talk to me. Use the other

pickup. Dad already loaded the tools."

When I looked at Terrance, he shrugged and held up both

hands as though he had nothing to do with it. Once outside in the

cool April air, I just looked around. A pale fog clung to the hard

woods on the mountain across the way, traffic was picking up,

and small knots of school kids chattered and kibitzed on their way to the bus stop at the edge of our property. An engine roared, and

Dad crossed the parking lot, raising one finger off the steering wheel by way of salute, and I waved back. The two guys just stared out the front windshield. As I watched his truck and flatbed rattle out onto the highway, I kept blinking my eyes, finding it hard to

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believe how much everything had changed since I left Lock Haven

the night before, but there it was.

Even I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the scut jobs my dad assigned to me?edging, trimming, raking flower beds, gutter

cleaning, servicing all our vehicles, general cleanup of the shop.

Every morning, when the weather was good, I'd get my list from

Eileen, a follow up of things that needed to be done after the main

mowing was done. I'd grind through it until I broke for lunch,

usually at The Blue Comet or the VFW, then grind it out the rest

of the day until the sun gave out. When the weather was bad, I'd

get at the mowers, tuning them up, cleaning them until they shone, honing the blades; or Fd attack the tool rack, polishing the

tools, rearranging them; or I'd get rid of all the crap that tends, to

gather in corners or on racks. On those days, Dad would some

times be in the office, but he mostly wasn't there. Eileen began

splitting her time between our business and Terrance's, where she

also did the paperwork. The two other workers just stayed away.

They only mowed, just like my dad. They were paid off tlfe books

and were only there when my dad called them. I don't know what

they did otherwise. Neither did my dad.

"Who knows?" Dad said when I asked him. "They hustle up a

buck here, a dime there."

When I'd get home in the evenings, I'd find Dad on either the

front or back porch, sipping from his tumbler, sometimes eating a sandwich. He'd always ask how the day went, but he'd have this

smile on his face, as though he were thinking, Oh, yeah, Today's the day this wood tick'll stop being a wood tick, J bet he's thinking, To hell with this shit, but the thought never entered my mind. I

had no desire to go back to Lock Haven, not even when I tried to

force my thoughts into thinking I should want to go back. I

relished being alone. That was the thing, and I could easily see

myself doing this for a long time, maybe even taking over the

business someday. That had a very strong appeal for me, taking over a business that my dad started.

When I wasn't on the job, I pretty much stayed at home,

watching the Phillies in their latest disastrous season, reading the

magazines and books my dad had on lawn maintenance and the

lawn business, lifting weights, sleeping a lot. Whenever I'd run

into someone I knew, ex-teammates or onetime friends, their

older brothers or their fathers, the conversation followed a similar arc.

The coaches were assholes, right?

No, they were good guys.

What was her name, the one who broke your heart?

That had nothing to do with it.

The classes wore you down.

Nope, they just didn't interest me.

They'd smile knowingly then, as though they understood why I had to play it cool, nodding their heads when I wouldn't say

anything else. A couple-three dates went nowhere, and by the end

of June, I was beginning to think I made a mistake, but then

everything changed. When I showed up one morning, Eileen was

leaning back in her chair, silent and staring at me, tapping the eraser end of a pencil against her teeth. She stared at me the whole

time until I was at her desk and kept staring at me when I poured

myself some coffee, glanced at the empty printer, stood around

like an idiot. "What?"

"You serious about this?" she said. "Quitting school and every

thing?" "I don't know," I said, shrugging, sipping my coffee. "Probably." "Dad thinks you're trashing a golden opportunity, and Mom

thinks you're trying to relive Dad's life. Show him how to do it

right."

"That's bull," I said.

"That's what Terrance said, more or less. I'm not so sure. Maybe

you're just depressed or confused."

"No," I said. "Not at all."

She stared and tapped the pencil some more, then abruptly turned to her computer and started deleting everything from

three o'clock on.

"Well, if you are going to stay," she said. "I'm going to have to

show you how things get done. Dad sucks at paperwork, as you

know, and I have to spend more time at Terrance's. His business

is going crazy."

There was more to it than that, of course. There always is. For

about a month, she had been talking it up about how fabulous

Terrance's business was, how she was finding parts of herself she never knew existed.

"He's showing me how to be a rafting guide. Thinks I'm a

natural," she'd say after swooping into the house on a Sunday

evening with a bunch of checks and other stuff for Dad to sign, breathless, her eyes large and glowing. Or it'd be "I know how to use a

compass." Or, "Did you know that moss only grows on the

south side of hardwoods?" The topper was, "You know, nature's

not too bad." This from someone who would go ballistic ifan ant or a gnat got anywhere

near her. Who was a "sullen rat," in our

mother's words, whenever we went camping or

hiking when we

were kids. When she swooped out again, Dad just stared after her.

"Yep," he said. "Office'll be empty without her."

Paperwork was something that I was good at, too, and by late

July, when one of the workers, Allan, said he had enough, and I

started mowing, I changed a lot of stuff. Automated billing for our customers and vendors, a cell phone and pager for when I was

out of the office, doing most of the keyboarding at night after I was finished with the field work. I even showed Eileen how to set

up some of the same stuff for Terrance's business. When things started to slow down by mid-October, I was there when Dad told the other worker, Grant, that his season was over.

"Compadre," my dad said when he gave Grant his pay enve

lope. "You're a good man."

Without taking his eyes off my dad, Grant fingered the enve

lope with one hand, testing the thickness of the bills inside.

"It's double what you were expecting."

"Time to go," Grant said.

"Time to go," my dad said.

"Maybe next year," Grant said.

"Maybe," my dad said, then tilted his head my way. "But if the

boy's here?"

"?I'll be here."

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"?then I don't know."

Nodding, as if to say, yeah, well, that's the way life is, Grant darted his eyes at me, at my dad, at the envelope.

"Okay, then," he said. "I'll check in around March."

"Cool," my dad said.

When he was gone, my dad turned to me.

"I'll need him next year," he said. "Or somebody, but you gotta

keep 'em on edge."

"I will be here, you know."

"Either way, we'll still need somebody," my dad said.

After Thanksgiving, a big spread that Eileen put on for the four

of us, we put the blades on the pickups for our winter business, snow plowing, mostly parking lots?all of the Sykesville churches, the donut shop, both gas stations, a handful of bars, Baran's Supermarket, Quinn's Hardware, Doc Kraynock's?a

bunch of driveways and sidewalks. When there was no snow, we

worked on the mowers.

"We'll strip them down to the last bolt," my dad said. "That way, we'll get at least a couple-three more years out of 'em."

Cleaning, greasing, and oiling them, he meant. Full-bore main

tenance, he called it, but it was about then when I first noticed

how things weren't quite right with him. He'd stamp his left foot at odd times, while washing dishes or folding clothes, shaking the

foot vigorously between each stamp, or he'd put down a wrench or an oil rag when we were working

on the mowers and slowly

start flexing his fingers, staring at them as though they were

someone else's, or he'd start off a day testy and wouldn't go to the

shop because his head "felt like someone was rooting around in it

with an ice pick." Other things, too. He quit smoking, flat out, and

he cut way down on his eating. Everything tastes gray, he told me.

He gobbled Extra Strength Tylenol until his stomach felt like

sandpaper was scraping it, he said. His clothes started to swamp him, the bones in his hands becoming stark, the knuckles promi nent. Skin sagged off his chin. When I suggested he see Doc

Kraynock, he waved the thought away.

"Forget it," he said. "That old bastard doesn't know his ass from

third base."

Even Eileen, who could bully him into just about anything, had no luck in getting him to see Doc Kraynock or anyone else for that

matter. Near the end of January, it all came to a head. We were

clearing off Brazzo's parking lot early in the morning. The snow

had stopped, and there was little traffic. I had everything from the

gas pumps out to the street, while my dad was getting all the

parking slots close to the building. On his second pass, I caught him

in the rearview mirror as his driving suddenly went nuts, his pickup

zigging toward the building then veering away, skidding sideways a

bit, but eventually plowing into a wooden fence, knocking down a

good portion of it. I was there quick, shouldering open my door

before I had even come to a complete stop, jamming the gear shift

into park, the frigid air smacking my face, my breath a bright cloud as I ran to his truck. When I wrenched open the passenger door, he

was slumped against his door, his right hand shaking so much, his

fingers just fumbled with the keys in the ignition. "Jesus Christ, Dad, what the hell happened?" I said as I pushed

his hand away and turned off his truck.

When he tried to talk, all that came out was "Unth, unth." I pulled him upright, his good hand desperately gripping mine.

The left side of him sagged, his right eye roving wildly, his mouth opening and closing, nothing coming out but "Unth, unth, unth."

"Dad, it's all right. I'm calling 911," I said, as I scrabbled in my

pockets for my cell phone. C'mon, you bastards, is what I kept

thinking until someone clicked on and I rattled out everything. "Ten minutes," the lady on the phone said, "Keep your father

comfortable and refrain from doing anything. Wait for the EMT's."

Until someone showed up, my dad struggled to move, pawing to get a grip on something with his good hand, as I said over and

over, "Dad, stay still. They said you're not supposed to move. Stay still." The wild look in his eye scared me, and I ended up pressing a forearm against his chest so all he could do was thrash in place. The left side of his face looked awful, collapsed, as though the

bone and muscle had just given up, the eyelids of his left eye relaxed into a narrow slit.

That was his first stroke, of course, and it's when everything else came out. The next couple days it was all tests?blood, PET

scans, MRIs, CAT scans, a needle biopsy?the whole deal. Until we got to hear the results, we pretty much covered the hospital full

time, leaving only when he was out for the night, sometimes me

alone, sometimes Eileen and Terrance, sometimes all three of us

at the same time. When Eileen wasn't crying, she was furiously

filling page after page of a small notebook with questions about

his condition, what we should do, what we should expect, and all

that.

Dad wanted to sleep more than anything, squeezing his eyes shut, turning his head away whenever a nurse or one of the ther

apists tried to engage him, but they had him out of bed a lot,

getting him to walk, making him talk. He mumbled and slurred

when he talked, but you could make it out if you listened closely. On the third afternoon, after his physical therapy, he looked

completely exhausted when he was back in bed. He turned his

head slowly right, left, his right eye darting between the three of us. Then he jabbed a finger at the shaved spots where they attached a halo to do the needle biopsy.

"Alien abduction," he whispered.

It was the first real laugh we'd had since his stroke, and I began to have the crazy idea that maybe everything would be OK, but

that didn't last long. Early that evening, when the neurologist, Dr.

Patel, finally showed up, he didn't waste his or our time by

smiling. "It is not good," he said. "The tumor is well-entrenched. Very

invasive. We can do chemotherapy and some radiation treat

ments, but it is not good. Surgery is a possibility, too." He had a

lilting accent to his voice, and his slender brown fingers waved

slightly as he talked.

"How long?" my dad asked, though his voice was low and

slurred.

"What's it called?" I said.

The doctor blinked at me. "I am not sure I understand."

"The type of cancer he has. It has to have a name."

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He blinked at me some more, his eyes huge and alert behind his

thick glasses. "Glioblastoma multiforme."

"How. Long." Dad's voice was clearer this time.

"It is impossible to be precise about such matters," Dr. Patel said.

"No one can know with any certainty, but treatment should begin as soon as possible, though, with the stroke, there might be some

delay. I will refer you to Dr. Gleason. A very good oncologist." When Eileen started peppering Dr. Patel with her questions, I

sort of tuned it all out. I kept turning the name over and over in

my mind, Glioblastoma multiforme, Glioblastoma multiforme,

hoping that if I said it enough times and in enough different ways, it would start to make some sense to me. My whole body felt as

though it were bathed in a stinging aura, the same kind of feeling

you get after a helmet-to-helmet tackle. The feeling stayed with me even after Dad went out for the night and the three of us left.

Once outside in St. Joe's parking lot, the

cold air felt terrific, and I unzipped my jacket so I could feel it even more. Eileen looped an

arm in mine and clasped one of Terrance's

hands as we made our way to their car, the

three of us silent, the snow squeaking under

our boots, the distant traffic sounds crisp in

the night air. The blurry blobs ofthe parking lot lights turned the plowed snow a sickly

white, and the strings of Christmas lights that ivied up and down the poles, blinking red, blue, green, rattled hollowly against the

poles in the slight breeze. When we reached

their car, Eileen folded herself into me in a

fierce hug, and I hugged her back just as

fiercely. Terrance stood off to the side, his

fingers stuffed into his back pockets, his head

tilted at the stark stars, his breath coming out

in short, bright bursts of air.

"Jesus Christ," Eileen said, her voice

muffled into my chest. "Of all the

goddamned things." I felt the sting in my eyes, the tears seeping

out and rolling down my cheeks. Eileen, too, started crying. We stayed that way until we

were cried out, Terrance coming over to pat

our backs, wrap his long, lean, hard arms

around us briefly. When Eileen leaned back

from me, she smeared the wetness from my cheeks and then from her own, her hands

very light. "You want to come with us? Back to our

place?"

"No," I said. "No. I better get home." I bent over and gave her a light peck on her fore

head. "I gotta call Mom. Let her know what's

going on."

"I already did. When I went to the bath room while we were still in there," she said,

jerking her head at the hospital, as though it were something that

deserved no better. "She's pretty broken up about it. I told her

you'd probably call later. You could do that from our place." "No," I said. Til call her from home."

I didn't, though. When I got home, once I was actually inside

the house, I wasn't up to doing anything. I drifted from room to

room, snapping on the lights, staring at the stuff inside, trying to

recall my dad doing specific things?powering the vacuum

cleaner back and forth, dusting furniture or mopping the kitchen

floor, shifting a couch here or a chair there, balling up newspaper to get a fire started in the fireplace?but it was all a mishmash of

random images, nothing I could tie them to specifically, my tenth

birthday, say, or the winter night the furnace broke, the day I left

for Lock Haven.

When I got to the kitchen, I got the Jameson's out ofthe pantry and poured myself a good tumbler of it, not even bothering with

KEVIN BERLAND

My life as a pomegranate

Everybody thinks this must be easy?hang around, get red,

get round, get redder still. Look closer: we are making

something, growing into future seasons, for the world

will come to an end when there are no more pomegranates.

Remember, it only took one bite, one little spurt of juice across the tongue, kernel not swallowed but spluttered out on the dark floor, to keep Persephone down in darkness

the best part of the year, and yet it's juice that drives the spring;

its lack brings winter. Without juice, jagged cracks open in the sun-dried earth, birds fall from the sky, apples turn

to dust, rivers give up, turtles wither, trees sink, and people

lie down alone in their narrow beds and do not find rest.

No, wait a minute, that wasn't what I was going to say. Start over.

I say the world is full of juice, which explains its excellent shape:

spherical, like so many ofthe best things, eggs and oranges,

raindrops, cherries, eyes, and pomegranates. Bad things

tend to come in boxes. Misery is edged. You can hurt yourself

knocking your knees and shins on the sharp corners of disappointment as you try to navigate its unlit rooms. Despair is gray. It has a jagged,

spiny surface. Hope is curved, alive and wet inside, and red.

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ice, thinking I'd finish the damn bottle, but as soon as that sweet

heat hit my tongue, my stomach clinched, as though I was going to puke, but I swallowed, wincing and shuddering as I did so, and

the whole time what was going through my mind was, this is bull

shit, just goddamned bullshit. I stared at the inch of whiskey still in the tumbler. To hell with it, I decided and splashed the

remaining whiskey in the sink, shoved the

bottle back in the pantry. I was restless, though. I cleaned the

entire kitchen, floors, walls, counters,

appliances, even the ceiling and the

goddamned windows, and was ready to

start in on the bathrooms when I remem

bered running for freshman football, and

before I knew it, I was out the back door, still in only my sweatshirt and jeans, my thudding boots echoing in the darkness, skidding on the slick streets, my arms pumping as though I were assaulting a heavy bag, and I ran and ran until

my lungs burned from the cold and my legs became jelly, savoring that old delicious exhaustion from going full out. The route I took

was haphazard, but I ended up in front ofthe house, walking in a

small circle as I heaved air in my lungs, my whole body shivering,

sweaty and getting colder, but I stayed that way until my

breathing was almost normal and my heart slowed down. It

wasn't until I started toward the house that I noticed Eileen's car

was in the driveway, and I slowly made my way inside, not really

wanting to see anybody.

The kitchen table had neat piles of paper all over it, and Eileen

had her notebook out. She was bent over and scribbling in it when I came in. She glanced at me as I got a

glass of water, using the

same tumbler as earlier, a hint of the whiskey tainting the water.

"I've been printing stuff off the Internet," Eileen said. "It's a lot

worse than not good.' It's the Black Hole of Calcutta. If I'm

reading this right," and she waved her hands at the piles of paper, "there's nothing they can do. Nothing really."

She started to explain it all, tapping a finger on one pile of

paper, then another, picking up a sheet of paper occasionally and

shaking it at me, her voice quivering in fury that such a thing was

so, but I only sort of listened, mostly just nodded, sipped water.

This is it then, was going through my mind, this is really it. When

she paused to search through a stack for something, I jumped

right in.

"Remember that time Dad got in a fight?" "What?" She stopped searching the pile and shot a look at me,

as though I had asked if she remembered the zombies we kept in

the basement.

"When we were camping at Cape May," I said, "We were just kids, and those two French Canadians?we called them brothers, but nobody knew for sure?they wouldn't turn their music

down, even though it was real late and Dad had talked to them the

two prior nights, and Dad said, 'I'm sick of this shit,' and was out

of our tent stomping toward theirs?"

Her cell phone shrilled, and she snapped it out of its holder,

frowning as she said, "Yeah?"

I finished the water as I watched her face tense.

His good eye kept darting all around the room without

focusing on anything in particular.

"Oh, for Christ's sakes," she said, then, after a pause. "I don't

believe this." She was out of her chair, reaching for her coat, when

she said, "Fine. We'll be at the hospital." I, too, was out of my chair, looking around for my jacket until

I remembered I had tossed it on the living room couch. As she

started to explain, I followed her down the hallway to our front

door, snatching my jacket on the way.

"They found him sprawled out on the

floor of his room. Unconscious. They

wouldn't tell Terrance anything else, but I'm guessing another stroke. All that

crap I read said that's a high possibility.

Multiple strokes."

All the way into Hazleton to get to St.

Joe's, we were quiet, Eileen gripping the

steering wheel with both hands, leaning forward as though it were

hard to see. I mostly stared out my window, the trees and scat

tered houses ghosting by in the bright moonlight. "I remember that fight," she said as we sat at the traffic light

on 22nd Street, at the base of the hill where St. Joe's was at the

top. She didn't look at me, though, just stared out the front

windshield. "Dad pulled up all their stakes so the tent

would collapse on them, and then jumped on top and started

slapping the hell out of them. They kept shouting things in

French."

"It was so crazy, we were all laughing," I said. "Even Mom."

We were silent again until the light turned green. "I forgot my goddamned notebook," Eileen said, gunning the

engine, glaring at me as though I had something to do with that.

"Well, too bad."

Within a day, Dad had his third stroke and his response to stimuli

dropped to about zero. If a nurse or Dr. Patel would slash a probe

across the sole of his foot, it would twitch slightly and that was

about it, or if they talked loudly, directly into his ear, he'd stir and

make some mouth sounds. It took a couple of days until he rallied,

waking up occasionally, with his one good eye shifting warily and

sleepily from one thing to another, saying nothing, refusing to eat.

By that time, there were all kinds of tubes running in and out of

him. When Dr. Patel showed up that day, he brought a woman with

him. She stood slightly behind him, a bunch of folders held against her chest. She was tall and lean, with short salt-and-pepper hair,

and had watchful eyes, the kind that don't miss much.

"Perhaps it is time to place your father in more appropriate

surroundings," Dr. Patel said. He bowed his head slightly toward

the woman. "This is Elise Horlacher. She is in our social services.

She can be of much help." She was. She seemed pleased that we immediately dismissed a

nursing home or some type of long-term care facility, and that's

when she told us she would be our hospice partner. Before the day was out, she helped us arrange with a hospital supply business to

get what we'd need at home for proper hospice care, went over all

the protocols of how things would probably be done, settled on a

time to get Dad home. Afterwards, on her way to dropping me off at the house, Eileen started making noises about moving back in, but I said, no, let's keep things as normal as possible.

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"What's that, some kind of joke?" she demanded, but neither

then nor later did she move any of her stuff back in the house.

During the whole hospice watch, no matter how much time I

spent in his bedroom or how dutifully I followed the protocols that Elise set up, I couldn't shake the feeling that I had right before

I left Lock Haven, everybody else doing what they had to do and

knowing what it all meant, and me on the outside looking in. Day after day, when I watched over my dad, I mostly did nothing. In

the soft chair I had moved up from our living room, I'd park

myself next to his bed, the hospital-style one we had rented for

him, all shiny chrome and noiseless cranks, and spent a lot of time

watching sunlight and shadows play lightly on the hardwood

floor or across the walls and ceiling, or I'd stare and stare at the

plastic bags and tubes strung on poles that dripped fluids into

him, imagining them being worked over by his body, and then stare at the other tubes connected to calibrated bottles that

emptied them out. I'd have a million thoughts running through my head, but none I could quite grab onto, like a song title or

movie actor whose names stayed just out of reach of memory. He

was almost always in a deep sleep on his back, a comforter tight in his armpits, the activator for the morphine drip clutched in his

bony right hand. His face was all hollows and prominent bones,

looking as though they were anxious to burst free of his skin, his

sparse hair military short.

When I'd find myself looking that closely at him, I tried to

imagine him as someone else and I was just a hospice partner

like Elise was, hoping that if I looked at everything more objec

tively, I could wrap my mind around the whole situation, but

nothing came of that. No matter how hard I tried to will myself to think differently, he remained my dad. Maybe I just don't

have enough imagination. I sort of brought it up one time with

Elise when I was helping her with Dad's bed sores. To prevent them, I mean, or at least delay their onset, as Elise put it. After

we'd rolled him gently onto his right side, Elise stared intently at his pressure points, gently probing around them with her

gloved fingers, before smoothing on the medicated cream that

helped his skin from breaking down. Until she was done, I held

him by his shoulder and hip so he wouldn't roll backwards or

pitch forward, neither of which were likely, but it made me feel useful.

"How many people have you seen die?"

She didn't respond right off, keeping all of her focus on tending to my dad, but I knew she'd heard me by the way her eyebrows shot up when I asked the question. When we were finished with

him, easing him onto his back and tucking the comforter back

under his arms, she stripped off the gloves she wore, dropping them into a wastebasket, then looked at me full on in that clear

eyed way she had that implied anything could be faced if you keep

your wits about you.

"I've seen many people die," she said. "A hundred. Maybe more.

I was a nurse in ICU and CCU for a long time. Before I started

Hospice."

"Is one just kind of like another?" I said. "I mean, after a while, after seeing

so many?"

"No," she said. "Each is unique."

Without quite taking her eyes off me, she reached into an over

sized canvas bag that was braced against the bedside table and

pulled out my dad's chart. The lettering on the side ofthe bag was

bright green, "Hospice?When Caring Matters Most. St. Joseph's

Hospital."

"I don't cry at bedsides. I save that for home. My husband

understands."

"I'm glad you have someone like that," I said. "Really, I am."

Her eyes never shifted from mine in the silence that followed, the unasked question hanging there like a dead bat.

"Eileen's good for me," I said finally. "When she sings, it just kills me."

Which was true. Not long after we started our Hospice watch, Eileen took to singing when she was with Dad. She got the idea

from Mom, who called a lot, checking on Dad's condition, seeing how Eileen and I were holding up, but her questions were always

low-key, her tone more subdued than at any other time I could

remember. One time, though, right in the middle of us talking, she asked me if my dad was awake, and I said yes, and she told me

to put the phone next to his ear.

"Oh, Mom," I said. "I don't know. He won't understand what

you're saying. Words don't mean anything to him, Doc Kraynock said."

"Please, Eddie," she said. "Just hold the phone to his ear."

I felt like a fool, but I did it. By this time, we had begun to

restrain his good arm and leg because he'd lash out a lot if we

didn't, dislodging his tubes and everything. As I brought the

phone close to his head, though, he shied away from it, as if I were holding out a hissing cat, so I kept it a few inches away from his ear, and that's when I heard her singing. It was a song

my father used to sing late at night sometimes when Eileen and I were little kids, after the two of them had been out for an

evening and things were still going good between them.

"Strange things can happen around midnight," he'd croon, his

bulk enveloping my mother as they moved about our kitchen in a made-up dance, with Eileen and me at the kitchen table,

sipping hot chocolate or Moran's Birch Beer, the two of us grin

ning like the village idiots. My father's huge hands spanned the width of my mother's back, and she'd have her head soft on his

chest, her eyes dreamily closed, her thin arms in a loose clasp

around his neck, and she'd croon right back, "Strange things can

happen anytime."

While she sang this time, it didn't take Dad long to become

uninterested in the phone. His good eye kept darting all around

the room without focusing on anything in particular, with that

frightened, puzzled look that was on his face whenever he was

awake and wasn't in pain. When he was in pain, he tensed against his restraints, his face contorting to the right, with subdued wet

sounds coming from his throat. Then his thumb would start in on his morphine activator until he was asleep. He only got one

dose of morphine no matter how many times he pressed it, but his thumb would keep at it until he was unconscious. That's the

kind of stuff that breaks your heart to watch.

When my mom finished up the last chorus, right away I could hear her say, "Eddie? Eddie?" I put the phone back up to my ear.

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"What did he do?" She said. "I mean, did he react in any way? Did he seem to recognize anything?"

"No," I said slowly. "He was pretty much the way he always is."

"Oh," she said, and then it was just static on the phone for a few

seconds. "Oh, well, it was worth a try."

When Eileen came in to relieve me that day, I had already decided I wasn't going to mention

anything about Mom's phone call, but it

didn't matter. Eileen had already talked to

her.

"You know," Eileen said, her eyes all lit

up, bustling about to set up a CD player on Dad's dresser, pulling out CD after CD

from her shoulder bag, and making two

stacks next to the player. "Mom might be on to something. In all that stuff I read, it said that music and

language are centered in different parts of the brain, so, okay, his

language part might be all messed up, but maybe his music part isn't."

She fingernailed down one stack until she double-tapped on

the one she wanted, tugged it out, and put it in the player. Oklahoma. Dad's all-time favorite. All ofthe CD's were Broadway musicals, stuff he used to play incessantly when we were kids?

South Pacific, The King and I, West Side Story, The Music Man,

Camelot, Cabaret, Hair, Jesus Christ Superstar, Godspell?just about every one you could think of. Dad was asleep, but after the

overture, right on cue, Eileen burst out with There's a bright,

golden haze on the meadow, her soprano blending perfectly with

Gordon McCrae's baritone like she was right beside him on her own horse and they'd done this a million times, and she could do

it a million more, with or without him, as long as the sun shined

and that corn kept reaching to the sky. She sang the whole album, and I even found myself humming allong with her at times.

That's what his last days were like. If he were asleep, Eileen would

put in a CD and sing along with it most ofthe time, gliding about

the room, making hand gestures. If Dad were awake, she'd really

get into it, her face taking on all these expressions, her arms

sweeping grandly at times, twirling around. When Terrance was

there, he didn't know the words to most of the songs, but he'd

hum as best he could. And smile. Elise didn't sing or hum, but she

smiled a lot. I smiled. Everybody smiled but Doc Kraynock and

Father Murtaugh when they'd show up. They kept their faces

blank, avoided looking directly at any of us but Dad or shooting a baffled look at Elise. Occasionally, I'd get caught up in the whole

thing, and I'd hear "Gee, Officer Krupke, we're down on our

knees" or "Bali Hai awaits you, where the sun meets the sea"

coming out of my mouth, off-key, more like shouting and

shrieking than anything. Just crazy. None of it seemed to matter

to Dad, though, but every once in a while, the right side of his

mouth turned up in something like a grin, and he'd come out

with these ugly throat sounds, all thick and clotty. Who knows

what got through to him.

On his last day, I was late getting there in the afternoon.

Though it was only early March, winter had broken, and we

I kissed his forehead

again and left the

room, waving vaguely at Elise that she could

go in.

had a lot of unusually warm days, and the calls into the busi ness were starting to pile up. I signed on Grant for the year and had him help with the messages, but you could see he hated it,

wincing every time the phone rang, saying, "Yeah, yeah," and

"Fine. I'll tell him. Yeah, fine," the whole time he talked with someone.

When I got to the house, Elise was in

the kitchen in the last stages of getting Dad's supper ready. Since the Hospice started, I fed him breakfast and supper, Elise covering lunch. Everything was

pureed and put in a compartmentalized tray, a

plastic-coated spoon in a slot on

top. Feeding him with that spoon

depressed me as much as anything.

"What's the lineup tonight?" I said.

"Squash, carrots, apples," Elise said as we left the kitchen.

At the foot of the stairs, she stopped. "Edward," she said. "Your father has not had a good day. Lots of

coughing, and he's been asleep almost the whole day. I don't know how much he'll eat."

All I could think of to do was nod, and that stinging aura

started to sweep through me again. I wasn't sure what I expected once we got in the room, but it was nothing like what I saw. Eileen

was in the soft chair at the foot of the bed, the strain evident in

her face ripping me up, whisper singing, "The Lusty Month of

May." She didn't look our way as we came in, and neither did

Terrance. He was hunkered down beside her, both of her hands

clasped in his, murmuring something to her, but she kept her eyes locked straight ahead, whisper singing the whole time. Dad was

cranked up in his bed, his head lolled to one side, his slack jaw

exposing his withered mouth, his chest not moving. I thought, Jesus, he's dead, and Elise must have thought so, too. Without

looking at me, she headed straight for my father, holding out the

tray behind her until I grabbed it. Reflexively, she straightened out

the cover sheet as she leaned over him. The stethoscope around

her neck swayed away from her, and she stilled it so it hovered over his chest.

"Mr. Faye." Her voice seemed very loud in the room, but I knew

it was no louder than normal. She nudged his shoulder with her

fingers. "Mr. Faye, time for supper."

His eyes remained steadfastly closed, and she nudged him a

little more forcefully. I was tempted to say, Elise, don't, but her

hand spread to cup his entire shoulder, and her voice was soft.

Protruding just slightly from his pajama sleeves, his hands were

nestled in the concave depression that was now his belly, his

useless left hand just ugly. The left side of his face sagged, like a

partially melted rubber mask.

"We have your supper ready, Mr. Faye."

When he cracked his eyes open just a bit and feebly rolled his

head toward her voice, I felt a rush of air leave me and

looked at Eileen. She was staring at me, calm-eyed, her face

composed.

"I need to be outside for a while," she said, and pretty much fled

the room, Terrance right behind her.

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Elise cranked my father a little higher, his head jiggling slightly as she did so. He was a little more alert as Elise secured a bib

around his neck, looking about in puzzled resentment at all the

fuss, as he did when we were alone and I tried to talk with him.

I'd say stuff to him. Dad, remember freshman football and all the

running we did? Or, fly casting is shoulder-elbow-wrist, right? Sometimes, it would just be, Dad, I cannot imagine life without

you, or simply, I love you, Dad. Whenever I talked to him, his look

would linger on me for a few moments, but pretty soon his eyes would start wandering about the room, as if everything were

identifiable but unfamiliar. As he looked at me when I started to

feed him.

"Okay, amigo," I said. "Time to fill your gut." He stared at the spoon as I brought it toward his face, but his

mouth did not really react until I lightly prodded a lip with the

spoon, then his tongue greedily lapped at his food. I constantly had to use the spoon to smooth food off his lower lip, but a

significant amount still spattered his bib. As for Elise herself, she

stationed herself across the bed from me, alert though unobtru

sive. While I continued to feed him, Elise retrieved his chart

from her bag and intermittently scribbled notes on it. It took a

long time to work through the squash and carrots, and when I

started in on the apples, his tongue touched out desultorily, once, twice, and then simply stopped. His eyes were mere slits,

and his jaw was completely slack. Casually, Elise set my father's

chart on the bed and circled my father's right hand with her

own, then slid her fingers up to his wrist. Her other hand lightly touched his neck.

"Perhaps we should wait before feeding him some more," she

said, though she didn't look my way at all.

For long minutes, we remained as we were, Elise's eyes intent on

my father, and I frozen beside the bed. I was afraid if I moved in

any way that something completely unexpected would happen, the windows would implode or the bed collapse in an unbearable

noise. Just as casually as before, Elise eased the earpieces of the

stethoscope in place and disappeared the stethoscope bell beneath the cover sheet, inside my father's pajama top. For the entire time

that Elise listened, I was unaware of any sounds, the tray in my hands, the slight breeze rustling the curtains. My eyes were

completely focused on her hidden hand. When she removed it, she raised her face to me, sliding the stethoscope down around

her neck.

"I'm sorry, Edward," she said. "But your father is gone."

All I could do was nod.

"There are calls I have to make. If you'd rather?"

"No, I'll stay here."

Nodding, she gently took the food tray from me, and I made no

effort to stem the tears.

"Elise," I said. "FU teU Eileen."

"Of course," she said. "I'll be out in the hallway, but just for a

few minutes."

Then she was gone, the door closing softly behind her, and I was left alone with my father. Though the tears did not stop, I was surprised by how suddenly calm I felt, relaxed, serene, as though I were floating in warm seawater, the sun hot on my

skin. I bent down and touched my lips to my father's moist fore

head, swallowed his hands in one of mine. When I let go of his

hands and stepped back enough so I could see him full-length, I

wanted him to look different somehow, that there would be some

indication that everything had changed, but he looked much as

he had while sleeping these last few weeks. A movement by the

windows drew my eyes away. The voile panels puffed then

collapsed until sucked onto the screen, an elegant deflation that

reminded me of the waves receding from the rocks at Cape May, where my father slapped at those French Canadian brothers

trapped beneath their collapsed tent. I kissed his forehead again and left the room, waving vaguely at Elise that she could go in. She

nodded and stepped quietly into the room.

All the way down the steps, the stairs creaking pistol sharp, I kept reciting a list in my head. Call Mom. Let Grant know

I won't be in for a few days. Set up a meeting with Maxie Fellin, our lawyer. Call Father Murtaugh. Let Doc Kraynock know. Call

Boyle's Funeral Home. You should have written it down, a voice in my head insisted. Why didn't you just write the damn

list down? When I reached the front entrance, I hesitated at the door,

savoring for a moment the rich green smell a breeze carried

through the screen door, trying to spot where Eileen was.

She was looking over the hedge that separated our yard from

the one next door, arm in arm with Terrance, her head nestled

against his shoulder. A gaggle of voices lured me outside. I eased out the screen door so the hinges wouldn't squeak and stepped to the edge of the porch. A small group of

children were having a picnic in the front yard on the far side

of the hedge, and all but one had their hands hovering

protectively over their small plates of food. The one who didn't was standing, imperiously pointing at her backyard, her voice clear as clear, "Go, Elliot. Now." But the dog,

a mutt, ignored

her, romping about excitedly as though he were a part of the

meal. The breeze swayed the limbs of our maple trees slightly my way, and an Absopure man hustled two five-gallon water

jugs up the driveway of the house opposite ours. A teenage girl

juggled a soccer ball?right thigh, left thigh, instep?as she

made her way down the sidewalk across the way. Cars darted

by, and a cloud drifted across the sun. How big the world is flitted through my mind, and as I risked my first step down, I

boomed out, "Eileen!" The dog stopped in a mid-spin, and the kids wrenched their faces at me, Terrance and Eileen, too, and

something in my voice, the tone or volume, or the way my arms

were spread wide, how I quick-stepped down to the cement

told her everything. She pulled away from Terrance, breaking into a full sprint almost from the first step, her arms also spread

wide, her face crumbling as she ran, Terrance jogging after her, his arms pumping loosely, his hands jangling, his tongue

tasting his upper lip. Behind me, the house loomed, large and

silent. I shut everything out but Eileen, wanting nothing more

than to have her lithe arms tight around my neck, and then

they were, and I stayed bent over, rocking her gently as we

hugged, her sobs loud in my ear, and then my voice, deflated, muffled in her neck, "Oh, Eileen."

November-December 2006 NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW 19

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