The Last Season

            Aspen trees stood bare-limbed. Yellow needles fell from western larch trees scattered through ponderosa pine and lodgepole pine trees. Bob walked to the edge of the bluff, cradled his rifle in his arms in cold autumn sunshine, and studied the landscape of forest and meadows below him, looking for elk.

            A 160 grain bullet smashed through Bob’s lower jaw, shattered bone and teeth, tore away part of his tongue, and traveled onward, lost in the forest above camp. The explosive roar of a high-powered rifle caught up with the faster-than-sound bullet and echoed through the mountain canyon.

Two

            Cold, grey clouds closed against the mountain. Dusk washed colors and details from the landscape.

            Doug put the frying pan on the grill above the fire when I walked into camp. I unloaded my rifle, put the weapon and ammunition in the tent, walked over, and sat down across the fire from Doug. He moved the coffee pot closer to me and handed me my cup. I poured coffee and said, “We’ll have snow before morning.” I sipped coffee and nearly scalded my mouth. I put the cup down on the ground to cool. I said, “Where’s Bob?”

            Doug said, “I don’t know, Michael. His pickup was gone when I got back, about an hour ago.”

             “Doesn’t seem like he’d go to town. We don’t need anything. Did you look for a note?”

            “Yeah, I did. He didn’t leave a note.”

            Doug fried meat and potatoes and carrots. We ate. We sat by the fire and drank coffee. About 7:00, Doug said, “If Bob went after an animal, he’d’ve left a note. He’d be back by now, anyway. If he went to town, he would’ve left a note.”

            “I think so, too. There’s only one road out of here. Let’s drive to town and see if we can find out anything.”

Three

            The roar of the rifle shot echoed across the mountain, and Bob fell to the ground. He wasn’t knocked out, or he wasn’t out for long; he would have bled to death. He made it to his pickup, drove with his left hand, and pressed his right hand into his shattered face and slowed the bleeding. He drove into town to the hospital and crashed into the emergency entrance.

            Glass shattered around his pickup. The pickup destroyed part of the brick wall, and Bob slumped over the steering wheel, unconscious, covered with blood. People at the hospital dragged him out of the pickup, slowed his bleeding, and rushed him into surgery.

            Four hours later, Doug and I got to the hospital.

            The woman at the desk said, “No, you can’t see him. He’s in surgery. I don’t know how long before anybody can see him.” I thought she wanted to add, “Maybe not ever.” Nobody knew if he’d live the next minute, the next half-hour.

            Doug and I sat down. The second hand crept around the face of the clock on the white wall. I got up and walked up and down the waiting room.

            Fifteen minutes.

            Half an hour.

            An hour.

            I hate hospitals. I sweat like the temperature was a hundred degrees.

            Nobody told us anything.

            Two hours.

            I walked over to Doug. I said, “Let’s go back to camp. We aren’t doing any good here. I can’t stay here about another minute.”

            Doug stood up. He said, “I guess so. I guess we’re not doing Bob any good hanging around here.”

            Men with plywood and ladders and tools worked on the emergency exit as we left. Bob’s pickup was gone.

            Neither of us said anything for ten miles. Then Doug said, “It’s nuts what careless hunters can get away with.”

            I said, “Yeah. It could have been someone who didn’t even know what happened.”

            Big, round flakes of snow floated in light from the headlights ahead of us. Snowflakes caught in the wind the pickup made roaring through the dark, cold night and blew up and over the cab.

            I said, “What if you had a perfect shot at a big bull, and you put the bullet above its shoulder, with no backup to stop the bullet? A thousand times, the bullet harms nothing, but one time. Could be, I don’t know. Jesus, think about that. A lot of the people who shoot other people in hunting accidents probably don’t even know they’ve done it.”

            Dark clouds hang close against the mountain. I take my foot from the gas pedal, and the truck slows down. Snow hits the windshield and melts. Water runs down and streaks dust on the glass. I steer the pickup off the road and stop on the gravel shoulder.

            Doug says, “What’s up?”

            I shut the lights and the motor off, open the door, step outside, and let the door swing shut. I walk away from the pickup and vomit on the shoulder of the road. Snow falls faster. A small breeze rises to moaning wind. Cold snowflakes blow into my face. It’s colder than hell halfway up the mountain in the middle of the night. Stars shine high above thick clouds. It’s very dark, darker than the absence of all hope.

Four

            Snow covered the ground eight inches deep that night. I lay awake in the tent, waiting for daylight.

            First light filtered through clouds close above the mountain. Fine, light snow drifted down. I got up and built a fire.

            Doug and I drank coffee at dawn and ate breakfast. Snow stopped falling. Clouds broke into huge islands in blue sky. Islands of clouds shattered into smaller fragments. Fragments of clouds whitened, thinned, and blew east. Brilliant sunshine reflected from new snow.

            I walked over and looked at the thermometer Bob had hung in a tree near the tent. Five degrees below zero.

            Doug wouldn’t have found Bob’s rifle if it had fallen flat on the ground. Snow would have covered it. But the barrel, propped on a rock, aimed toward the sun.

Five

            The doctors aren’t sure Bob will live. I go see Bob’s parents. Arlene says, “Michael, I don’t think Bob is there. I hope it’s just that he’s not there yet, and he will be. The drugs they’ve given him would slow him down if nothing else did.”

            Robert says something to her, quieter than I can hear.

            Arlene says, “The doctors say it’s amazing he was hit that hard, and he’s still alive. They say he should have bled to death on the way into town. They say only a really strong will to live got him through.

            “If he has such a strong will to live,” Arlene asks, “why isn’t he doing anything? He doesn’t move, or communicate, or try to do anything.”

            Bob is strong. He’s always been determined to achieve what he sets his mind on. I didn’t understand that for a long time. His goals were so different from mine, I didn’t know he had goals. He was my best friend, but I thought he was a drifter, with no clear definition of what he wanted.

            I knew what I wanted, my own business, that would earn me a lot of money, a big place of my own. I’d build my own house. I’d buy expensive cars. I’d have a family I could be proud of.

            I didn’t build the house myself. A man can only do so much, but I designed it. I oversaw the construction. I made sure they built it right. That was several years after I started selling and repairing business machines.

            Personal computers hit the market. I sold and repaired computers, too. I bought stock in computer companies, and the companies grew.

            Bob drew the world around him and his imagination. He painted. In high school, he learned to play the guitar, and he wrote a lot of songs. But he never sold a song to anyone. I don’t think he ever tried.

            Two years into college, Bob left. We didn’t hear from him for five years.

            I wanted Bob to be best man when I married Jennifer, but I didn’t know how to contact him. He didn’t even keep in touch with his parents, those five years.

            Five years after he left, Bob came back. He painted more than he ever had. His paintings weren’t realistic, so I didn’t look at them much. He still played the guitar and wrote and sang a lot of songs, but none of that stuff earned him a living. He went to work for me, repairing machinery and installing computer systems. He wasn’t the most reliable worker in the world, but he could do anything with machines.

            Arlene said, “Maybe he knows he’s being helped, and he’s waiting to gain strength, reserving his strength.” She seemed almost detached, like a doctor talking about her patient.

            I heard a high-pitched, mewing sound. I thought a cat was in the room with us. Cold, late fall sun shone through the big south windows. I looked for a cat, but then I realized Arlene made that sound. She bowed forward. She had trouble breathing as the sustained sound emerged from deep inside her. Then sobs heaved through her thin body like they would tear her apart.

            Robert put his arms around her and drew her to him. She pulled away from him. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I’m sorry.”

            Robert said, “Jesus Christ, Arlene. You don’t owe anybody in this world an apology for crying.”

            She walked out of the room bent over, her arms wrapped around herself. Robert walked beside her, trying to help her.

            When Robert came back, I said, “I’ll go now.”

            “Keep in touch, Michael.”

            How could I not keep in touch? Before I was out the door, Robert turned and went back to Arlene.

            Cold wind blew down from the mountains. Leaves piled in gutters and deteriorated toward dead brown of winter. I walked through dead leaves. I scattered leaves away from me. Underneath, leaves had turned black and damp, rotting away, becoming part of the soil of the earth again. Leaves stuck to my shoes. I thought somebody should clean up all the dead leaves.

Six

            Bob’s injury really jolted Jennifer. She needed insulation from everyone around her after she heard, but distance wasn’t unusual in our marriage. It seemed too frequent to me that Jennifer said, “Michael, please leave me alone. I just need some time to myself.”

            If I tried to be closer or if I kept after her to explain what was happening, it got worse. The time of distance between us stretched into weeks. I could force her to be with me, but I couldn’t force her to like it. Eventually, I learned not to push.

            Two years after we married, we had Travis. Two years and two months later, we had Debbie. If Jennifer has two children with me and shares raising them and shares our existence, she must be committed. If she needs privacy sometimes, I have to allow her those times. Eventually, she relaxes, and we’re close again.

            Bob and Jennifer and I ran around together in high school and college. Sometimes, a fourth member joined our group. Some of Bob’s girl friends wanted a more serious relationship. Mary Sue started getting serious, and he dropped her and started going out with Elizabeth. Elizabeth started getting serious, and he dropped her.

            He told me, “Someday, I’ll hook up with someone I love and get married, but I’m not ready for that yet.”

            Two weeks before our wedding, Jennifer said, “Michael, I don’t think I’m ready to get married. I need time to think about what we’re doing.”

            I said, “We arranged everything, the church, even the food. We sent invitations.”

            “Marriage lasts a lifetime, Michael. Should I marry because we’ve made arrangements?”

            “Last minute doubts aren’t unusual, Jennifer. A lot of people have them.”

            “I’m not a lot of people, Michael. I’m me, with my own doubts, which don’t have anything to do with anyone else’s doubts.” She walked away from me, got into her car, and drove away. I wanted to hold her with me. I wanted to convince her her fears and doubts were meaningless, but I stood and watched her go.

            Louise, Jennifer’s mother, called me. She said, “Don’t push her, Michael. If you push, she’s going to run. I think she’ll come around. But I don’t think she’ll come around if you push. Step back and let me see if I can handle it.”

            Jennifer called me six days before the date we’d set for the wedding. She said, “You haven’t called me.”

            “No. I thought you needed time to think things over.”

            “I did. Yes. I did need time to think.”

            “I decided I’d wait and see what you decided.”

            “Are you that willing to let go, Michael, that casual about it?”

            “I’m not casual, but I heard what you said. If you don’t want to marry me, don’t marry me.”

            “This almost doesn’t sound like you, Michael.”

            “Maybe you’d better check the number you dialed.”

            “I recognize your voice. Is this Michael as counseled by my mother?”

            “That’s right. That’s who it is. But she’s right, and you’re right. It would be crazy to get into something you aren’t sure of because we’ve made the arrangements or because I pressure you into it. That wouldn’t work. ”

            “You should talk to my mother more often.”

            “She pointed out something valid, but she didn’t teach me everything I know.”

            “I think I’ve underrated you, Michael. Do you still want to marry me, even if I’ve had an inaccurate view of you, Michael?”

            “I don’t want to get married unless you want to.”

            “I would like to marry you, Michael. I need the security and the well-being you offer.”

            “That’s a really stupid reason to get married.”

            “I think I’ve made you angry. I need to learn not to tease you. Security is part of the reason I want to marry you, but it isn’t the only reason.”

seven

            Jennifer called me at the office before noon Friday. She said, “Come home for lunch and stay home. I’m going to the city to see Bob.”

            “They aren’t letting anyone in to see him. He’s still in critical condition.”

            “If they won’t let me see him, I’ll come home tomorrow. If they say I can see him in the next few days, I might stay. I’ll call tomorrow or Sunday and let you know.”

            “That doesn’t make sense, Jennifer.”

            “What does sense have to do with it, Michael? Bob is isolated. Is healing just sewing him together and patching bones and medicating him? Having someone care enough to try to get in to see him, having someone there is as important as any medication they give him.”

            Travis and Debbie and I spend our weekend together. I fix waffles with ice cream and strawberries Saturday morning and Sunday morning. Travis talks with his mouth full and says, “Mama needs to be away more often.”

            I ask him, “So you can have waffles with strawberries and ice cream?”

            “Sure. That’s part of why. But you need to be with us more, too.”

            I went to the hospital twice after they moved Bob to the city. They wouldn’t let me see him. I hate that huge, concrete building with its smell of sickness, disinfectant, medicine, and death. Hollow voices echo over loudspeakers and ask endlessly for help.

            Sunday afternoon, Jennifer called. She said, “I’m going to stay til Tuesday or Wednesday.”

            “Did you see him?”

            “No. They wouldn’t let me in.”

            “Will you get to see him if you stay?”

            “I’m going to try.”

            “What about me going to work?”

            “Is that more important than Bob? Ron can handle the shop. If you have to go in, call Mrs. Sterns to stay with Debbie and Travis. She’s always glad to earn the money. Let me talk to Travis.”

            Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, they let Jennifer see Bob. She came home Wednesday. She said, “He isn’t talking yet. He won’t talk for a long time. They’ll have to do a lot of reconstructive surgery on his jaw and tongue, but he’s there. He wrote notes.”

            “What did he say?”

            “He’s glad to be alive. At first, he thought he made a mistake trying to live. He thought he should have given up and died. He didn’t make conscious choices about trying to live. He says the will to live is beyond individual choice.”

            “Does he remember what happened?”

            “We didn’t talk about that. He wanted to communicate more, but he gets tired, and he stops writing notes.”

eight

            Sweat ran down my sides, down my back under my shirt. I walked the shiny white floor of the hospital hall. Fluorescent lights recessed into the ceiling lighted the inside of the building. Hospital smells, disinfectant, sickness and death filled the air. I shivered in brief moments of chill, but sweat ran. I hesitated at the door. I almost turned and left.

            I pushed the door and saw him, propped up in bed. From his nose down, bandages obscured his face. A metal and plastic brace jutted out from his face and held what was left of his lower jaw in place.

            I tried to read his strange, green eyes, mottled with brown and specks of black. We think we see so much expression in eyes, but if the rest of the face is covered, eyes don’t communicate much.

            I said, “I tried to see you before, but they wouldn’t let me in.”

            I said, “They tell me you can write notes.”

            He picked up a pad and pencil and swung the table in front of him. He wrote and handed me the pad. He had written, “Did you kill an elk?”

            I said, “No. We didn’t hunt after we found out what happened to you. Do you remember what happened?”

            He wrote, “I remember getting back to camp. Woke up here. People worked on me. Nothing else.”

            I said, “Sheriffs came out to camp, but they didn’t find anything. They don’t investigate hunting accidents very hard. Looks like they figure an accident is an accident, and we couldn’t do much about it if we did figure out who pulled the trigger.”

            Bob shrugged his shoulders. I stayed with him another half an hour. I didn’t say much. He wrote nothing more. We’ve spent time together without talking, but not in a hospital. I never settled into being there.

            A nurse pushed the door open, walked into the room, and said, “Visiting hours are over.”

            I asked Bob, “Anything I can bring you or do for you?” He shook his head. I touched his shoulder. I turned and walked out of the room and out of the hospital.

nine

            More than a year ago, Bob became even more undependable at work. I wanted him to be regular. I talked to him about it, but it didn’t make any difference.

            I couldn’t fire him. He’s a friend, and some things about machines, I can’t track down and Ron or Walter can’t track down. Bob figures them out and fixes them. Sometimes, part of our repair work slid behind schedule until Bob showed up after an unexplained absence and caught up.

            One evening at dinner, Travis said, “Bob wouldn’t eat this roast. When Mama was fixing it, he said it looked bloody and gross.”

            I looked at Jennifer. “You didn’t tell me Bob was here today.”

            “I didn’t think to mention it, yet.”

            Travis said, “He’s here all the time, lately.”

            Jennifer said, “All the time is an exaggeration He has been here several times.”

            “I’ve wondered what he was doing. He’s missed a lot of work. Why haven’t you said anything?”

            “I don’t think he feels public about it. He has girlfriend problems, and he comes by and asks my advice. I’m an old married woman. He thinks that makes me understand the way love works. I don’t actually give him much advice. I listen.”

            “I didn’t know he had a girlfriend. Who is she?”

            “Angela. I don’t know her last name. I’ve never met her. It’s a stormy relationship, on again, off again. Bob wants it to last, but he says she wants more material security than he can offer.”

            “He’s never been very good at earning a living.”

            “No. That’s never been a high priority for him.”

            “I’d give him a raise if he worked every day for a month and guaranteed he’d keep showing up. Maybe higher earnings would help him win her heart.”

Ten

            Four months before Bob was shot, I went to a computer hardware convention in New Jersey.

            After I got back, Travis talked to me about a nightmare he had. He said, “That night Bob stayed here.”

            I said, “Did Bob stay here one night?”

            “I guess so. I got up to go to the bathroom, and I heard Bob talking. He laughed. I thought he was in the bathroom, but he wasn’t, so I didn’t have to wait. I really had to go, so I was glad I didn’t have to wait.”

            “What did he say?”

            “I don’t know. I didn’t hear the words, just his voice.”

            “Where was he?”

            “I don’t know. I just heard him. I had to go to the bathroom, so I did, and then I went back to bed.”

            I asked Jennifer about it, and she said, “Travis is mixing up times. Bob’s never been here at night.”

            I’m sure Jennifer is right. Travis mixed up times, or he confused reality with dreams. I’ve seen him mix up dreams and the real world plenty of other times, so why not now?

            I couldn’t lay to rest what started in my head. I wondered without end, restless thoughts. Somebody said or did something that meant nothing to me at the time, but I remember it clearly now. They could have meant something I didn’t even think of, if I shifted my basic assumptions about reality.

            I remembered times going clear back to high school. I remembered Jennifer’s times of distance from me.

            I threw crazy thoughts away from me a hundred times. They came back.

            One morning at work, I asked Bob, “What happened to Angela?”

            I wanted to know if my question startled him. I didn’t know how to find out.

            He said, “Angela moved to Canada.”

            “Did you consider going with her?”

            “They don’t use computers yet in Canada. What would I do up there for a living?”

            “Weren’t you very serious about Angela?”

            “Serious? Angela never transcended the state of a jest, the state of California, the states united, until she moved to Canada.”

            “Did she want you to go with her?”

            “Angela doesn’t know what she wants. She wants everyone around her to define what she wants, and then she’ll slip out from under and leave them holding their effort like leftover bricks.”

            “Do you still write songs, Bob?”

            “Mostly I paint. Huge paintings lately. Shockingly brilliant colors. Surreal dreams and thoughts. Not violent. Not graphically perverted, but no one identifies with them enough to want to become one with them, to the point of wanting to buy one.

            “A few people want my paintings, but they have no money for paintings. Some don’t have money for lunch or rent. They come into the gallery to get warm, and they’re fascinated by my paintings. I buy them lunch because they haven’t eaten since yesterday. I’ve stopped showing my paintings. It cost me too much to buy homeless people lunch.”

            “You’re bitter.”

            “Resigned. An edge of bitterness because I think I never will earn money from the work that means the most to me. I’m not bitter about the work itself. I’m not bitter about continuing painting despite lack of recognition.”

            “How much of your edge of bitterness comes because Angela went to Canada?”

            Bob had been looking at a circuit board under a magnifying glass. He put down the circuit board, turned away from the framed, mounted glass, and looked at me. “Knowing even less than you think you know, you touch the point on which everything pivots, my friend Michael.

            “Probably, no one told you Angela is married. Enchanted by art, by the exciting forces of creativity, bored and reduced by her husband’s total involvement with material existence, she dallied. She convinced the artist only his creative pursuits mattered to her.

            “She saw his susceptibility, and she engaged his heart for eternity. She vowed she would leave husband, home, and concerns about material survival behind. The artist, starved for appreciation of his work, believed eternity lay in her infatuation with his art.

            “He became enamored of her beauty, her soft receptivity, her admiration of his work and his genius. She blended with his creative passion and drove his art to new heights. She knit herself into his substance.

            “Angela’s husband’s company offered him a large raise to an already huge salary to manage the Canadian branch of the business. He prepared to go. All dreams, all promises died. Angela wouldn’t allow her material security to abandon her south, warmer though it may be down in this lonesome land.”

            “You’re more bitter than you want to admit.”

            “I’m bitter at myself for being susceptible, for violating my standards to gain acceptance, admiration, and flattery. I’m bitter at myself for beginning to think my creative passions shaped the world.

            “I’m not destined to find a soul mate. If I ever join with a partner, I think she’ll be domestic, someone who has no interest in creative possibilities. Maybe that’s best, that we come together in matters of material existence and for the satisfaction of physical passion but stay out of higher human endeavors.”

            Bob picked up the circuit board, turned, and held it under the magnifying glass. “You see, almost invisible even magnified, one circuit broke, so clean, it appears to have been cut. That tiny flaw renders the whole board inoperable.

            “I never wonder about my motivations, but I wonder why I’ve told you all this.”

            I said, “You need to talk about it to make a sensible story of it, like writing a song or a story.”

            “I don’t think that explains it, Michael. Sometimes your entire existence is horribly cliche.”

            “You’ve talked to Jennifer about it because you needed to talk about it.”

            “I haven’t told her what I’ve told you.”

            “I’ll keep it confidential.”

            “Does confidentiality mean anything?” Bob put down the circuit board, picked up another, and examined it under the glass. I touched his shoulder. He didn’t respond. I walked out of the work area into the office.

            I thought I had failed in an important moment. I didn’t know what I could have done differently.

            I knew Bob well until I started into business. Running the business as it grew kept reducing the time I had for anyone. Bob didn’t remain frozen in time, but what I knew about him might have.

            I stood behind the counter in the front office. Cars filled the street outside the glass windows with mechanical, busy noise. I wanted quiet, but I didn’t know where to find it. I believed Angela had gone to Canada, and she meant to stay there. I think Bob meant for her to stay there, but sometimes something we start and then try to back away from doesn’t end easily. A grey-haired, small woman pushed the glass door open, walked across the carpet, and asked me about a word processing program. I tried to pull my thoughts together and answer her questions.

eleven

            A few weeks before Doug and Bob and I drove into the mountains to hunt, the last elk season of the year, Bob started missing work again. He didn’t explain anything to me. I thought Canada had not held Angela, despite all intentions aimed toward her residence there.

            I developed sensitivity I had never had before. I understood moods and unspoken thoughts around me to depths I had never understood before. I understood discrepancies between the picture Jennifer presented for me to see and what she actually did. I understood Bob’s return to unreliability at work, though I found nothing but straws of significance, that meant nothing to anyone but me, that deteriorated into meaninglessness when I tried to gather them into a complete story.

twelve

            Sun shone through the dining room window. Trees in the yard opened new, bright green leaves. Days and nights turned lazily warm.

            I looked up from the table when Jennifer walked into the room. I knew by the way she walked and the way she stopped and stood, waiting for my full attention, that our lives would change. She said, “I’m leaving you, Michael.”

            “What did you say?”

            “I know you heard me, Michael. I said I’m leaving you. It will take me a while to move out. I hope we can make this change peacefully and as friends, but regardless of how we do it, I am leaving.”

            “Why? What’s gone wrong?”

            “Bob needs me. He’s alone in the world, injured. He won’t go to his parents’. He can’t take care of his needs, because he won’t go where people see him. I’m going to help him.”

            “Bring him here. We can take care of him here.”

            “No, Michael. That wouldn’t work. It’s too late for that.”

            “What about Travis and Debbie? They need you. What about me?”

            “I’ll have Travis and Debbie with me part of the time. You need me less than you even suspect. You need someone who doesn’t change, someone with no need for deep, creative companionship. I don’t want that existence anymore.

            “I didn’t know how to find more depth than I had as an affluent wife with more and more hollowness. I didn’t look for something to fill that hollowness, but I found it. My only fear has been that I’ll look back when I’m old and it’s too late, and I’ll realize I settled for less than I could be from fear of change. I’m not afraid of this change.”

Thirteen

            Jennifer takes Travis and Debbie with her for a few days. She leaves them with me again. We talk about Debbie and Travis, and she leaves.

            She walks down the concrete walkway under green trees growing toward the summer blue sky. I watch her get into her car. I watch the car diminish down the long paved road.

            After Jennifer moved out, I saw her in my dreams. In my dreams, I called her “Angela.” She looked at me. She turned and walked away from me into darkness, and my dream showed me only the darkness of night.

            I dream of Jennifer less now. Time passes easier now than it did at first.

            Sometimes, I hear the roar of a high-powered rifle, and I slam from deep dreams wide awake in the dark night. I breathe deeply and try to calm my hammering heart. Sometimes I can sleep again before light seeps into my windows and the day demands my attention.

            I never see Bob.

            Jennifer took Bob’s paintings to gallery after gallery in city after city. She kept at it, and his paintings received some attention, and then more. A few of his paintings sold, and then more. Critics wrote about his work. More and more conversations touched on his art.

            Now his paintings sell almost as fast as he finishes them. Their prices go up.

            Some critics say Bob’s severe injury, close to death, his recovery and gratitude for life added depth and power to his paintings.

            I looked at some of Bob’s paintings.

            I stood in the gallery, anonymous, a cold winter day. People moved around me. Some of them talked to each other about what they saw. Some stood silent and studied the big paintings hanging on the walls. I became unconscious of the world around me. I didn’t know time passed.

            In what Bob had painted, I saw blood, injury, and pain. I saw victory. In his paintings I saw that life transcends pain. Life transcends death. Bob’s paintings evolved deeper into beauty, into almost touchable meaning. In his paintings, in the development of his vision from painting to painting, I saw his decision to live and to create beauty and meaning no matter what life gave him.

            I felt deep injury, deep loss. I spiraled downward into loss, pain, blood, and fire.

            I walked out of the gallery. Winter wind chilled me to the marrow of my bones. Dirty snow blew around me on the concrete sidewalk. I walked toward my car.

            In the morning, Travis walked out to catch the bus to school, but after the bus left, he came back in the front door, put his book bag down, and sat down across the table from me.

            “Mom left us. She comes and gets us sometimes, but she isn’t here anymore. You can’t leave us, Dad. Somebody has to stay here for Debbie and me.”

            I shook my head. “I’m not leaving you, Travis. I’ll be here for you until you grow up and leave home.”

            “You’re not here. You’re like one of my stuffed toys. I touch you. I talk to you, and I can pretend you say something to me, but you’re not really alive. Your life has gone somewhere else. You can’t do that. We need you to help us grow up. We can’t do it by ourselves.”

            I stood up. I forced myself to walk around the table. I didn’t want to be close to anyone. I didn’t want to touch anyone, but I picked Travis up. I walked up and down the room, and I carried Travis and held him tightly as I walked. Travis wrapped his arms around my neck and held on.

            Travis and I picked Debbie up when she finished her day at school. We drove home and started over again, as if we had just been born, and the world existed around us, bright and new, waiting for our discovery.

            Business takes less of my time now. Ron and Howard manage most of it. Debbie and Travis and I have everything we need.

            Travis and Debbie mature into a strange, unreliable world. They rely on me. They trust me. They love me. Every new day, I start from where I am, and I walk forward. I can fulfill Travis’s and Debbie’s trust. I can deserve their love.

            Together, we walk forward. My future offers easing of the agony realization has brought me. My future offers forgiveness for the mistakes I’ve made, for the misdirections I’ve walked, for the blood on my hands.