

### Before the Mellowing Year

### Book Two, Part II

by

Jeffrey Anderson

Copyright 2018 by Jeffrey Anderson

Smashwords Edition

This story is a work of fiction.

Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Though this e-book is being distributed for free, it remains the copyrighted property of the author and may not be reprinted or reproduced without the permission of the author. If you like this book, please encourage your friends to download a copy at Smashwords.

Begin then, Sisters of the sacred well,

That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring,

Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string.

"Lycidas", vv. 15 – 17

John Milton

Before the Mellowing Year

Book Two, Part II

Williamsburg

Barton guided his Mercedes into the nearly empty gravel parking lot of the Jamestown Settlement under pewter gray skies. They walked briskly across the lot to the warmth of the Visitor Center, paid their admission to a matronly woman in a bonnet and colonial-period dress, and were directed to the small theater where a twenty-minute film on the history of Jamestown would begin in a few minutes. They entered the empty theater and Barton led the way to seats in the exact center. He took off his navy pea coat and laid it on the next seat over. He sat down and opened his shoulder bag and took out a small battery-powered cassette recorder.

"You don't mind if I record the film and some of our conversations, do you?"

Zach laughed. "Just so long as you don't catch the groans of the guy in the raincoat in the back row."

Barton actually turned to look behind him. Seeing no one there, he turned back to Zach. "Don't get any ideas."

"I left my raincoat at home." He held out his fur-necked bomber jacket as proof.

"Knowing you, probably at the dry cleaners."

"No comment," Zach said as he sat down.

Barton shook his head and pushed the record button as the lights were lowered and the film began.

They'd driven up along the interstates yesterday under increasing clouds and cooling temperatures. The four-hour drive had been quiet and uneventful and they checked into the Jackson Motor Lodge in Williamsburg just before dusk. After a brief nap on their separate double beds (Barton was a great believer in afternoon naps), they freshened up then walked through the streets of the modern village (a campus town normally teeming with students but empty this weekend with students still on holiday leave) and into the restored colonial village. It too was largely deserted, with only the occasional family or couple encountered along the cobblestone walks lit by gas lanterns. They found their way to Christiana Campbell's Tavern situated on the main street of the village and were seated promptly for dinner. They ate a good meal of fried chicken, spoonbread, and green beans simmered with fatback, topped off with pecan pie and coffee. The late night walk back to the motel through streets that were now totally empty was welcome exercise after the carbohydrate laden meal. They took turns in the bathroom (Barton first), stripping to their underwear (Barton in his BVD briefs and white V-necked undershirt, Zach in his boxers and long-sleeved red T-shirt) and readying for bed. Zach slid between the sheets and turned off the light just after eleven o'clock.

If Zach had worried about travelling with Barton (and why wouldn't he?—he'd never travelled with anyone except Allison and, long ago, his family), those concerns were quickly dispelled with Barton's easy and unpresumptuous manner on the road. Yes, Barton had a schedule and an itinerary that he intended to keep; but as long as Zach adhered to that schedule (which wasn't difficult, given the frequent reminders) Zach was otherwise free to do as he pleased. For now, that consisted of tagging along behind Barton; but he could foresee occasion when the two of them might go on separate outings, meeting back at the motel or somewhere in the village. This freedom and self-reliance was a welcome change from needing to always be attentive to Allison when they'd travelled.

Perhaps more importantly, despite their frequent jokes about masturbation and other bodily functions, Barton took great care not to push this teasing too far, not to in any way threaten Zach with unwanted touch or proximity or advances. And from his side, Zach took care not to be overly cautious or sensitive to Barton's every move or comment. Rather quickly, at least in their travel and rooming habits, Zach began to see Barton as a brother, devoid of sexual interest or intimidation. Whether this was in fact true—that Barton had moved past sexual attraction to Zach—was a secret he kept closely guarded. And, of course, Zach didn't ask.

When the rather tepid film (even by the low standards of tourist documentaries) ended and the lights came up in the room still empty save the two of them, Barton clicked the tape recorder off but kept it by his side for the walk back into the lobby and gift shop. There he engaged—and recorded, with her permission—the woman who had taken their admission in a conversation about an earlier layout of the excavations and settlement. In particular, he wanted to verify the former location of the large Pocahontas statue now placed near the Visitor Center. She confirmed his memory that it had been mounted on a granite pedestal near the old church and moved sometime after the anniversary celebrations in 1957.

With this critical piece of information secured, Barton then deftly interrogated the woman about her own past and family history, discovering that she was raised in the same area of eastern North Carolina where he was born, still had relatives the next town over from his home town of Surry. Zach stood off to one side, nonchalantly leafing through postcards and glossy coffee-table books as he listened closely to the woman's ready surrender of her life story to Barton's quiet inquiry, including an allusion to her "former life" before some tragedy sent her packing to Virginia. Barton thanked her for all her help and wished her well, claimed he'd check on her cousins next time he was in Surry. Zach joined him as he walked out the door and headed toward the recreated Indian village.

"How do you do that?" Zach asked in amazement.

"Do what?"

"Get complete strangers to tell you things about themselves they wouldn't tell their pastor or best friend."

Barton grinned. "I grew up in the South, boy. How do you think we get all those stories to tell?"

"I don't know. That's why I'm asking."

"We just ask, but in the right way. It also helps to be a stranger—no danger of the stories coming back to haunt you."

"Until Barton Cosgrove puts you in his next novel."

"The names are changed, to protect the innocent."

The lone guide at the Indian village was a black girl whose light-toned skin closely matched the color of her buckskin leggings and tunic. She sat cross-legged on a reed mat on a raised platform inside the village's centerpiece—a curved roof longhouse of the sort that Zach had seen in comparable recreated native villages in New England. The young woman—barely more than a girl, maybe a student earning spending money during her break—greeted them shyly soon after they'd entered the dim and smoky space (there was a small wood fire burning in the midst of a circle of stones, beneath a hole in the roof meant to draw off the smoke but not working well on the low and damp day). They did a slow circuit of the large room, studying the various exhibits of native tools and weapons and cooking implements.

When Zach ended up near the guide, he asked, "How many people would've lived in this longhouse?"

"Probably twenty to twenty-five, most likely all members of a single extended family—three or even four generations, numerous married couples, many children."

"Sounds like a recipe for disaster—the mother-in-law not only in the same house but in the same room!"

The girl laughed. "We assume they had a different social order."

Zach laughed. "That, or a big stick."

"Maybe both," the girl said, looking away when Zach briefly caught her eye.

Barton came up and asked about the Indian uprisings—there were two major incidents, according to their guide, in 1622 and 1644—and how many native Americans currently lived in the Jamestown area. The girl answered his questions in great detail. Zach listened politely for a few minutes then sauntered back outside.

Barton caught up at the crude granary—an open-sided structure with a woven-reed roof and sheaves of corn hanging like ghosts twisting in the damp breeze from a rough beam across the middle. The short ears dangling from their husks were of the multi-colored variety, what Zach's family had always called "Indian corn" though its hybrid origins were twentieth century, long after the eradication of these sorts of villages and their inhabitants turning cloddy soil with stone tools.

Barton said, "You might learn more if your curiosity extended beyond females between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four." He didn't look up.

Zach laughed. "That might take some radical reprogramming."

"Mandarin Chinese is a difficult language," Barton said. "People learn it every day." He looked to Zach with a neutral stare.

"They read from right to left, don't they?"

Barton just shook his head, turned and headed for some mounds of dirt along the river, the excavations at what was thought to be the original fort.

2

The next morning dawned clear but cool. After a brisk loop through the colonial village, including a brief stint with Zach in the stocks at the village green—"For the crime of whistling on the Sabbath" Barton announced as he took a photo, using one of the offenses listed on the informational plaque, then whispered as Zach lifted his big form out of the well-worn sockets, "Really, it's for jerking off too often" and Zach had answered, "Then you'd have been permanently restrained" and Barton had replied "Only if they caught me"—and a speedy round of packing in the motel room (neither had brought much or distributed what few things they'd brought far), they walked to the Sunday Brunch at a nearby restaurant called The Cascades. They ate their fill of eggs (Barton had Eggs Benedict, Zach scrambled) and pancakes and pastries and ham and bacon and sausage (this single meal was intended, by Barton's planning, to tide them all the way back to Shefford) then hit the road around noon.

They'd decided (Barton decided, Zach offered token agreement) to take the rural back roads home, through the low-country farms and fields and pine woods of Tidewater Virginia and eastern North Carolina. The first leg of this trip included a ferry ride across the broad James River from a spot near the Jamestown Settlement to the Scotland slip on the far side. Barton parked the car in the line waiting for the small ferry bearing down on them to dock and unload its cargo. They climbed out of the car and walked the short distance to a pier where a replica of the Susan Constant, one of the three original Jamestown ships, was docked and open for touring.

They walked together across the small open deck, the boat rocking gently from side to side in the shallow swells sent forth by the approaching ferry. Even safely tied off to this pier on this clear and placid day, the ship seemed vulnerable and frail. It was impossible to imagine it packed with four dozen ill-prepared passengers and their inadequate stores making their way across the dark and often stormy Atlantic.

"How desperate would you have to be?" Zach wondered aloud.

"People risk their lives to save them every day."

"Crossing the Atlantic in this?"

Barton shrugged. "Worse fates."

"Shoe-horned in with a bunkmate that hadn't bathed for a month?"

"Now that might be a bit much," Barton laughed.

"I'll take the soft leather seats of the Mercedes, thank you."

"And its munificent and unfailing captain."

"Let's not get carried away," Zach intoned though they both knew he'd thrown his lot in with that captain long before, counting on that munificence and reliability—which, so far at least, had proven to be good bets.

They returned to the car and boarded at their turn, never left the safe confines of their gold metal ship riding the waves atop the rusty metal ferry beneath them, all the way to the other side.

The drive through the flat fields and intermittent single flashing light small towns held Zach's attention for the first half hour. They shared the occasional laugh—at Hitler's Used Cars with its three forlorn vehicles on a sandy lot in the middle of nowhere, at The Realistic Beauty Salon ("Who wants realism at a beauty salon?" Barton asked rhetorically)—and Barton occasionally volunteered nostalgic recall of some incident or person associated with this highway or that town.

But after a while Zach slipped into a lazy and relaxed half-daze, his eyes sometimes open on the fallow fields and muddy tracks, sometimes lightly closed with the bright sun pushing pink through the skin of his lids. Such a trusting stupor was rare for Zach on the road. He was always either driving and alert to all its known and hidden demands, or closely observant as a front seat passenger—watching for upcoming turns or obstacles or threats. But today he gave all those anxieties over to Barton, trusted his driving ability and his planning and his obvious familiarity with the roads and the region.

And, beyond the moment and their immediate surroundings (however deeply they resonated through Barton's past and spirit), maybe at just this moment Zach began to trust not only the man driving but also his vision of life, his purpose and placement in the world—in 1980 in North Carolina (they'd crossed the state line twenty miles back), and across the globe in all history. Barton honored that history, that world, by first fully engaging it wherever he found himself, whatever the circumstances, then striving to contribute to it, whether through his attentiveness and openness in the moment or through the subliminal processing of those moments to be shared in verbal or written story-telling at some later date. To Zach's early (and mainly subliminal) assessment, this seemed not only an interesting and bottomless endeavor but also a noble pursuit, a calling every bit as adventurous and challenging (and hopefully less foolhardy) as that driving those souls pointed toward a new destiny on the far side of the vast sea as they boarded the Susan Constant in England over three and a half centuries before. Not that Zach thought all or any of this in so many words. His thoughts, if he had any—really, no words, just feelings—were that he was content and at peace. After a further while, that peace, that lazy torpor, spawned the image of a certain blonde girl, recalled the feel of her pliant skin laid full-length along his complementary body. And at that moment, Zach didn't see her as a separate calling, knew it as all one and the same.

"Surry, the birthplace of Barton Cosgrove," Barton announced in loud voice.

Zach shook himself awake and sat upright in his seat. He looked to both sides of the road for the sign Barton was reading then realized it was hypothetical, not real. "Some vandals burn down your sign?"

"The town elders are still debating its placement."

"Not by the landfill, I trust."

Barton laughed. "There actually was some talk of a sign, after the first novel got so much attention. Mother gently discouraged the idea, though I think she'd hoped they'd not listen to her. Then some of my later work was viewed as 'too dark' and the idea got shelved."

"Are you sorry?"

He gave a sly grin. "I wouldn't have told them no."

He guided the car down the empty Main Street and across the railroad tracks, pointed out the former one-room depot, now defunct, that had been the site of many dramatic events in his boyhood. He pointed out the Methodist church then, a block farther on, the Baptist church that had been the polar anchors of a furious tug of war between his parents (his father was Baptist, his mother Methodist) to the point where he spent little time in either building. A few more turns down narrow side streets brought them to a one-story white clapboard house with a rusting tin roof and a shallow porch across the length of its front. The paint had flaked down to bare wood in spots and the yard was spotted with dirt and shivering brown weeds.

Barton stopped the car in the road directly in front of the house. "I was born in the room behind that window." He pointed past Zach to the window at the left-hand end of the house, blanked white by a lowered roll-up shade.

"Does it feel like home?"

"Yes, and no. We spent only a few years here, before moving on. We came back over the years, but always as expatriates. If it's home, it's more in my blood than in my heart."

"Who owns it now?"

"A distant cousin."

"Could use a little work."

"Between tenants, I guess."

He cranked the car and drove on. Three turns and two minutes later, they were again passing through flat fallow fields. Five minutes later they merged onto the interstate that would take them the rest of the way to Shefford.

Just outside of town, speeding along at sixty-five miles an hour with no other cars near and the sun setting huge and orange straight ahead, Barton asked, "So how'd you like being my research assistant?"

"Are you kidding? All expenses paid travel and food—I loved it."

Barton nodded. "Me too."

"I didn't snore too much?"

"No, but might need to bring some air freshener for the bathroom next time."

Zach laughed. "Only if you bring some of the same."

"We'll share," Barton said. "In Rome."

Zach looked at him with a tilt of his head. "Rome?"

"A whole section of the novel takes place there. The sights are crystal clear in my memory, but I haven't visited for twenty years. Figured I'd go check it out over spring break. I'd like to have you come with me."

"I don't know what to say."

"Say yes, or no."

"Yes. Yes. Yes. Be crazy not to."

"My favorite city in the whole world. You'll love it."

Zach nodded in silence, still stunned by the invitation, already starting to wonder what it meant for his life.

North Carolina

Classes started the next day. Unlike last semester, when he took five classes, this semester Zach was taking the normal increment of four, three in his English major (including two taught by Barton) and one in German literature (in English translation). He was excited to return to class, looked forward to the give and take of discussions and the externally imposed discipline of assigned reading and papers. But at the same time he felt the swell of nostalgia for the long break just ended, for all the wonderful moments shared and discoveries made in that period that seemed already cut out of time, set off in a special place by itself, to be visited like a holy sanctuary in times of need or longing.

But onward now into the future—no other choice.

Part of that future included Zach's twenty-third birthday in the middle of that first week. To celebrate the occasion, he was treated to dinner on three successive nights. Allison took him out first, as he picked her up and drove them to the Cornwallis Tavern in Axton for a southern meal served family-style, then to Milt's for drinks and conversation till 1 AM. Becca took him out the next night, his actual birthday, and drove them to a large and very fancy restaurant outside of town called The Barn for a gluttonous meal of prime beef and abundant trimmings. Finally, Barton took him to a new Chinese restaurant called Hung Dynasty (Barton called it "Well-hung Dynasty") for a comparatively light meal of moo goo gai pan and an eggroll, followed by a trip to the cinema to see the recently released Luna.

After this full (and filling) social calendar, Zach rested—for a few hours: long enough to realize that he was gorging on more than just diverse cuisines. He was in love with three people. As important, they were apparently all in love with him. He couldn't have been happier.

2

Entering Barton's Milton class was like stepping into a drama in progress, except that the drama, the action, wasn't between teacher and students or students to students but between John Milton himself and this current batch of readers that included Barton Cosgrove. To Barton, Milton was alive in his words and works and the cavernous spaces that lay around those fixed entities. And, by Barton's reasoning, if a genius of Milton's caliber stood in your midst, it was not only your opportunity but your obligation to approach and engage, even challenge and debate with him. It was certainly not sufficient according to Barton's expectations (and grading protocols) to stand in the presence of such a genius and cower in the corner or sit off to one side and quietly observe. You had to get inside the works and wrestle with the author—thus the drama. This monumental tussle was both individual (the reading at home) and corporate (the discussions in class) with Barton as leader, to get the discussions started, and equal participant, wrestling with the living Milton for the thousandth time as if it were his first. In perpetrating and perpetuating this drama, Barton wasn't so much teaching literature as enacting survival—how to live in the presence of this brilliance and unpack, handle, and use this potent living legacy. That he would try such an approach with this diverse mix of forty or so participants was an act of audacity or faith (maybe both, and reflective of their subject of study and engagement). Whether it would work this time, with this group, remained to be seen.

Barton's technique in leading his writing seminar (fifteen students around a long oak table) was very different. Here he was not so much focused on the big picture—the majesty and splendor of literary art—as he was on the nuts and bolts techniques of possibly getting to that end, on the building blocks of good prose. To say that the class was a paint-by-numbers foray into the creation of narrative fiction would strike at the essence of his method but would be an unfair oversimplification. He was more a Home Ec teacher leading and participating in an advanced course on clothing design and creation—this stitch might work best for that seam, this choice of material will produce that feel, this weave of fabric will hold up better at that stress point—where the word to word, phrase to phrase, sentence to sentence connections and interplay not only mattered in themselves but cumulatively determined the overall end result, the success or failure of the story. He was teaching a craft, with emphasis on technique, silently acknowledging from the start that the intangible essence of art was not something that could be taught or learned. However, such a matter-of-fact approach did not preclude his frequent awed (and awesome, in that ponderous bass voice) classroom readings excerpted from the works of masters—Chekov, Porter, his friend Eudora Welty, his former student Anne Tyler—reminders that we, our small band of explorers, were in the midst of a sacred endeavor of far-reaching, if unknown, consequence.

For Zach participating in these two classes, the transition from private friendship and intimacy to public teacher-student hierarchy and protocol was almost seamless. He flinched at the first "Mr. Sandstrom" spoken under Barton's imperious gaze from behind the desk at the front of the lecture room, and he stumbled and got flustered at the initial "Mr. Cosgrove" salutation and muffed his fairly insightful (he thought) first contribution to class discussion. But he quickly adapted to Barton's formal demeanor in class, and ditched the awkward "Mr. Cosgrove" and "Dr. Cosgrove" in favor of the more natural "Professor Cosgrove" in his public exchanges. And at no point did either of them let their private acquaintance and extensive personal knowledge and confidence leak into this public domain. To be sure, Zach was an active participant in both classes but no more than in any of his other classes, maybe even a tad less as he consciously avoided (with Barton's discreet oversight) dominating the discussions, even if it seemed many of his classmates would've been happy to let him do so.

3

Zach spotted Becca soon as she got off the bus at the turn circle on Center Quad, across more than a hundred yards of stone sidewalks jammed with students scurrying between classes, and stately willow oaks extending their massive canopies of bare winter branches as if in praise or supplication to the gray winter sky. Becca's golden hair and perfect fair skin was like a homing beacon to Zach's eyes—if she were anywhere in sight, regardless the distance or visual distraction, his eyes would find her and, from that moment until she left his sight, see only her. This "Becca-blindness," as he'd come to refer to this habit (though only to himself and Becca), was becoming a bit of an embarrassment for Zach, as friends and faculty members were ever more frequently admonishing him for failing to return their greetings or waves at passing encounters in public. So be it, he thought; so be it.

He stepped to one side and waited for her to make her way through the scrambling herd, so that they might walk to their German Lit class together. She spotted him waiting when she was about twenty yards away, while passing in front of the Library's busy entryway. Unlike Zach, in a crowd she saw everyone who was around her, all the time, and made a point of silently greeting anyone who made eye contact (which was pretty much everyone, she was that magnetic) with a nod or smile or wave. This habit—half natural, half learned—would get her in trouble in any large northern city, but it worked wonders on the relatively safe crowds of a southern town or campus.

She smiled fully on seeing him, but then he noticed the briefest whisper of worry wash over those perfect features. No one else would've noticed the momentary change of expression, and Zach wondered if he had imagined it.

The shoulder to shoulder crowd carried her toward him till she finally stepped out of line and stood beside him in the alcove in front of the Romance Languages building. Their coat sleeves touched, not their skin. But their eyes touched across the gap of some inches or feet; their eyes always touched when they were close together. They used this form of contact in lieu of more overt, some might say distasteful, displays of physical touch in public.

"Good morning, dearest," Zach said, leaning close to her ear.

"Hi, Zach. Thanks for waiting for me." She grimaced slightly and hiked her blue book bag higher on the shoulder of her canvas field coat.

"Let me take that." He never carried a book bag or briefcase, only a single spiral notebook (for all classes) and whatever texts were needed for that day—in this case, a trade paperback of Kafka's short stories in English translation. He extended his free hand.

Becca slid the bag off her shoulder and handed it to him.

"You O.K.?" he asked.

She shrugged. "A little bit tired, I guess. A little bit frazzled."

There was a granite bench behind them, backed by a holly hedge with waxy green leaves and bright red berries. Zach took her cold hand and gestured toward the bench. "We've got a few minutes before class."

She nodded blankly and followed his lead to a seat on the bench. The granite was cold; she shivered the length of her body.

"Frazzled how?"

She took her hand from his, paired it up with her other hand, and put both hands between her knees for warmth. She leaned forward toward her knees and closed her eyes, as if preparing to pray, or to vomit, or to roll herself into a ball and launch that ball away from here. The skin of her face was so pale and taut that vomit seemed the most likely of these three scenarios. Then she took a deep breath, sat straight up, and turned to Zach. Her gaze was steady, calm, and extremely vulnerable—not frightened, not wounded, not angry, just open-hearted vulnerability. "Zach, my period is late. I'm never late."

Shocked as he was, Zach's eyes never left Becca's, never flinched. "I thought you were on the Pill."

Becca laughed—not ironically or bitterly but light-heartedly, as if hearing some amusing tidbit from the morning news. "Dear Abby says 'Never assume. Ask.'"

Zach said, "Sorry. I didn't read that column." In fact he and Becca had never once mentioned, let alone discussed, birth control despite their frequent sexual sharings these last six weeks.

"I'm not blaming you, Zach. I'm just telling you. I had to tell someone." She broke from his gaze and stared down at her clogs on the gray stone patio.

Zach's eyes never left her face. In profile with her gazing down, he again (the millionth time) thought her the most beautiful person, thing, object he had ever seen. There was absolutely nothing he would not do for her. He took a chance, reached out and put his fingers under her chin and turned her face to him. "It'll be all right. Whatever happens, we'll make it be all right."

Becca shook her head and looked again at the ground. "I don't want to have an abortion. I don't think I could do that."

Zach dropped his hand. "No abortion. If you're pregnant, we'll have the baby."

Becca faced him suddenly, her eyes flared wide and angry. "Zach, are you crazy? You're still married. We're both still in school. My parents are already helping raise one surprise grandchild. I can't do that to them, or to you, or to me. I can't; I won't." Her anger had faded during the outburst, and her eyes were vulnerable again. She turned away.

For the first time since sitting, Zach looked away from Becca. People were still hurrying past on the sidewalk five feet away, but far fewer than before. He looked at his watch. Class had just begun. He was never late for class. He sighed inwardly at the realization, the loss, but also knew he'd wait with Becca here, long as it took.

She stood suddenly and looked down at him. "Let's go. We're late for class."

He noted the fresh color in her cheeks, the fire in her eyes, just before she turned and rushed off toward the doors to Romance Languages, leaving him to follow, carrying her book bag, in her wake.

Exactly two days later, Zach was already seated in the back row of their German Lit class (well in advance of the start) when Becca came in just as their professor was sitting down to begin. She slid into the seat beside him then leaned over and whispered in his ear, "My monthly friend just arrived." The smile she steered his way was both forgiveness and promise.

4

Allison stopped the car in front of his apartment and honked the horn. Though the Honda's horn sounded like one of those squeeze-bulb horns they mounted on their bicycle handlebars as kids, it had the desired effect and brought Zach to the breezeway railing. He looked down on her sitting in the driver's seat with no instructor present and clapped three times. She leaned out the open window into the cool night and did an awkward sideways bow then shouted, "Come on down. I'll give you a ride." He grabbed his coat and keys and headed down. He spied several of his neighbors peeking out around drawn curtains and waved to them as he passed. Last summer Tess would've been one of those neighbors peeking (and would've gladly joined them for a ride); but she'd moved out in the fall after her divorce from Chad and a young black couple that argued all the time, the words sometimes accompanied with the sound of broken glass and more ominous thumps against the walls, had moved in before Thanksgiving, their intermittent epic battles often waking him in the middle of the night.

Zach folded his long limbs tight to his torso and squeezed into the passenger seat. Allison proudly displayed her license in the car's pale dome light. Her wan face in the left-hand corner looked like that of a stunned pet, but the official signature and North Carolina state seal at the edges of the photo verified the card's authenticity: Allison was now a legally licensed driver.

"Looks real to me," Zach said then nodded proudly. "Congratulations. You earned it."

"I'll say," she agreed as she slid the license into her wallet.

A car pulled up behind them and honked its horn, which was much louder than a bicycle horn. Allison grew flustered and stalled the car as she shifted it into drive. She tried to start it but the engine made no response (because the car was still in gear). The car behind them honked again. "What should I do, Zach?" she shouted.

Zach rolled down his window and waved for the car to pass. A gigantic black Olds looking bigger than a Sherman tank (compared to the Honda, it was) roared past, the unshaven factory worker glaring at them from behind bloodshot eyes.

"Maybe we shouldn't go for a ride," Allison said dejectedly.

Zach covered her trembling hand on the shift knob with his and used their two hands to slide the knob into park. He then guided her hand to the ignition and turned the key. The engine jumped to its low-purring life. "Don't worry about them, Allison. Just take care of yourself."

She looked at him doubtfully.

"Now how about that ride?"

She managed a thin smile. "Your life insurance paid up?"

"To the penny." (They both knew he had none.)

"Am I the beneficiary?"

"Next of kin!"

"O.K. then." She put the car in drive and raced ahead—at five miles per hour.

After a very slow loop around the apartment complex, with Allison leaning forward over the wheel and peering intently into the grainy dark, she parked next to his building—around back, in a space with empty spots on either side, and well short of the curb—and they walked together up to the apartment.

Their date had been planned since last week, when Zach had invited her to dinner at the end of her birthday treat to him. But when she'd called earlier in the evening and said he didn't have to pick her up, the casual meal gained the sheen, the fuzzy warm glow, of a quiet celebration. Zach had prepared a couple of old Boston standbys—the one-dish meal of chicken cacciatore simmered with rice for the entrée and cottage pudding (not a pudding at all but a dry yellow sheet cake with your choice of warm chocolate or clear vanilla sauce toppings) for dessert—and they sat down to eat at the tall butcher-block bar table they'd bought in Boston.

Though their shared history permeated virtually everything around and before them—not only the food and the table, but the plates and stainless and pictures on the wall and cassette player on the counter (though the Bach concertos playing quietly in the background were new, Barton's Christmas gift to Zach)—they each saw in the other's gaze someone almost totally new. They now had full lives and experiences outside their long relationship. More importantly, they each were imbued with fresh mystery and its allure—Allison with her oblique references to new "friends" and Zach with Becca, the looming "other woman": never denied but never overtly mentioned. And this mystery infused their new relationship with life, as they walked the tightrope between curiosity and jealousy, trust and betrayal, and felt the thrill of risk.

Since the apartment was devoid of any form of communal entertainment—no TV or stereo, let alone one of those new video cassette recorders that Barton had just bought, and not even the cats (now permanently at Allison's) to entertain them—Zach had proposed the evening as a home-cooked meal followed by a trip out to a movie. So as they were scraping their plates clean of the simple but scrumptious dessert, he asked, "What do you want to see?"

She said, "I've been dying to see The Rose. Everybody says it's a stunning performance by Bette Midler." Bette Midler was one of her favorite performers, a version of her ideal of an independent, smart, and savvy woman (not to mention a great singer, comedian, and now, apparently, screen star).

Zach nodded. "She's amazing."

Allison frowned. "You've seen it?"

"When it first came out."

She hesitated just a second then asked, "Want to see it again?"

"Love to."

He checked the movie page of the paper. If they hurried, they could still catch the early show. They set their plates in the sink and headed for the door, with Zach offering to drive and Allison gladly accepting.

The film was of course the same—fine writing, nearly flawless acting and directing—though Zach did note some nuances and one significant plot twist he'd missed the first time. But Zach and everything else about this moment was hugely different from his first viewing. The self-destructive implosion enacted on the screen did not resonate to his core this time but seemed like what it actually was—a sad tale about someone else's life. And the girl sitting next to him in the nearly empty theater did not hold the key to a better future but rather the essence of his past, both lofty and low times. He was in control of this moment and his life, not adrift on the whim of fate and at the mercy of the actions and feelings of a beautiful and graceful angel he barely knew but to whom he had surrendered his heart. He knew his place and purpose in the world now, and was working feverishly to secure those gains. Part of that future included this emerging woman seated beside him, required getting to know her again and caring for her as best for her. He laid his hand over hers on the common armrest.

Allison was troubled by the movie, but more because she didn't grasp the inner demons haunting the main character and therefore couldn't understand the grim outcome. "How come she didn't just walk away?" she asked Zach as he drove to the apartment through empty residential streets.

"It's a powerful addiction."

"Alcoholism?"

"Self-loathing."

She was silent a minute then said, "I've had some tough days and more than a few awful nights; but the next morning I get out of bed and get on with life—don't know any other way."

"You're lucky. It doesn't come that easy for everyone."

"Nothing easy about it."

It was still fairly early (not yet ten o'clock) and besides Allison had left her wallet and keys on the kitchen counter, so he led her back upstairs and brewed two cups of herbal tea that they drank while seated in the living room in their normal arrangement—she on the couch, he in the matching chair.

"Do you ever wish you could do it over?" she asked.

"What?"

"I don't know—high school, marriage, jobs, where we lived, any of it, all of it."

"I guess I don't think that's possible, or refuse to grant that possibility."

"You think it's all predestined?"

"I guess—not every choice but all the big outcomes."

"But if you change one little thing, it changes everything."

"Does it?"

"Sure. If Jane hadn't been pretending to be having a secret affair with you, I would've never been brave enough to talk to you and we would've never gone out and you wouldn't be here at Avery, or at least not with me."

Zach smiled. "I would've found you anyway."

"A punk freshman? No way."

"The only match for me in the whole school." He knew the words were true, however unexpected—one of those truths he'd stumbled on since their separation.

She blushed. "The girls were lined up for you."

"But I only picked one."

"You said it was destiny did the choosing."

He smiled—the professor had caught him in an inconsistency. "In collaboration with my heart."

She shrugged. "I think it could've all been different," she said then added quickly, "But I don't ever wish it was."

"Ever?"

"Well, maybe one or two nights I would just as soon have skipped; but I've chosen to forget those."

"Have to let that hurt go."

"I know that now."

They finished their tea in silence—not the taut silence of estrangement or betrayal but the relaxed quiet of a common history and a shared present, brought to this moment not by obligation but by choice.

Allison set her empty cup on the coffee table and checked her watch. It was getting late and a weeknight—work tomorrow for her, classes for Zach. "I don't want to go home," she groaned.

"You don't have to," he said in the tone of a simple suggestion that was anything but simple.

She met his eyes for the briefest of instants before saying, "O.K." She collected her cup and saucer and carried them into the kitchen. On her way to the bedroom, she poked her head around the corner and whispered, "Zach?"

He looked over his shoulder, his empty cup still clutched in his hand.

"Just this once," she said.

He nodded. "I know."

She was lying on her back with her head on the pillow and the covers pulled tight to her chin when he entered the bedroom. The desk light was on and her eyes were wide open, a broad smile on her lips. Her clothes were draped carefully across the back of the chair.

"You found pajamas?"

She laughed. "Sort of." She pulled the covers back far enough for him to see the lime-green tank top and teal-blue summer shorts that served as pajamas for this night. "My summer clothes in the back of the closet."

"Come in handy."

She yanked the covers back to her chin. "Yes, but I'm freezing."

Zach took care of that soon enough, covering her with all his warmth in the new dark though his hands never went below her waist, her shorts and panties and tank top never dislodged. It was enough for them both for him to shower her with kisses all over her face and hair and neck (including the "Eskimo" and "butterfly" varieties resurrected from a long ago past)—honoring her, thanking her, for a lifetime of care and patience: in the past, the future, and most emphatically right now. The few tears she shed, quickly lapped up by him, were of joy mixed with loss.

She rose before dawn to drive back to her apartment and change for work. She paused in the bedroom doorway with him awake but still in bed.

"Thank you," she said out of the gray dimness.

"Thank you."

Then she laughed. "We need to get you a real bed."

"Why? This one works just fine."

"If you say so. See you later."

"I'm counting on it."

She disappeared into the dark. He marked her exit by the sound of her footsteps through the living room, along the breezeway, down the steps, out into the new day.

5

Zach ran into Megan at Dante's Camera and Print while stopping there to pick up the passport photos to clip to his application. Aside from specializing in male bonding, Megan was an avid and quite capable photographer, with some of her moody candids finding their way into campus publications. She was talking to one of the salesmen about a faulty lens when Zach approached the counter.

She looked up when the salesman took the lens into the backroom for their repairman to look at. "Zach!" she said. "Just who I wanted to see." She sidled up very close to him, the sleeve of her white nylon coat brushing against his bomber jacket.

Her delicate but enticing scent—was it her shampoo? perfume? after shower splash? the "after shower" image was especially riveting—seemed to encase him. He'd not expected this treat when he'd stopped here on his way to the grocery. "And why did you want to see me?" he asked.

She donned a little pout and leaned her leg against his. "Do I need a reason? Maybe I was just thinking about you." She looked up at him and her pout was replaced by a sly grin. "Thinking about those powerful arms and strong hands." Her finger lightly traced its way over the back of one of those hands splayed out on the glass countertop.

"I'm sure my arms and hands are always uppermost in your mind." He didn't move his hand from the counter.

"How do you know what's uppermost in my mind?" she asked, her grin replaced now by a frank and challenging stare.

The salesman returned from the backroom. "I think we got it fixed," he said as he walked up. "He used compressed air to blow some grit out of the focusing gear. Can't go taking your camera on the beach blanket with you," he joked.

Megan didn't laugh. She took the lens and checked it over. She shrugged and slid it into its protective case and dropped the case into her woven wool shoulder bag.

"Let us know if you have any more problems," he said then turned to Zach.

Zach handed him his claim check.

"Be right back," he said and disappeared.

Megan was still smiling beside him though she'd put a few inches between her body and his. "A bunch of us are going to New Orleans for Mardi Gras over spring break. I'd really really like for you to join us."

Zach smiled back at her. She was unrelenting, and he loved it. "I'd really really like to go," he said. Part of him genuinely meant the words. "But I'm going to Rome for spring break. These photos are for my passport."

"Rome? As in Georgia?"

Zach laughed. You had to love Megan. "As in Italy."

"Then I guess I might as well not try to change your mind."

Zach shrugged. "You could try."

She looked at him with a glimmer of hope.

He smiled and backed off his teasing dare. "Thanks for thinking of me, Megan. I've always wanted to attend Mardi Gras, but not this year."

The salesman returned with the envelope containing his photos. He checked them out and nodded thanks. (He'd paid for them when the pictures were taken earlier in the week.)

Megan was waiting by the door. "You don't have to go to Mardi Gras to come see me," she said as he opened the door for her. She slid past then paused with her supple body pressing lightly against his.

He could've sworn he felt her skin through all those layers of winter clothes. He sighed. "Thanks for the open invitation. I'll let you know if I'm free."

She rolled her head back against his shoulder and looked up at him. "They'd have loved you at Mardi Gras." She turned and headed down the sidewalk without a glance back.

He let the door—a large plate glass door with the store's hours of business stamped on the inside in bold white letters and numbers—fall shut behind him.

6

Becca knocked on the door to Zach's apartment at 7:30 on Friday evening. Zach opened the door after a pause with the collar to his white dress shirt still open and his rust-colored silk tie looped around his neck but still unknotted. He grinned at Becca and shook his head. "Why'd I give you a key if you'll never use it?"

"This is your place, Zach. I can't just come barging in."

"Barge away. I want you to barge." He turned to head back to the bathroom's mirror to finish tying his tie.

"Sometimes I worry that your wife will be here."

Zach froze in mid-stride then turned to face Becca. "Allison doesn't live here anymore. She hasn't lived here for three months."

"But she still comes over."

"If she needs to come here to pick something up or meet with me, she calls first. She won't show up unannounced, and I'll be sure you don't walk in on her."

Becca nodded from the doorway. "I know. Sorry."

Zach stepped forward, put his hands on either side of her lovely face, stared directly into her eyes, and said, "You are welcome in my apartment anytime, under any circumstances. O.K.?"

Becca smiled sheepishly. "O.K."

He leaned forward and kissed her forehead, then turned back toward the bathroom and its mirror. Their reservations were in twenty-five minutes.

Behind him, Becca said, "But I'll still knock." She pushed the front door closed, took off her coat, and sat on his couch.

Zach and Becca loved to get dressed up and go out to nice restaurants. Neither had a lot of money, but what money they did have was spent mainly in nice restaurants. This evening they were trying for the first time a restaurant that had recently opened on the south side of town called Stan's. It had received good reviews in the local paper and from some of Zach's faculty friends (none of their student friends spent the time or money to go to nice restaurants).

Zach returned to the living room with his collar buttoned, his tie neatly knotted, and a gold collar clasp under the knot. He pulled on the coat to his gray suit. Becca stood in her azure and cream print dress with short sleeves and a scoop neck. She had on a simple pearl necklace. She slipped into her calf-length camelhair coat that was open in the front and had no belt.

She looked Zach up and down. "You look stunningly handsome, Mr. Sandstrom."

"Hardly good enough for my beautiful date."

"More than good enough."

"I can only hope."

The restaurant was actually better than expected, and they'd expected a lot. The contemporary décor was simple and elegant, the low-ceilinged room cozy but not claustrophobic, the lighting bright but not glaring. The tables and chairs were painted wood in a modern design, the chairs with comfortable natural linen upholstery, the tables with crisply ironed white linen table cloths. The silverware was all neatly and properly placed, and there was a single red rose in a white china bud vase beside a votive candle in scarlet glass holder. The receptionist was pleasant and professional; the waiters were all middle-aged men who served with a European formality and reserve.

And the food was exceptional—delicately seasoned contemporary American fare with provincial French and Italian touches. Zach had a smoked salmon appetizer with the paper-thin sliced salmon arranged in the middle of the plate and surrounded by small portions of finely chopped red onion, marinated capers, thin sliced hard-boiled quail eggs, dill-seasoned crème fraiche, and toasted baguette rounds. Becca had a duck confit and leek terrine served on a bed of red endive and accompanied by a boule of crusty country wheat bread. For their entrees, Zach had veal piccata that was perfectly cooked and seasoned and served with buttered house-made egg noodles and a simple broccoli and pearl onion stir-fry; and Becca had grilled swordfish with a honey-mustard and soy sauce glaze, saffron rice, and a cauliflower gratinee. For dessert, Zach had crème caramel and Becca had a bittersweet chocolate and hazelnut mousse. Throughout their meal, they shared a bottle of a fine Riesling recommended to them by the wine steward who was also the owner, a short stocky man with curly raven black hair, a burgundy ascot, a difficult to place accent, and a Bohemian flare. Zach was especially impressed to see their wine glasses always full though he never noticed them being refilled.

Becca slid her mousse toward Zach before taking a bite. He used his clean teaspoon to take a generous scoop of the dark pudding with its fluffy cream topping. "Hey," Becca cried, "Leave me some."

Zach made a quick reach for more even as Becca pulled the dish back to her side of the table. The mousse was amazingly smooth and rich and decadent. Zach made a mental note that if he ever really needed to dazzle a girl, to bring her to Stan's and treat her to the bittersweet chocolate and hazelnut mousse. Then he looked to Becca swooning over that dessert and hoped he'd never again have cause to try to impress another girl. "What do you think?" he asked.

"About the mousse? That I've died and gone to Heaven."

"I don't know if they'll let you in Heaven with that whipped cream on your lip."

She flicked the cream away with her tongue.

"No, I mean about the restaurant."

"It's wonderful. Don't you think so?"

"I do. Better than I'd hoped."

"Do you think they'll make it?"

He looked around the small but full dining room and recalled the line of people without reservations waiting in the foyer. "Looks like an auspicious start."

"But it's the long haul you have to wonder about. Kind of an upscale place for a blue-collar town."

"The town's changing, and liquor-by-the-drink will pay for a lot of mistakes and experimentation." The county had recently legalized the sale of beer, wine, and spirits in restaurants, creating a new and sizable source of revenue for restaurants and prompting the opening of a number of upscale restaurant-bars.

Becca finally set her mousse bowl aside after running her spoon around its rim several times. "They'd better stay open. My taste buds will go into mourning if they stop making that mousse."

"Maybe I'll slip Stan a twenty for the recipe."

Becca laughed. "Best investment you'll ever make."

"Good as done."

They lingered for another fifteen minutes over hot tea—Earl Grey for Zach, lemon zinger for Becca—and never felt pushed to leave despite the full restaurant and the line at the door. For Zach and Becca both, this type of evening in this type of setting was as good as their relationship got in public—fine food, attentive service, elegant setting, no rush to be anywhere, free to relax and enjoy each other.

But even they could stretch out such an occasion only so far. Zach called for the check and paid in cash, leaving a generous tip.

Becca tried to hand him enough money to cover her half of the meal, but Zach slid the bills back to her. "Zach!" she protested.

Zach raised his hands. "My scholarship check came yesterday."

"That's for school."

"No, school's paid for. This check was for living expenses."

"But not places like this."

"Hey—that's none of their business. I'm living"—he cast his arm out towards the whole restaurant—"and it's expensive."

Becca shook her head. "My treat next time."

"Deal," he said.

He stood and took Becca's hand to help her up. He was always proud to be seen with her, proud to show her off. They walked the length of the dining room with her hand tucked into his elbow. She brought so much grace and charm to him, he brought so much attention and dignity to her. In the alcove between the crowded bar-foyer and the orderly dining room, Zach gave the coat-check girl his ticket, tipped her when she returned with Becca's coat, then helped Becca put on her coat. Zach's every motion, every solicitous gesture toward Becca, was done with measured care, knowing that almost every eye in the restaurant was watching them, or at least aware of their presence and movements. He reveled in their attention and witness—not of him or of Becca or even of the two of them together, but of their love, as if believing that if enough people saw them at their shining best then it could never be taken away: that that many witnesses couldn't be mistaken; God wouldn't allow it.

They stepped outside into the cold, damp February night. The poorly lit gravel parking lot and the neon-signed gas station and convenience store across the highway made this exterior feel as cheap and tawdry as the interior had felt elegant and dignified. They almost ran across the lot to Becca's car and jumped inside.

Once inside, Becca turned to him. "Where to, navigator?"

"Badencourt's having a floor party. Arnie invited us, if you're up for it." Badencourt was the dorm where most of Zach's intramural basketball team lived. These guys revered Zach both on and off the court, saw him as a sort of transcendent outlander with a sweet jump shot, near unlimited knowledge, and a gorgeous girlfriend who came to all his games and cheered them on.

Becca burst out laughing. "A dorm party? In these clothes? At this hour?"

Her gleeful incredulity was utterly charming. If Zach weren't already completely in love with her, he would be now. Then he thought—what the hell—and let himself fall in love with her all over again. "The night's young, and they'll love the clothes. Trust me, they'll love the clothes."

"Don't you ever sleep?"

"You know the best time for sleep, don't you?"

"Yes, I know," she said, having heard the question from Zach many times before. They said in unison, "Later." She started the car and pointed it toward Badencourt dorm.

The Badencourt commons room was empty and eerily lonely as they crossed through it on their way to the stairs. The table lamps were all lit, the plush chairs and couches and pillows inviting, the oriental rugs warm and soft, the dark paneling rich and elegant, the bookshelves full, their books waiting use. There was even a gas-log fire in the painted brick fireplace. But with no people, the Victorian parlor seemed as cold and dead as a tomb, a sumptuous metaphor of loss. Zach and Becca hurried through without pausing. The fire-code stairwell, with its bare painted block walls, broom-finished concrete steps, and welded steel railings offered its own modernist definition of loneliness, but seemed less threatening than the empty parlor. And they could hear the pulsing beat of rock music and the blurred chatter of voices descending from above—there was promise of company within this modernist catacomb.

Through the fire doors' reinforced-glass windows, Zach could see Arnie seated behind a table to the side of the hall. On the table in front of him were a six-pack of beer, a bottle of Jamaican rum, two unopened wine coolers and a baseball glove. He was surveying the table's contents with a glassy-eyed stare when Zach and Becca opened the doors and walked into the hallway. The blaring music struck them like a gale-force wind.

Arnie glanced up in surprise. "Holy shit! Look who's here." He extended a hand to Zach across the table, then took Becca's hand and kissed it lightly. "What's up with the threads?" he shouted. "You two just get married?"

"That's right, Arnie. We're here for the honeymoon suite."

All three turned and looked down the chaotic hall. Men and women, some in various stages of undress, were running from room to room, some girls riding on the backs of guys, one girl tossed over some guy's shoulder and pounding on his back. People were seated on the hall's vinyl flooring leaning against the wall. A few of these seemed to be passed-out, the others were staring off into space or swaying from side to side with the music, their eyes closed. Some guy with a fireman's hat was running around with a seltzer bottle spraying anyone with a cigarette or candle.

Arnie took a couple of steps toward the fray, cupped his hands around his mouth, and shouted, "Zach and Becca just got married. Prepare the honeymoon suite." It was unclear if anyone heard him over the music; and, if they did, if anyone cared.

"What's all this?" Zach shouted as he gestured toward the eclectic mix on the table.

Arnie waved his hand dismissively. "Oh, that's just bribes. You wouldn't believe the riff-raff that showed up for the party." He paused. "Well, I guess you would—you can see it all down there." He pointed down the hallway. "I wasn't going to let them in, but then they made it worth my while. Doorkeeper's got to make his living somehow."

"I get the booze," Zach shouted. "But what about the glove?"

"This guy I'd never seen before comes by and says he was on the baseball team but flunked off yesterday. I would've let him in without a bribe, but he said he didn't want the glove anymore. So now I got it."

Zach tried on the well-oiled glove. "Too bad for him, but good luck for you."

"Yeah," Arnie shouted. "Nice mitt."

"So do we need to bribe you?"

"Hell no. Dressed like that, we ought to be paying you—raise the whole stature of the party, not to mention its grade-point average."

"That's good, because I don't have any booze to offer."

"Ain't a problem, Zach," he said with a sly smile. "We got plenty of booze up here." He pointed down the hallway. "Kegs first door on the right, wine and cheese for the ladies in C.H.'s room on the left, hard stuff in Bill and Al's suite, and Everclear in the showers. You make it through all the stops to the far end of the hall, we'll give you a prize. Hell, might even part with this cherished glove." He held it up for Zach to admire again.

"Not looking to run the gauntlet, Arnie; not tonight." He looked to Becca who was standing off to one side, watching the revelry with wide-eyed wonder.

Arnie followed his gaze. "Oh, yeah. That's right." Then he shouted out over the crowd again. "Zach and Becca just got married. Prepare the honeymoon suite."

Becca turned and shouted, "Arnie!"

He said, "What?"

"We're not married!"

"You're not?"

"No," she shouted.

Arnie faced down the hall again. "Forget the honeymoon suite. They just got divorced."

So Zach and Becca didn't get the honeymoon suite, but they did find an unoccupied couch off to the side in C.H.'s room. They discovered the couch was unoccupied because it had a broken frame under the cushions that caused the occupants to sink almost all the way to the floor when you sat on it. They considered seeking a better resting place but doubted that they'd find another spot in the crowded party and finally concluded that the couch was actually fairly comfortable, especially if they set their feet on the beat-up coffee table in front of them. Zach sipped on a cup of beer while Becca stayed with the wine she'd started the night with, though the warm Chablis was a poor successor to the excellent Riesling they'd shared at the restaurant. They sat shoulder to shoulder in their fine clothes on the broken couch in relative isolation not trying to talk over the blaring music and amusedly watching the party unfold, as if serving as the lone audience to the experimental drama of debauchery being played out before them. The room was lit with only red bulbs, casting all people and objects in a ghastly glow. On their way into the room, Zach had shouted to C.H. if the red were meant to represent hell or hedonism? C.H. had looked puzzled and shouted back, "What's hedonism?" But before Zach could shout an answer, C.H. had winked and said, "Take your pick." Zach figured hedonism for now, hell later.

The window beside Becca was open on the chill night to let the cigarette smoke out and fresh air in. At some point, Becca began to shiver against Zach; he took her camelhair coat and gently spread it over her from her feet on the table up to her neck. She expressed her thanks in kisses, first to his neck, then his cheek, then his mouth; and in a surreptitious squeeze of his thigh from under the fringe of her coat. Zach brushed her hair lightly with his near hand—she had such beautiful hair.

They returned to watching the red-tinted play enacted before them—sorority sisters whispering together in small cliques, fraternity brothers trying to outdo each other with loud shouts and chest-beating complete with lots of spilled alcoholic beverages, couples making out and groping each other in dark corners, some girl with a big floppy hat dancing her way through the shifting crowd. Zach and Becca were quite content with each other, the long slow arc of their night, and with their unique place in this mayhem—included in the whole but largely free of its demands, privileged to watch and laugh and judge benevolently and be together in their own half-hidden world of love set off to the side of the rest of the world rushing past.

C.H. started it when he brought Becca an unopened bag of nacho chips, set them reverently at her feet under the coat on the table, bowed and said, "Congratulations." Then Bill brought an unopened pint of rum, set it beside the chips, bowed, then turned and left. Then someone in thick glasses neither Zach nor Becca knew brought a pair of clean gym socks and laid them on top of the bag of nacho chips. Then another stranger brought a paperback of Shakespeare's Sonnets. The strangers didn't speak or make eye contact, just left their gifts, bowed and disappeared back into the party. Then some drunk girls, probably egged on by C.H., got into the act by honoring Zach with items of intimate apparel—first a red garter (at least he thought it was red—but then everything was red!) draped over his knee, then some lace panties hung from his dress shoe propped on the table. Then some other girl brought a box of condoms and dropped them in his lap. Not to be outdone, the guys brought Becca some Speedo briefs and a pair of padded handcuffs. Becca's smile never faded, and she acknowledged each gift with a kind nod. (She did blush at the briefs; but in the red light, only Zach could tell.)

The gang finally ended their faux tribute when two of the girls rolled in a cake covered with flashing sparklers on a cart. The blinding flashing sparks mixed with the red lights made the room and its sudden crush of occupants seem to jump around in a ghoulish, surreal dance. When the sparklers finally faded as the last one spit out a few weak sparks, Arnie stepped forward from the back of the crowd and raised his cup full of some clear and no doubt potent liquor and said, "To Zach and Becca and a lifetime of happiness." Everyone else in the room raised whatever drinking utensil they had or could scrounge from the used ones lying everywhere and said, "Here-here." Arnie placed the baseball glove at Zach's feet, then gave him a thumbs up and blew a kiss to Becca, who blew one back. Then the girl that had brought the condoms started shouting, "Kiss-kiss-kiss;" and the other girls joined in. Zach looked at Becca, she shrugged then nodded, and he leaned over and kissed her on the mouth for at least twenty seconds. The girls behind them started cheering wildly. When their lips finally parted, instead of sitting back up, Zach rolled his head down close to Becca's ear and said, "If we stay like this, will they go away?" She said back into his near ear, "If they don't, we will." Her voice was joking, light, happy.

Behind them, as if knowing their feelings, Arnie said, "Break it up. They're on their honeymoon. Give the lovebirds a little privacy."

And the crowd listened, returning to whatever pursuits or adventures had engaged them prior to the tribute.

But Zach didn't lift his face from Becca's ear and soft, enticingly scented hair. He said, "I love you more than anything I have ever known, more than anything I will ever know."

Becca said, "Thank you," paused a second, then added, "But if my mom finds out we got married at a dorm party, she's going to kill me."

Behind them, someone took a bite of the cake and got a mouthful of magnesium chips from the spent sparklers. He cursed and spit out the bite, then took the entire cake, including the plate and serving knife and spent sparklers, and chucked it out the open window. Down on the Quad, someone yelled, "What the hell?" and threw a chunk of the cake back at the window. It fell short of its target, hit the stone façade, and fell into the bushes at the base of the building.

When they finally made it to Zach's bed, the night was far closer to dawn than to dusk. Zach was exhausted but happy, perhaps as happy as he'd ever been. Becca had been a little quiet after the tribute, not that there was much to say with all that noise. But she'd also been quiet during the short ride to his apartment. Zach figured she had to be at least as tired as he, probably more. So he switched off the table lamp that sat on the floor beside his makeshift bed, leaned over and kissed her forehead, each shut eyelid, and then her closed mouth. He laid his head on the soft hollow between her shoulder and her chest. Just before falling asleep, he asked, "Are you happy?"

She answered, "Maybe too happy."

"Didn't know there was such a thing."

"Me either, till tonight."

Zach didn't hear her response; he'd fallen asleep.

Sometime near dawn, he woke from a troubling dream he couldn't recall, turned his head, and saw Becca's eyes wide-open and watching him. "You all right?" he asked.

"I'm O.K." she said, and kissed him on the forehead.

"Anything I can do?"

"You sleep. I'll keep watch for us both."

He had no idea what she meant by that, but was too tired and groggy to question it now. He accepted her offer, curled up full length against her, and fell back to sleep, dreamless this time, leaving her alone to face whatever demons the night had put in her path.

7

"Zach, listen to me!" Becca said in as firm a voice as all that conscious and unconscious training in Southern grace would allow. "I can't handle it." She stood in front of his living room window, her face and upper body backlit by the bright sun of the dry and cold day beyond the glass.

Zach sat in the upholstered chair against the far wall, as far from her as the room would allow. From where he sat her face was a dark mask—her eyes invisible in front of the brilliant day, her perfect features all a shadowed blur, perfect just now only in his memory. Part of him longed to see her eyes, that harbor for him since the start; but most of him was frightened of what he'd find there. In either case he didn't rise to close the distance between them, didn't move to mute the sun hiding her from him.

"I don't exist apart from you," she repeated. "I've got to find myself again."

It was three days after the Badencourt party and the faux tribute the partygoers had laid at their feet. Zach had never felt closer to Becca, never felt more secure in their relationship. Apparently Becca felt differently—or maybe not, maybe she felt exactly the same way, and it scared her. "You can have all the space you need. Just don't discard what we have," he pleaded.

"What we have is exactly what's keeping me from being me."

"That makes no sense. What we have is part of you now. You can't just cut it out and pretend it never happened."

"I'm not pretending it never happened. I just need to focus on me for a little while—me, not us."

Zach still couldn't see her face. It was as if her voice was coming out of a cloud—a very dark cloud. "I think you're wrong, Becca. You're not going to find yourself by running from what we have. People spend whole lives looking for what we've been given. How can you walk away from that?"

"I think that's my whole point, Zach. It's too big and powerful; it's more than I'm ready for."

Zach was empty of words; he felt like he was empty of life.

"I need to figure this out for myself, Zach. Please give me that chance."

Zach watched her unmoving in awful shadow, the voice out of the cloud now silent.

She reached in her coat pocket then leaned forward and put something on the coffee table. She turned and left.

From where he sat, her back—her golden hair, her brown canvas coat, her jeans, the heels of her clogs—was perfectly clear for that instant before the door shut in her wake. In the new stillness, he noticed the key she'd left on the table glinting in the sun.

The next morning—the weather still brilliantly clear and bitterly cold—Zach knocked on her apartment door holding a grapefruit in his hand. His hope was they might split the grapefruit and talk over that simple meal in her space, a space where she might feel more comfortable and open to compromise.

She opened the door, wide awake and frowning.

He said. "Can we talk?"

She shook her head. "I need space. Please let me have it." She shut the door.

He stood in front of her door a moment then turned and walked toward the parking lot. Halfway to his truck, he remembered the grapefruit in his hand. He wondered what he'd do with the other half.

8

While Barton was measuring jiggers of alcohol—bourbon for Zach, Scotch for him—over square ice cubes in silver cups and pouring salted peanuts from the quart jar of Methodist Men's Nuts into a shallow pottery bowl, Zach began reciting John Milton's "Lycidas" while seated alone in the living room. There were multiple reasons, both conscious and unconscious, for this uncommon action. Perhaps most urgent of them, he couldn't stand the silence and emptiness of the room, even for the few minutes Barton was in the kitchen, and chose to fill that emptiness with "the meed of some melodious tear." Further, the recitation was practice, as he was in the process of memorizing the entire one hundred ninety-three lines of the poem for extra credit in Barton's Milton class. As such, reciting this first part in Barton's presence informed his teacher that he was hard at work on the task. But finally and ultimately, he recited the lines because their elegiac beauty—Milton was bewailing the drowning of a classmate, Edward King—gave eloquent and acceptable (the blank howl he felt would not have been acceptable, here or anywhere) voice to the deep pain lodged in his heart. He continued unpausing into the lines he knew (the first quarter of the poem) as Barton set his drink on the coffee table and took a quiet seat on the couch across the room:

Yet once more, O ye Laurels, and once more

Ye Myrtles brown, with Ivy never sere,

I come to pluck your Berries harsh and crude,

And with forc'd fingers rude,

Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.

Bitter constraint and sad occasion dear,

Compels me to disturb your season due:

For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,

Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer:

Who would not sing for Lycidas? He knew

Himself to sing and build the lofty rhyme.

He must not float upon his wat'ry bier

Unwept, and welter to the parching wind,

Without the meed of some melodious tear.

Begin then sisters of the sacred well,

That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring,

Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string.

Hence with denial vain, and coy excuse

So may some gentle Muse

With lucky words favor my destin'd Urn,

And as he passes turn,

And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud.

For we were nurst upon the self-same hill,

Fed the same flock, by fountain, shade, and rill.

Together both, ere the high Lawns appear'd

Under the opening eyelids of the morn,

We drove afield, and both together heard

What time the Gray-fly winds her sultry horn,

Batt'ning our flocks with the fresh dews of night,

Oft till the Star that rose, at Ev'ning bright

Toward Heav'n's descent had slop'd his westering wheel.

Meanwhile the Rural ditties were not mute,

Temper'd to th'Oaten Flute;

Rough Satyrs danc'd, and Fauns with cloven heel

From the glad sound would not be absent long,

And old Damaetas lov'd to hear our song.

But O the heavy change, now thou art gone,

Now thou art gone, and never must return!

Zach knew another dozen lines or so—to the end of the stanza—but decided to stop there, at that pit of grief. Through it all he'd kept his eyes fixed on the Rembrandt etching on the wall above Barton's head—"Christ Healing the Sick," the so-called "Hundred Guilder Print." He kept his eyes locked there in the void of silence at his sudden stop, afraid to meet Barton's eyes.

Barton studied his heart-broken friend and student (mainly friend tonight, despite the school-associated recitation) in the sunset's glow pushing through the windows. Zach had called him the afternoon before to report the rough weather in his romance with Rebecca Coles. The poor boy had tried to be brave and mature but was crying within two minutes. Barton had offered what consolation and reassurance he could over the phone, had advised him to lean all the heavier on his writing and studies during this suffering, and had invited him to dinner—they'd eat in, watch a movie on the Betamax—for that night. Now here, he didn't want to ignore Zach's pain but neither did he see any value, for either of them, in dwelling on it. He decided to follow Zach's lead and instincts into the ample solace and rigor of "Lycidas." He skipped ahead several stanzas from Zach's abrupt pause:

Alas! What boots it with uncessant care

To tend the homely slighted Shepherd's trade,

And strictly meditate the thankless Muse?

This was Milton's open-eyed question to the world and God about the merits of pursuing an arduous long-term goal—in his case, the goal of renown as an epic poet—if such effort could be instantly and randomly cut short by tragedy. Barton would quote this line to himself whenever the vagaries of life or his career undermined his intents and goals as a writer of serious fiction.

Zach picked up the strand of verse at Barton's pause, knew the lines since before this class:

Were it not better done as others use,

To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,

Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair?

Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise

(That last infirmity of Noble mind)

To scorn delight and live laborious days.

Then Barton:

But the fair Guerdon when we hope to find,

And think to burst out into sudden blaze,

Comes the blind Fury with th'abhorred shears,

And slits the thin-spun life.

And Zach:

"But not the praise,"

Phoebus repli'd, and touch'd my trembling ears.

And Barton, jumping ahead to the concluding lines of the stanza—really, the concluding line of the poem (though it would sing on for another one hundred and ten lines) and, getting right down to it, of Milton's entire tumultuous life (though it would sing, and wind, on for another thirty-seven years):

As he pronounces lastly on each deed,

Of so much fame in Heav'n expect thy meed.

And thus they were safely on the far side, for the moment at least, of Zach's heartbreak and Barton's dilemma, brought to that shore not so much by "Lycidas" or Milton (though the sturdy ship of his profuse verse would carry one to many a distant shore, should one secure passage in its wide hold) as by their mutual reckless trust in art to safeguard and solve their lives. Zach made this implicit belief explicit by quoting Emily Dickinson:

Like one in danger, Cautious,

I offered him a Crumb

And he unrolled his feathers

And rowed him softer home—

Than Oars divide the Ocean,

Too silver for a seam—

Or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon

Leap, plashless as they swim.

Barton nodded. "When in doubt—"

"Go to Dickinson?" Zach laughed at the idea of it—calling upon the socially inept, otherworldly spinster as a default repository for life answers.

"—go to the bottomless well of verse."

"And art," Zach agreed.

"And faith."

Faith? This was a new one to Zach, not that he thought himself without faith (he'd grown up steeped in Lutheran Christianity; he'd written the poem to Becca, "Yielding Faith," that found faith in one perfect match for his soul—a recollection that brought with it an involuntary wince of pain) but that he'd never consciously merged it with art. Indeed, Milton (and Leonardo and Michelangelo and Rembrandt and Monteverdi and Bach and Handel and Donne and Blake and Hawthorne and countless other pillars of Western art and thought) found their subjects in religious realms, and viewed their most fundamental questions and assembled their boldest assertions through that lens; but wasn't that simply their language, their medium? Or was faith something more, to the artist and their creations? Were the two ultimately inseparable? And if so, where did that place him—in life and as an artist? And what might that say about his current challenges and upheavals? This new question suddenly seemed the only question—where was faith in all this turmoil? where was God? where was his destiny, his calling? He fixed his eyes on Barton's. "Do you think God sees any of this, or cares?"

Barton's answer was unhesitant. "I think God sees it all and cares in his own manner, according to his own choosing."

"And how's that?"

Barton smiled. "You know what you get when you mate an elephant with a rhinoceros."

"Elephino."

"So it is with God's choosing—we're not meant to know; finally, can't, aren't allowed. What do you think was Eve's mistake in the Garden?"

"Haven't got that far in Paradise Lost."

"In Genesis?"

Zach laughed. "Checked my Bible at the church door."

"Maybe you should get it back," he said with a grave stare.

Zach thought a minute then answered with some embarrassment, "I don't have one."

Barton stood and trotted upstairs to his bedroom, returned twenty seconds later with a small black leather-bound volume. "To Zach," he said and handed over the book. "Love, Barton."

Zach leafed through the book. Its pebbled exterior felt simultaneously new and fresh, and old and weighty against his fingers.

"That's just the New Testament, in the Revised Standard translation—much the best translation in wide circulation."

"Not the King James?"

Barton shook his head. "The King James is beautiful and lyrical but also archaic and inaccurate. This translation is based on the King James and preserves its reverence and formality without the stilted 'thees' and 'thous' that were outdated centuries ago."

"And Genesis, the Fall?"

"By the time you've read that cover to cover, you'll have a copy of the whole Bible."

"Compliments of Barton?"

"Compliments of God."

9

In the absence of Becca, Zach was too proud and rueful to lean on Barton or Allison to fill the time formerly apportioned to Becca. Though either would've made room in their schedules if he'd asked or implied the need, Zach refused to ask. With his teaching, office hours, and departmental duties combined with his steady slog through revisions to his novel, Barton was far busier than he'd been last summer and fall. And Allison had found a trailer in the country to rent with Sue, and was busy planning for that move and maintaining a growing social life with unnamed "others" (that Zach was happy to leave "unnamed" and unseen).

But neither was Zach willing to sit at home where the loneliness and loss of his empty bed and empty rooms pressed down hard upon him. He continued to play basketball with his Badencourt buddies, and would follow those exertions with beer-drinking matches at the Inn—the game called "Quarters" in this Avery incarnation but looking surprisingly similar to the socially tolerated (and maybe encouraged) corporate drunkenness sampled in Boston and Dover.

In addition, Zach finally accepted one of Donna's regular invitations to attend her sorority's social functions. Zach had met Donna and a half-dozen of her sorority sisters last semester through Tammy, one of the other work-study slaves in University Archives. On his occasional interactions with the sorority last fall, his ego enjoyed being stroked by the attentions of so many young women. And he liked Donna, the most attentive of all of them, but in a strictly platonic way—his heart already filled to bursting by others. But he also sensed that Donna might like him in a manner beyond mere platonic friendship, which was why he'd formerly avoided frequent contact with this Amazon gang. But, as they say, any port in a storm—he'd accept their welcomed attentions and pleasant diversions and do his best to hold Donna at bay with frequent and honest reminders that his heart was spoken for, multiple times.

This balance was easy enough to maintain—for a few hours. He attended a wine and cheese party in the common room of the designated dorm where most of the sisters lived. They'd rented or borrowed crystal glasses for the fancy wines, and silver trays for the hors d'oeuvres, and linen tablecloths; and all the girls were attired in full-length black evening gowns and walked around in their best finishing-school posture offering the handful of seated male guests (attired in jeans and flannel shirts) wine and cheese and canapés with string concertos droning in the background. Through collective will and planning, they actually pulled off the pretension—for about an hour. Then the long dresses were hiked up (or shed all together, to mini-skirts and halters beneath), the wine bottles replaced with a keg, the crystal with plastic cups, and the Bach concertos with Pat Benetar and Cyndi Lauper.

Her serving duties completed, Donna anchored herself in a chair next to Zach. She'd kept her evening gown on. The outfit became her, softening her big-boned height and dark frizzy hair. And Zach was happy to engage her full attention, as always more comfortable talking to someone in depth than exchanging small talk with numerous strangers. And by the time she dragged him out of the chair to dance, he was drunk enough not to care—as long as it was a fast dance, their bodies only occasionally brushing in a manner that he saw as innocent. But when they finally moved back to their chairs (after three songs, with the fourth a slowish tune by Whitesnake) and he sat down and she sat on his lap and draped her arms over his shoulder, he realized maybe he'd given her the wrong impression.

"Donna, I like you a lot, but as a friend; I'm involved with someone."

"So?"

"So maybe you shouldn't be sitting on my lap with your arms around my neck."

She laughed. "O.K." But instead of standing up, she leaned over and gave him a full and sloppy kiss on the mouth. She pulled her lips away from his after a few seconds but still didn't stand.

Zach shook his head. "That's not what I meant." But his eyes belied his words—he was grateful for her attentions, however inappropriate.

"I don't see anybody in this seat. I'm just borrowing it while she's away."

Zach sighed. "In the tangles of Neara's hair," he whispered to himself.

"What?"

"Just a line from Milton," he said to the candlelit room beyond her full head of hair. Then he focused on her sleepy soft eyes. "Part of me would be happy to share this seat with you, but most of me thinks it would be a bad idea for both of us."

"Which part wins?"

Zach laughed. "Majority rules."

"Inside yourself?"

"There most of all."

She pouted but slid off his lap and into the chair beside him. "That better?"

He nodded. "In some ways."

"In most ways?"

"Most ways."

"Then I'm glad—for you."

"For you too—you don't need to get in the middle of my mess."

"I'll be the judge of that—just ask as needed."

"Then I thank you in advance for that offer."

"Always there."

And it was—the rest of his tenure at Avery anyway: a more or less neutral sounding board, a shoulder to cry on, a body to rub up against, never quite romantic, always honest and safe.

10

Zach saw Becca through the window as he was walking up the drive to Professor Reichart's house in winter early dark. She was already at the party—a casual dinner buffet for their German literature class hosted by their teacher at his home a short distance from campus—and, being Becca, already engaged in friendly conversation with some of their classmates. Zach winced at the sight, stopped in the middle of the drive, and considered turning to leave. Herr Reichart, whom Zach considered a friend as well as teacher, would be disappointed by his absence; but Zach could fabricate some believable excuse and offer a conciliatory gesture in return—he had an early twentieth-century copy of Rilke's Leben und Lieder that he'd already decided to give to Herr Reichart at the end of term; he could move that gesture forward by two months. Such maneuvering, while awkward, would surely be preferable to spending a long evening watching Becca work her magic on others while being excluded from those charms himself. The sight of her in this social setting vividly recalled the pain, never far from the surface, that he endured in honoring her request for a pause. This pause had not gotten any easier in the three weeks since it had been implemented. And this party would be their first social engagement together since stepping back from the searing fire of their relationship.

But there in Herr Reichart's dark drive, Zach took a deep breath and decided that he was strong enough and mature enough to handle the challenges inherent in this occasion. He was not aware of, or at least did not consciously acknowledge, a more perverse motivation for continuing up the hill to the party—he craved being in her presence, even if at some physical and emotional remove, even at the price of significant pain.

As it turned out, there was no pain for Zach to endure, and virtually no awkwardness. After a stiff nod in Becca's direction (and her smiling response) on entering the spacious and airy living room with its cathedral ceilings, Zach got caught up in the party kept lively and stimulating by their scraggly bearded, rotund, boisterous, and ribald host. Herr Reichart was a refreshingly irreverent and unorthodox teacher in class, and he raised these characteristics to a gloriously higher level in the familiar environs of his home and fueled by the large doses of top-quality cabernet he downed while holding court. He managed to tread the fine line between overwhelming (and ultimately boring) his rapt student audience and lingering too long to let them catch up (thus letting the conversation lag). He tread this fine line by engaging all the students at the party in some aspect of the conversation, not letting anyone opt out; to this end, he leaned especially heavily on Zach to provide a foil to his flamboyance, a straight man for his theatrics. Zach happily complied, glad for the distraction and this chance to shine in Becca's witness.

So the evening passed quickly and pleasantly in a mix of good food—some well-prepared German delicacies including Wiener schnitzel and Linzertorte alongside other international specialties including hummus, tabboulleh, and pepperoni pizza—a little wine, and stimulating conversation. Before Zach knew it (and well before he would've chosen), the other students began retrieving their coats from the guestroom bed and heading for the door, most of them no doubt pointed toward other parties (and less encumbered alcohol consumption) on this mid-semester Saturday night, still so young and teeming with possibility. For his part, Zach had no idea where he might go next. His only known prospect—his dark and lonely apartment—had little to recommend it. The mid-term paper and novella in progress would be ascetic fare after this sumptuous party. But what other options did he have?

So as he emerged from the bedroom with his coat, the last to leave, he was surprised to see Becca lingering in the hallway leading to the entry foyer—surprised to see her still here and even more surprised to realize he'd totally forgotten about her in the joviality of the evening. He couldn't help but wonder how much of this mix of feelings his face betrayed on looking up and seeing her there. But then this was Becca—two short strides ahead and looking up at him with a tilted head and a cautious smile. That was all it took to melt away his surprise, his ambivalence, his cool reserve. This was Becca after all, after all.

They didn't speak but walked down the hallway, she in front. Herr Reichart stood in the tile foyer, having just closed the door on the prior departees. On seeing Zach and Becca, he launched a huge smile accompanied by a shout of glee in their direction. He raised his arms, a little wine sloshing out of the glass in his right hand, and exclaimed, "The Golden Couple!"

Becca blushed but had the instinctive grace to nod thanks for the sincere compliment.

Zach said, "Just two grateful guests, Herr Reichart."

Reichart lowered his arms and frowned above his scraggly beard. "Trouble in paradise?"

"No trouble," Zach said. "And no paradise either—not here on earth, or anywhere else for that matter. Haven't you read your German philosophers?"

Reichart scoffed loudly. "A gloomy lot! You've got to look past their siren call of existential angst."

Zach roared in laughter at the sheer audacity of this sweeping claim. For a brief moment he considered dropping his coat on the foyer table, asking Herr Reichart to uncork another bottle of wine, and sitting down at the still well-provisioned dining room table to engage this German Rasputin in a long night of one-on-one repartee. But then he remembered Becca, caught a whiff of her hair in the close confines of the foyer. He turned to Reichart. "There may be no paradise, but this evening came as close as one might expect to get. Thank you very much for inviting us." Zach surprised himself with the sincerity of his gratitude.

Reichart took a half step back, put his arms behind him, stiffened his shoulders, and made a deep formal bow from his waist. "Herr Sandstrom, Frau Coles—you are most graciously welcome."

Zach and Becca both nodded, though not nearly so deeply or formally, then awkwardly shook his fleshy hand as they walked past and out the door.

They were halfway down the drive and beyond the reach of the house's floodlights before either spoke. "He's something," Becca said finally.

"Quite a character."

"Where's he get his passion?"

"Teaching is his whole life," Zach said.

They'd reached the narrow and quiet residential street. Becca's car was on the far side, directly across from the drive. Zach's truck was about fifty yards away to the right. Becca paused in the drive. Zach wondered if she were waiting for him to turn toward his truck. "I can at least see you safely to your car, can't I?" he asked.

Becca laughed. "It's allowed."

Zach led the way across the deserted road, then stood to one side next to the driver's door and waited.

Becca followed and came alongside the car but didn't extend her hand to the door's handle. She turned and faced Zach in the faint glow from the streetlight farther down the hill. "Where are you headed?"

Zach tried to ignore the possible double meaning of her question, a double meaning that he knew originated in his head, not her question. "Home, I guess—no other plans. You?"

Becca looked at the ground, nudged something—a twig? a leaf?—with the toe of her clog. Then she looked at him. "Zach, I've missed you."

Zach didn't know what to say. All of his recent vulnerability and pain flowed in to fill the silence.

Becca took a small step toward him but left a few inches between her and any part of his body. "I've really missed you."

Zach shivered the length of his body. Becca must've seen but gave no sign.

"So can I come by your apartment for a little while?" she asked.

Zach nodded. "Follow me there," he said, then turned to walk to his truck, fumbling for his keys in the darkness.

He pulled his truck into one of the empty spaces alongside his building and Becca parked her car in the next space over. They walked side by side not touching down the path and up the stairs and along the second-floor breezeway to the door of his apartment. Zach put the key in the lock and turned the knob and the door swung open. Just as quickly, his hand reached out and slid under her open field coat and around her waist and pulled her against his body. She wrapped both arms around his waist and hugged him with all her strength. His lips found the crown of her head, cascaded down over her forehead, her eyelids, her nose, cheeks, ear, found her open mouth. They kissed with panting desperation, trying to find in lips, tongues, teeth and breaths some release, any release, to weeks of stored longing. Becca's hands slid under Zach's bomber jacket, yanked his shirt out of his pants waist, pressed her fingers against the bare skin of his back, dug her fingers and nails into his skin, ground and pressed and grabbed his skin. Zach slid her sweater up, then her blouse, slid his hands under her belt and beneath the waist of her jeans and under the band of her panties. Becca arched her back and his hands slid down over the small of her back and then around the sides and over her hips and then to the warm creases of skin leading downward. Zach pulled his hands from the waistline of her jeans, grabbed her around the waist, and lifted her off the breezeway's concrete. She wrapped her legs around his waist and linked her feet at the ankles behind him. They panted hard into each other's mouths. Zach turned and carried her into the apartment and kicked the door shut behind them. He knelt on the carpeted floor of his living room, his arms still around her, her legs still around him. He gently, carefully leaned her back onto the carpet, bringing her to rest on the floor, his elbows on either side of her waist bearing his weight. Only then did their lips part, their common breaths slow, their eyes open for the first time since Zach had opened the door.

And in the diffuse light leaking through and around the shabby curtains drawn across the room's lone window, Zach saw in the beautiful young woman wide-eyed and smiling and fully clothed beneath him what he'd known so well before their separation and never for one minute forgot in the weeks of pain and confusion—there would never be, could never be, anyone more perfect for him. What's more, looking up at him, in this moment and for the first time, Becca felt exactly the same way about him.

So, over the next two hours, and contrasted with their frenzied lust-filled entry into the apartment, they joined in a slow, methodical, and exquisitely gentle and tender and solicitous uniting, every touch all the more impassioned for its attention to pleasing the other, every act and word and gesture fueled by the single goal of fusing their bodies into a physical manifestation of the perfection each saw in the other, the perfection they saw in their love. In the slow disrobing of each by the other, in the wandering and lingering kisses and licks that each offered the other's body, in the cooing and the avowals and the giggles and the moans and the laughter, in the eventual and inevitable and inexorable merging of one flesh into the other and in the deliciously slow but determined climb to a final dissolution and the breathless graceful glide back to earth—in this instinctive sequence of myriad actions and intentions that was finally a single action and intention, in all these seconds and minutes and hours of gifts given, gifts received that was but one prolonged instant's gift, both given and received, they found the physical embodiment of their love, their most ancient longing, now granted never to be taken away.

Becca shivered despite Zach's warmth. He reached behind him and pulled the Afghan off the couch and draped it across her shoulders and waist and hips.

"Thanks," she said, and lay there for a while catching her breath, slowly regaining her senses.

Zach glanced around the room. From this vantage point and in this light, it all looked very unfamiliar—like a stranger's house or a motel room.

Becca followed his gaze then kissed him on the cheek. "The company's perfect, but I can't say much for the setting."

Zach laughed and rapped on the plywood beneath the shag carpet laid without a pad. "Kind of a hard mattress."

Becca giggled. "Carpet burns?"

Zach nodded. "A few. And you?"

She laughed. "In places I wouldn't have thought possible."

Zach said, "Sorry."

"Don't be sorry, silly. I caused more than you did."

"Sporting injury."

"Worth the price."

"Every bit."

"You hungry?" she asked.

"Starving."

"Me too. Let's go out and get something to eat."

They jumped up and put their clothes back on without switching on the light. Zach spent a minute trying to find his keys, then opened the door to discover them still hanging from the knob's lock. He sighed in mild wonder, as if finding some trinket from a bygone age. The keys still worked, though, as he proved by locking the door behind Becca. He followed her down the steps and to her car.

She paused and faced him from the driver's seat before starting the engine. "Have I told you how much I love you?" She well knew she hadn't, not in so many words.

Zach answered, "Yes, in about a thousand different ways."

She nodded thanks, then leaned across the console and said in a firm whisper, "Then add this one to the list—I love you, Zachary Taylor Sandstrom." She kissed him on the lips, holding that contact for several seconds before turning back and starting the car.

Zach's bottomless well of thanks got stuck in his throat, but he had no doubt she fully understood his permanent gratitude.

The Cellar Sports Bar was surprisingly busy for the late hour (or maybe because of it). A basketball game beamed in from the west coast played on the large-screen televisions mounted on each wall. A cluster of undergraduates played pool at a table in the middle of the room, and another group gathered around a foosball table off to one side. Couples cuddled up in booths and snuggled together at tables. Music blared from the jukebox—the Knack's "My Sharona." The whole cave-like space pulsed with noise and sexual energy.

While most of the booths were occupied, Zach and Becca found an empty one off in the corner. They sat on opposite sides of the butcher-block table. They ordered a pitcher of beer and two burger platters from the bubbly and flirtatious waitress, a girl named Diane whom Zach had spent fifteen minutes chatting with at a frat party two weeks earlier, while in the first throes of loneliness following Becca's request for time off. While nothing had come of that particular exchange, the possibility of future contact remained open. In taking their order, Diane gave no hint of that prior encounter, but suggestively brushed Zach's shoulder as she reached across the table to retrieve his menu. She turned and walked away.

Zach blushed and shrugged to Becca.

Becca shook her head but her smile never faltered. "An old friend, or a new one."

Zach shook his head firmly and leaned across the table. "No one but you."

Becca nodded. "I know."

Though Zach meant every syllable of his promise, meant them to a near reckless degree, he couldn't help but acknowledge a renewed sense of doubt and foreboding at their presence in this late-night, libido-driven swap den. He couldn't say if this foreboding originated from outside their relationship, pressing in; or from inside—a revival of the doubts and fears that had defined the start of the evening—pressing out. So he looked to the only one present offering any hope of guidance or reassurance, choosing to ignore for the moment the equally true parallel fact—that she was also the only one present capable rendering on him real pain and loss. "So how are you doing?" he asked.

"You mean since we last talked?"

He nodded.

"I'm good. I'm doing real well, Zach. I feel like I know who I am again, like I'm back on level ground."

"That's great."

"I also know now that the confusion I felt wasn't your fault. It was inside me. I didn't do a very good job of processing everything that was coming at me."

"From me."

"And from lots of other sources—my family, my friends, school, all of it. I got knocked down by the sheer magnitude of it and had a little trouble standing back up and finding my bearings."

"But now you have?"

"Now I have." She held her arms out, palms up. "The new me."

At just that moment, Diane brought their pitcher of beer and two mugs. She looked Becca up and down then said, "Looks O.K."

Becca returned her stare and, without missing a beat, said, "Why thank you, dear."

Diane gave a sly grin, set the pitcher and mugs between them, and left.

Zach poured the two mugs full then raised his. "To the new Becca."

Becca raised hers. "And the old us."

They clicked plastic in the smoky air between them.

"So what about you?" Becca asked.

"Except for missing you—"

"I'm here now."

"—I've been fine. Classes are good. Writing is proceeding well enough. I'll be going with Barton to Rome over spring break."

"So that worked out?"

"Passport arrived last week; already got my tickets."

"That's wonderful, Zach. Are you excited?"

"I guess."

"That's great. I'm so jealous. What an opportunity." She raised her mug again. "To Zach in Rome—for a spectacular trip."

Zach tapped her mug with his, but with less than full enthusiasm. The trip was only two weeks away. He had been thinking of it as a good chance to distract him from missing Becca. Now he saw it as a cause for missing her more, a prolonged interruption to their newly revived relationship.

Becca saw his frown. "Don't worry, Zach. I'll be here when you get back."

Zach nodded and said, "I'll be counting on it," but with less than complete conviction.

Becca smiled mischievously. "That is, unless you return with some pretty ragazza stowed in your suitcase." (She'd had two years of Italian at Center.) She reached under the table and gently squeezed his thigh. "You wouldn't do that to me would you, Darling?" She leaned forward and kissed him, lightly brushing his lower lip with her teeth.

Diane arrived with their food, set it on the table, and said, "Looks like you already have plenty to eat."

Becca, her hand still on Zach's thigh, winked at him then turned to her and said, "Never enough."

Diane left in a huff.

Zach and Becca ate their food in silence, each choosing for their own reasons to put past and future aside and bask in the fresh glow of contentment, surrounded by but delightedly immune to the frenzied sexual gamesmanship playing itself out in the bar.

Later that night—now become early Sunday morning—they added to that contentment, built their defensive wall of bliss still higher, by joining their bodies again, in Zach's rudimentary bed this time, wrapped in his sheets and blankets, in each other's arms and legs, finding in their quest this time neither desperate longing nor grace-filled perfection but instead discovered an old open-eyed, open-hearted merging of all each had to offer, food enough to keep their famished souls sated at least till morning, maybe beyond.

11

Zach had already scheduled a dinner party for the following Friday evening, inviting Barton, Harold Givens the English Department chair, and his eighteenth-century British Lit prof Camden Bennington and his wife Georgia. He added Herr Reichart to the guest list with an invitation after class on Monday, providing for both a prompt thank you and a reciprocal invite for the German Lit party. This late addition further exceeded the seating and eating capacity (four TV trays) of his apartment, but he rectified both problems by borrowing two fold-up director's chairs and a pair of wooden TV trays (much nicer than his flimsy metal versions) from Barton's house following a mid-week meeting to discuss their Rome plans.

The guests all arrived promptly at 6:30 under clear and cold starlight and shoe-horned themselves into Zach's warm living room. He started the evening off with mixed drinks and a tray of appetizers of thin-sliced smoked salmon atop a cream-cheese and fresh dill spread atop a garlic-toasted baguette round. He followed this with an entrée of beef burgundy served over egg noodles with green beans almondine on the side. For dessert he served large slices of creamy cheesecake made from his mother's recipe. All the food was well prepared and, given the limits of the setting, elegantly presented and gracefully served. Herr Reichart, who suggested Zach address him as Tom for this evening, was especially (and typically) extravagant in his praise of the food and the hospitality; but all the guests seemed to enjoy the fare and Georgia Bennington, the only female in the crowd, said she'd not prepared a meal so fine in three decades of trying.

The conversation never lagged and ranged across a diversity of subjects, from faculty shoptalk to local politics to the latest university gossip to recommendations for movies, plays, music, wine. Barton and Tom provided most of the entertainment with their earnest, sometimes off-color, sometimes flamboyant comments and exchanges; but all of the guests contributed to the conversation (singular, as the room was too small and the attention too centralized to allow for multiple simultaneous exchanges). Late in the evening Herr Reichart taught them a German beer-hall song and they all participated with appropriately timed shouts and foot stomping. Zach wondered if his neighbors below might call the cops then remembered that they were simply getting a taste of their own medicine and, given their violent arguments, were not likely to initiate a cycle of disturbance calls. With this in mind, the normally reserved Zach shouted and stomped right along with his older guests, the only youngster in this crowd.

The only awkward moment occurred as they all were rising before leaving. Herr Reichart said in his usual bombastic voice (did he have any other volume?) "Herr Sandstrom, you will make someone a fine husband one day." He looked to Zach with glittering eyes.

Zach blushed but not at the compliment. He glanced at Barton.

Barton, perhaps encouraged by the night's openness and collegiality, said "He already has" while staring frankly at Tom.

Tom Reichart was confused. "Miss Coles?"

Harold Givens was confused. He'd assumed Zach and Barton were an unofficial couple, in principle if not in practice.

Cam Bennington was confused. He'd assumed Zach was just another unmarried, unattached young student, despite this rare choice to entertain faculty over dinner.

Only Georgia was unflummoxed. She'd noted the wedding band on his finger and knew Zach was married (how else had he learned to cook like that?) with his wife surely estranged since no one had mentioned her being away or off in pursuit of career or academic goals. But now she was puzzled by everyone else's confusion and unease.

Finally Zach said, "I've been separated from my wife for four months. We moved down here together but we're now living apart."

This simple statement of fact took most of the tension out of the gathering but left everybody scurrying to rebalance their understandings. Zach wondered if he would become part of the university gossip exchanged at future dinner parties.

Georgia decided to close the loop of this misbegotten strand of conversation. "Well, your wife left a good one."

And all the others gladly offered their ringing endorsement of that praise.

12

Becca and Zach shared a light meal of lentil stew, oil-and-vinegar coleslaw, and sliced rye bread at Zach's apartment on Saturday evening one week after their reunion following Professor Reichart's party. They weren't supposed to be together. Becca had planned to spend the weekend at her family's home in Greensboro but had cancelled those plans that morning after hearing of an approaching snowstorm that might prevent her getting back to campus for Monday classes. After changing her plans, Becca'd tracked Zach down at his work-study job in the Archives and asked if she could stop by and see him that evening. Zach's schedule was open and he was delighted at this unexpected chance to spend time with her. "Come by around seven," he'd said. "I'll make us a light supper."

So here they were, eating that meal at Zach's tall butcher-block table while seated on wooden stools with short backs. They'd not been together in private since their impassioned reunion a week earlier, and their occasional public encounters had been friendly but stiff, as each tried to ascertain the ground rules of their relationship going forward. That undercurrent of uncertainty persisted now that they were again alone together.

"So a week from today you'll be in Rome," Becca said.

"Actually, a week from tomorrow. We leave on Saturday afternoon, but don't land in Rome till Sunday morning."

"Are you excited?"

Zach looked up from his stew. "I guess." The table was long but narrow, so her smiling face was barely a foot away. Zach wondered how someone so close at hand could be so far away.

She closed that narrow distance with her free hand and lightly brushed his neck. "Zach, come on. This is Rome you're talking about. Everybody, me included, would kill to spend spring break there."

Zach nodded and tried to smile. "I'm sure I'll be glad once I'm there."

"The Colosseum, St. Peter's, the Trevi Fountain."

Zach laughed. "I'll send you a postcard."

"How about an in-person delivery?"

"I can do that—probably faster than the mail anyway. What about you—figure out your Break plans yet?"

"Oh, yes. While you're touring Rome I'll be chasing Katie around the house. Sarah has classes all week and two papers due and is leaning on dear old sis for some babysitting time—the sacrifices one makes for family." Becca offered up an extended sigh and an exaggerated pout.

"Katie's sweet. You'll have fun."

"I guess. But compared to Rome, or even Myrtle Beach?" Myrtle Beach was where her roommate and some of her friends were headed for their Break.

Zach nodded. "Family sacrifice."

They finished their meal and Becca hand-washed their few dishes and utensils in the sink while Zach dried them and put them away. As they finished and Becca was draining the sink and wiping it clean with the sponge, Zach threw his drying towel over his shoulder and reached around and gave Becca a hug from behind, resting his head on her shoulder and kissing her neck.

Becca leaned back against his body and pushed her head and neck against his mouth.

Zach whispered in her ear, "I'm so glad you're not in Greensboro tonight."

Becca spun around, still in his arms, and faced him from inches away. "I'm so glad I'm here with you."

Zach stared into those beautiful eyes and found there the love and reassurance he'd been longing for all week. Any doubts or reservations or fear of renewed hurt flowed out of him, down the drain just as surely as that dirty dishwater. This was the old Becca—his, all his. He ran his hands lightly up and down her sides.

Becca kissed him quickly on the mouth then said, "Let's go out."

Zach shrugged. "O.K. Where?"

"On campus. Aren't they showing the game tonight?" The school's basketball team was playing in the conference tournament final in Raleigh. If they won, they'd be in the NCAA Tournament. The game was being broadcast on closed-circuit TV on campus.

Zach nodded. "I think they'll have a big screen TV at the Inn."

"Let's go cheer our team on."

It'd started snowing steadily while they were inside eating. When they emerged to head up to campus, there was about an inch of fluffy snow on the ground with more falling. The air was very cold and the wind blew briskly. They navigated the open stairs with care, taking one step at a time and holding onto the handrail and each other. But once on ground level, they ran along the sidewalk and skated on the smooth blanket of snow, interspersing long hyphens among their ellipses of footprints. There were no other tracks on the sidewalk or in the parking lot, and only one set of tire tracks on the road in front of the apartment.

Zach's truck, light in the rear end and bulky, was impossible to maneuver in slippery conditions. But Becca had her sister's Honda that, with its short wheel base and front-wheel drive, was well suited for driving in snow. Still, Becca stood in front of her snow-coated car and said, "Maybe we ought to stay in."

Zach laughed. "You southerners—all afraid of a little snow. We'll be fine."

"You sure? Sarah'd kill me if I wrecked her car."

Zach laughed and grabbed a fistful of snow and tossed it on her head. "You're taking care of Katie next week, remember? Sarah owes you."

"Zach, I'm serious. I don't want to damage her car."

"Listen, if we get stuck, I can pick this thing up and get us out." He was only half joking—in high school, he and two friends had picked up the Volkswagen Beetle of a mean-spirited teacher and left it wedged between two tree trunks.

"O.K., but you're driving." She tossed him the keys then began to brush the snow off the Honda with the sleeve of her coat.

Zach said, "I'll protect Sarah's car with my life."

They made it up the hill to campus with no problem at all. There were no other cars on the road to worry about, and the little Honda's front-wheel-drive tires never slipped once. When they'd come to a stop in the deserted parking lot behind the Chapel, Zach patted the dash and said, "Our trusty Japanese Jeep." Then they dove out into the snow-sprinkled dark.

The campus was eerily quiet for a mid-semester Saturday night, with the wind-blown snow accentuating the uncommon emptiness. Many students had travelled the short distance to Raleigh in car pools and at least two chartered busses to attend the tournament finals. Most of the rest were in dorm rooms, commons rooms, and bars watching the game on T.V. Wherever they were, they weren't out in the snowy dark; and Zach and Becca felt, as they walked through the untrodden snow from the Chapel parking lot to the Inn, that this night was all theirs, an unexpected gift for them to take and use.

The Inn was unusually quiet as well, with fifty or so students scattered around long wooden tables that would've accommodated ten times that many. The long, narrow room's lofty walnut-stained cathedral ceiling with its exposed rafters and carved arch supports and clerestory windows revealing the snow swirling in the darkness beyond only further emphasized the sparse and quiet attendance. While others might've considered this dearth of company and noise boring or unsettling, Zach and Becca were secretly pleased to be on campus on a Saturday night and in the presence of others without having to deal with the demands and chaos more typical of the location and the time of week. They'd be able to carve out their own little world within this quiet environment. The game, already more than halfway through the first half, was being projected onto a large screen mounted on the wall at the end of the hall. Zach and Becca staked their claim at an empty table just past the midpoint of the hall and sat in the two chairs closest to the wall and facing the screen. They ordered a pitcher of beer. The game was hotly contested and intense, with the two teams exchanging the lead frequently throughout the first half.

And it was there—in that most impersonal and mundane of settings, surrounded by a smattering of indifferent or oblivious witnesses, brought here by an improbable mix of circumstances, on a night when they shouldn't have even been together—it was there that Zach and Becca found their perfect harmony, the long sought but heretofore unrealized merging of all their hopes and care and love. No, they hadn't found it; it had found them, been bestowed as gift: all they had to do was partake of its joys and wonders.

Zach, sitting closer to the wall and a little behind Becca, reached out with his free hand and idly brushed her beautiful long blond hair still damp with melted snow. Becca felt his touch as in a dream, the soft sensuous brushing both soothing and reassuring of protection and love. She rolled her head gently from side to side, closed her eyes, immersed herself in that touch. Zach, with part of his attention directed toward the game and the other people milling about the hall, was paradoxically all the more in tune with Becca's feelings and needs for not being totally focused on her, for not directing all his attention toward her, for simply reacting to her intuitively. Becca in turn was all the more responsive to his diluted attentions, knowing that she was not ignored—she'd never be ignored by Zach—but that she was not his sole focus and she was free to respond without expectation or inhibition. She loved that freedom. She loved Zach's total attention and devotion, but she also loved the freedom to respond to his attentions without worrying about her response. She wanted all these levels of love; here, for the first time, she had them.

Becca, never one for public displays of affection, slid out of her chair and onto Zach's lap. She fit quite well there, felt completely comfortable and at ease, straddling his left leg, leaning back lightly against his chest, resting her head in the notch between his shoulder and neck. Zach looped his free arm around her waist, squeezed her lightly, not too tightly, made her feel safe, made her feel wanted, made her feel caressed, made her feel free. All these gifts came in addition to feeling loved. She always felt loved by Zach.

They watched the game, drank their beer, and turned into a single seamless entity—a single flesh but more than a single flesh, a single spirit, a state of being neither had ever felt before or knew existed—without even knowing it'd happened.

As the game moved deeper into the second half, more students began arriving at the Inn. There was a growing sense of hope and excitement and anticipation at the possibility of their team completing a major upset and securing an improbable bid to the national tournament.

Caroline, Becca's roommate, came into the hall, spotted them, and came over and took a seat in Becca's former chair. "Don't you two look comfy?"

"I am," Becca said, making no move to get off Zach's lap.

Caroline laughed. "You really look like you're in heaven, Becca. You ought to try that brand of relaxation more often. Better yet, give me some."

"No sharing. Talk to Michael."

"He's over there." She gestured toward the TV. "With the team. I'm solo tonight."

"Then have a beer," Becca said. "That'll have to be your substitute till Michael gets home."

Caroline pushed her lip out in a pout. "No sharing Zach?"

Becca shook her head.

"O.K. I guess I'll just have to get drunk." She poured a full cup of beer and downed it in one long draught.

Becca said, "Well, maybe not that much beer."

They all laughed.

With less than four minutes to play and the game tied, the Badencourt gang showed up—C.H. and Bill and Arnie and a half-dozen of their dorm mates. Every seat at their table was suddenly filled, then another table was pushed against it and all those seats filled. Their pitcher of beer was emptied in a hurry, but it was replaced by three more pitchers, and soon those pitchers were empty and replaced by still more. Everyone was focused on the game. The timeouts and the frequent fouls made the last few minutes of game time stretch out for over fifteen minutes of clock time. The lead changed hands five times in those last four minutes. Then Avery went ahead by a point, 73 to 72, on two made free throws. There were twelve seconds left. The other team called a timeout.

The opponent would have one final shot, or possibly a shot and a chance at a rebound if the shot were missed. The entire season had come down to these final twelve seconds. If the other team scored, Avery's season, which had started with such promise then faltered badly toward the end, would be over. If the other team failed to score, Avery would win and go on to the national tournament. Everyone in the now nearly full hall was on their feet, waiting for the timeout to end and the game to resume. Everyone was on edge, holding their collective breath.

Everyone, that is, except Zach and Becca. They were buried in the crowd that had so suddenly appeared around them, Becca still sitting on Zach's lap who was sitting on the chair against the stone wall of the hall. They were not oblivious to the crowd or the game but thoroughly amused by it. They were not threatened by the sudden invasion of their semi-privacy but rather thrilled to be a part of this outpouring of hope and energy yet still somehow separate from it. In their private harmony, they could also be one with this crowd of singular hope and anticipation.

Becca pressed her lips to Zach's ear. "Let's watch."

Zach nodded. Becca stood on their chair to see the screen over the crowd. Zach stood beside her, his head against her shoulder, able to see the screen over the heads of the crowd.

The timeout ended and the ball was thrown in play. The opponent's best player got free after a series of screens and got the ball. He got free of his defender, was open at the top of the key, and launched a clear shot. The ball seemed to hang in the air for many seconds. It was right on line. It looked like it was going in. It was dead on target. But it was just a little short. The ball hit the front of the rim and bounded high into the air. It rose up as high as the top of the backboard then started to fall. The opponent's best rebounder was waiting there, at the front of the rim, in perfect position to tip the ball back into the basket. There were four seconds left, then three. The rebounder went up to complete the play, make the tip-in from mere inches away. It was hopeless. Avery was bound to lose. The ball fell toward the front of the rim. There were two seconds left. Then the opponent's best rebounder disappeared from his position in front of the rim, lost his balance and tumbled to the floor as an Avery player crashed into his legs. The ball fell past the rim, was not tipped in, bounced harmlessly on the pile of players sprawled across the floor. One second left, then zero—the buzzer sounded. Avery had won!

Every voice in the hall united in a single exuberant cheer. Beer cups, some full of beer, flew into the air. Hats and scarves and mittens and coats flew into the air. Becca jumped off the chair into Zach's arms. He held her around the hips and spun around in a circle, bumping into chairs, the wall, the table, all the people jumping and dancing everywhere around them. From her lofty spot above the crowd, Becca traded high-fives with Caroline, C.H., Bill. Everyone was cheering and jumping into each other's arms. Avery had won! Becca and Zach had watched it and shared in this corporate jubilation. The joy around them affirmed and magnified the perfect harmony they'd been granted. The crowd carried them along in its intoxicating energy and enthusiasm and ebullience.

And all that energy, too great for indoor confines, quickly spilled outdoors, sweeping Zach and Becca along with the tide. Four inches of dry, wind-blown, drifting snow now coated everything, with more steadily falling. Students, some of them shirtless, were running about the Quad, rolling in the snow, tossing each other into drifts. Firecrackers were popping. Music blared from speakers propped in open windows lining the Quad. Some fraternity brothers were trying to start a fire with wet, frozen branches. The smoke from the smoldering fire quickly dissipated on the brisk wind; but the odor lingered, giving the entire area the scent of a cabin in the woods. A long chain of students joined hands in the center of the Quad, at first forming a circle and chanting cheers. Then someone broke the chain and pulled a meandering line of revelers behind him into the snowy dark. Soon the former circle became the world's (or at least Avery's) longest ever whiplash line, with the chain of students undulating from one end to the other, the students at the far end of the line flung outward by powerful centrifugal forces—first five flying off into the show, then ten, then twenty—till finally the whole line, even those not yet whiplashed, dove into the snow in the world's (or at least Avery's) largest ever pig pile.

Zach and Becca meandered through this boisterous crowd as in some sort of white-washed, deep-chilled fantasy—every sight and sound, smell and touch brilliantly vivid but also surreal in its utter lack of precedence or prior context. It was a moment and place cut out of time—a brittle fairyland populated by shrieking fauns and nymphs, a mid-winter night's dreamscape of youthful revelry. They wandered through this great spontaneous outdoor party sometimes hand-in-hand, sometimes pulled apart by strangers or friends grabbing them and swinging them about. Everybody in sight or earshot was of a single celebratory mindset, Zach and Becca included. Yet through this public celebration, they remained united in what they'd been given, what they held against all comers or claims.

With most of the revelers soon wet and frozen, and the would-be bonfire a smoldering mass of blackened branches and one charred frat-house bench, the victory party gradually moved back indoors to any number of venues. Zach and Becca followed the Badencourt gang into their dorm, where the cupboards full of booze were unlocked, the ice machines emptied, the glasses and mixers set out, and the music cranked up. The setting and most of the faces were familiar, but somehow everything was just a touch different than ever before—a tad fantastic, a wisp ethereal. Every face was flushed from the cold, hair peppered with snow then damp with melt, clothes and shoes soaked and quickly tossed aside and in some cases not replaced as guys and girls ran around barefoot and in their underwear, and at least two fraternity brothers shed even that bit of modesty. Zach and Becca also looked different—though they'd avoided the worst of the snow-coating, their faces were bright red, their hair glistening, and their eyes twinkling.

Once inside Badencourt, they never left each other's side, moving through the rooms and the crowd hand-in-hand or arm-in-arm or, for a little while, with Becca on Zach's shoulders. They moved from room to room, greeting and congratulating friends and strangers alike, toasting the team and the university, laughing at the unlikely scenes they stumbled on—coed body painting in the school's red and gold colors, quarters beer-drinking matches with red-dyed beer, and line-dancing to the school's fight song. Zach and Becca absorbed every wacky scene, made it their own, counted it as gift.

And then, with the party winding down and more than three-quarters of the participants asleep or passed out in random aggregations like flotsam washed up on a beach, they left without fanfare or farewells and stepped out into the night.

The campus was once again deserted and largely still, with the quiet only occasionally interrupted by a wolf howl or a firecracker's pop. It was still snowing, with six inches on the ground and deeper drifts. Fresh and wind-blown snow had partially filled the tracks and trenches and body prints from the earlier party, making those marks seem shadows from a dream.

Zach and Becca walked through the Quad and around the Chapel and along the buried walks to the dark and snow-flooded path through the trees to the parking lot. Artificial light faded the farther they got from the Quad and was gone entirely by the time they entered the thin woods between the Chapel and the lot. Yet it was not dark. The reflective snow and the low clouds and diffuse light from somewhere cast the woods in a silver-gray glow. They emerged from the woods and discovered the Honda as a hump of snow in the broad and flat plain of the parking lot. They brushed the snow off the car with their hands and arms, pushed it aside with their feet and legs. It was light snow and easy to clear away.

They climbed inside the car—Zach in the driver's seat—and sat for a moment in the cold, dry, close silence. The whole rich night and all its wonders washed over them like a wave. One might've guessed they'd be exhausted, but neither was. In fact, neither was ready to let the night end, regardless if the rest of the proximate world was asleep or on the way there.

Becca said, "I need to get some dry clothes from my apartment. You think you can get us there?"

Zach laughed, delighted to have a cause and purpose. "With our Japanese Jeep? No problem." He started the car, turned on the headlights, and followed their arc of light toward the main road.

The driving conditions wouldn't exactly qualify as no problem, but they weren't a big problem either. Zach drove slowly but steadily in low gear—never coming to a full stop, never applying the brakes, gliding through stop signs and traffic lights, not making any sudden turns or swerves. The car's tires spun a few times, especially in the deeper drifts, and slid off the road on one curve; but Zach always managed to compensate and keep the car moving forward.

The road to Becca's apartment went past the hospital and was partially plowed. They shared this four-lane road with a few police cars and ambulances with chains on their tires. Everyone was driving slowly and carefully, and they saw no accidents or abandoned cars along the way.

In the parking lot in front of Becca's dark apartment, she faced Zach and said, "Caroline may be asleep."

"Or with Michael."

Becca nodded. "Either way, maybe I should go in by myself. I won't have to turn on a light."

"I'll keep our Jeep warm."

She disappeared into the night.

Zach switched off the ignition and sat there in the dark with the cooling engine clicking and tiny streams of melting snow etching lines on the windshield against the silver night. For one of the few times in his life—perhaps the only time when immersed in an important moment—Zach did not consciously reflect on his present circumstance or the past events that had placed him here or the options for the future going forward. He knew only that Becca had been here and that she would return. He waited in blank contentment, would have waited forever.

Becca returned in under fifteen minutes. She had on dry boots, a clean pair of jeans, and a dark blue down vest over a burgundy sweatshirt. She'd also found a white knit stocking cap and a pair of matching mittens buried in her closet. She slid into the passenger seat and closed the door.

"A new woman," Zach said.

She leaned over and kissed him. "Just a dryer version of the former one."

Zach started the car. "Caroline home?"

Becca nodded.

"Alone?"

"Couldn't tell."

"Too close?"

Becca hit him with her mittened hand. "Too dark, Mr. Voyeur."

"Just concerned for her well-being."

"No doubt."

The Honda started sliding to one side where the parking lot sloped up to the road. Before Zach could stop and back up to try again, the car had slid off the pavement and into a deep drift. Zach tried rocking the car back and forth, in forward then reverse, but to no avail. For the first time that night, they were stuck, and with no one awake for miles to help them out.

Becca frowned.

"Don't worry, Bec. We'll get out. But you'll have to drive while I push."

"You sure? I can push."

Zach shook his head. "You're dry. I'm stronger. Let me be the macho man."

He got out of the car on his side, away from the worst of the drift. Becca slid into the driver's seat past the shift knob. Before shutting the door, he leaned back in and kissed her. "Just make sure you're not in reverse when you let the clutch out. Otherwise you might end up with a Zach pancake."

"Snow-covered?"

"With a cherry on top." He closed the door.

Becca put the car in first and waited for Zach's signal to let the clutch out.

Behind the car, Zach dug his feet into the snow till they touched the frozen ground, found the best footing available, put his hands under the bumper, and leaned against the back of the car. "Ready," he shouted.

Becca popped the clutch and pressed the gas pedal to the floor. The front tires spun furiously, throwing loose snow along the sides of the car and up into the air. Zach pushed and released, pushed and released, rocking the car back and forth until the front tires had finally spun their way through the snow and reached the dirt below. The car suddenly lurched forward and Zach sprawled face down into what remained of the drift. Becca yanked the wheel to the left to avoid another snow drift on the far side of the drive. The car went into a slow motion double loop as it descended down the drive, finally coming to rest in the middle of the parking lot.

Becca jumped out of the car and ran over to Zach. "You O.K.?"

Zach was standing in the snowdrift, brushing snow and bits of grass and dirt thrown up by the racing tires from his brown bomber jacket. He grinned. "Never better. Nice driving, Richard Petty."

Becca pushed him playfully.

He fell backward into the snow.

She jumped on top of him. They were almost completely buried in the light snow. They could've stayed there forever—so joyful were they in each other and in the combination they formed—except it was cold. They stood, brushed each other off, and returned to the car. Zach, with a little more speed and the proper angle of approach, made it up the slope and into the road with no sliding this time.

The few vehicles that had been on the main road earlier were gone now, and they had all four lanes to themselves. They passed the entrance to the hospital (with no signs of life there either) and were driving along a stretch of highway with no buildings or businesses when they spotted a heavy-set woman stumbling in the deep snow mounded on the edge of their side of the road. Zach slowed down as the car came alongside her. They could see (when she lifted her foot high to take a step) that she had on slip-on shoes with no socks. She was dressed in light-weight knit slacks and a thin windbreaker with its hood pulled over her head.

Zach stopped the car next to her and Becca rolled down the window. "Can we give you a ride somewhere?"

The woman's round face was flushed. She breathed heavily and sweat beaded on her brow despite the cold and her light clothing. She took a minute to catch her breath before speaking. "I'll be O.K.," she said finally. She took another breath. "I'm walking back to the hotel."

The only hotel on this road was more than a quarter mile away. She'd never make it—not in her condition in these conditions. Becca said, "Get in. We'll drive you. It's too nasty to be out tonight."

The woman looked ahead along the deserted highway, hazy in the blowing snow, then faced them. "You don't mind?"

"Not at all," Becca said, then opened the door and slid over toward Zach to make room, ended up sitting half on the car's console and half in Zach's lap. She leaned her face into Zach's ear and whispered, "You don't mind, do you?"

"I don't mind." He kissed her near cheek. "But you have to stay here after we drop her off."

The woman stumbled out of the snow bank and grabbed the door to keep from falling. She paused again to catch her breath. Then, with much effort and maneuvering, she got turned around and sat down back first on the seat, then pulled her legs into the car one at a time. Once all her parts were inside the car, she took another minute to catch her breath then slammed the door shut. That action rippled all the way across the car, squishing them together and leaving Becca almost entirely on Zach's side of the middle console.

Becca asked, "Can you drive?"

Zach laughed. "I can steer and probably manage the clutch and the brakes. But the shift lever is all yours."

She nodded. "Just say when."

Zach said, "Let's start with first gear and go from there."

Becca pushed the shift knob into first with only a little grinding of metal, and Zach let the clutch out and they moved slowly forward. Rather than take a chance on shifting, Zach drove the whole way to the hotel in the creeping first gear.

The woman, still huffing and puffing, said little during their three-minute ride to the hotel. She muttered something about walking to the convenience store to get snacks, but the nearest convenience store was a half-mile in the other direction and had been closed for hours. The woman offered no further explanation of her plight, and they didn't ask for one.

The hotel's covered drop-off was an oasis of light and dry pavement. Zach parked in front of the entry doors and got out and walked around to help the woman. She gladly accepted his hand, and he tugged her out of the low and tight confines of the passenger seat. In the short ride, her breathing had calmed and her face was less sweaty though still flushed. She was, however, still very shaky on her feet. So Zach offered her his arm, which she accepted; and they walked together across the sidewalk and up to the doors. They discovered that the doors were locked and had to ring the bell to wake the sleeping desk clerk. The gray-haired man made his way slowly to the doors, turned the deadbolt, and pushed open one of the doors. "We wondered if you'd ever come back," he said to the woman.

The woman made no reply and didn't even acknowledge the desk clerk. She released Zach's arm and walked through the door and across the entry and around the corner out of sight without a word or glance back.

Zach looked at the desk clerk. "Found her stumbling through the snow just this side of the hospital."

The clerk shook his head. "I told her not to go out. But it's a free country."

Zach shrugged. "Free country." He turned to leave.

The clerk said, "Have a nice night, what's left of it."

Zach waved over his shoulder.

Becca was back in the passenger seat when he slid behind the wheel. "Any explanation?" she asked.

"Free country," Zach said.

Becca looked puzzled. "Free to die alone in the snow in the middle of the night?"

"Or get rescued by nocturnal wanderers."

"Thanks for stopping, Zach."

"Didn't want her death on our conscience."

Becca laughed. "That too."

The turn-off to Zach's apartment was just a little farther down the road. But when they got to it, Zach coasted right past the turn, continuing straight on the main road. Neither had spoken since the hotel, and neither spoke now. This night, which was fast waning, had fully embraced them; and they weren't quite ready to surrender the feast.

So they drove slowly and steadily through the snow and the dark the two miles to where the road ended at another highway. There Zach made a wide turn in the middle of the intersection and headed back the way they'd just come. The whole way they saw no other car or person or living creature. The houses and businesses they passed were all dark. The intermittent woods were silent and still. Surely life continued somewhere—maybe behind those darkened windows, maybe in those solemn woods. But for all they could see or tell or feel, the snow-bound world belonged to them and they to it, a two-part entity full engaged in reciprocal praise and thanks.

When they came back to the road to his apartment, Zach turned this time. This road was a steep hill sloping down all the way to his apartment building far below, invisible in the blowing snow. Zach switched off the car's engine and turned off its lights. They coasted silently down the hill, the deep soft fluffy snow pushed harmlessly away to either side. The apartment building came into view, looming up out of the snow like a great ship in the fog. They coasted past the end of the building, then turned left to coast along the front where the road ran level, then left again into the parking lot and still coasting into a spot next to the walk, two up from Zach's snow-shrouded truck. The car's momentum would've carried them a little further, but not the night's. Behind the clouds and the wind-blown snow, dawn approached.

They were home. It was time for bed and whatever new stasis they could carve out from the aftermath of this blessed night.

13

Late on Monday morning, Barton called and said, "I think I need your help."

The snow had continued all day Sunday, tapering off to light flurries by late in the day. The final storm total of over twelve inches was the largest snowfall ever recorded at the local airport. On top of the snowfall, the air remained frigid—in the teens and upper single digits—and the wind kept blowing hard, pushing the dry light snow into drifts several feet deep. After their adventures of the night before, Becca and Zach stayed holed up in his apartment all that day, mainly reading and napping. Zach worked on some school assignments. Becca hadn't thought to bring her books and notes (who expected the worst snowstorm in history?), so had to make due with books borrowed from Zach. He made sure she didn't feel neglected (an easy assignment) and she also managed to assemble all the ingredients for chocolate-chip cookies and made a batch in the late afternoon. They ate most of the dough before it found its way onto the cookie sheet—it's amazing the games one can make up with shared cookie dough (then again, maybe not all that amazing, maybe just extensions of the sorts of games two people lost in their own world of love and attraction have been playing for centuries). They did save out enough for one sheet of cookies, and nibbled on those memories through the evening and into the next day. Becca called her parents early in the day (to pre-empt their certain phone call to her apartment to check on her, leaving Caroline to fumble for excuses as to why she couldn't come to the phone). She told them she was fine, safe and warm and sitting tight, and that she'd check back with them the next day. Zach had thought to call Barton but decided to wait. He didn't have much to say that wouldn't be a lie or a glaring omission of truth.

So this phone call Monday morning was their first contact since the dinner party Friday night. The day had dawned bright and clear though still frigid; but the unimpeded March sun was quickly warming the air, and the weatherman said the afternoon highs should top out in the low forties. Classes had been cancelled for the day, but were sure to resume tomorrow. All this snow would soon begin melting, and their long weekend of blissful isolation was drawing to a close.

"How can I help?" he asked Barton, ready to do whatever was needed.

"Well, I was trying to drive into campus to get the mail—"

"Barton!" Zach exclaimed so loudly Becca looked up from where she was reading on the couch.

"—and I ended up in the ditch."

"Where?"

"At the end of the drive."

"Are you O.K.?"

"Yes, I'm fine. It was a slow-motion slide into a drift rather than a crash or something violent."

"Is any part of the car in the road?"

"No, just half in the drive and half in the ditch."

"Maybe I can push you out."

"You think you can get here?"

"There's no way my truck could get there. I don't think it would make it out of the parking lot, let alone to your house."

"I figured."

"But I might be able to borrow a car." He looked over to Becca. She nodded without reservation.

"How's that?" Barton asked hopefully.

"A friend has a front-wheel-drive Honda that's great in the snow. I think it would make it out there."

"Which friend?" he asked, his voice growing darker.

Zach hesitated. "Becca," he confessed finally. He'd not told Barton of their reunion following Herr Reichart's party.

"You're back with her?"

"Yes."

"She's there with you now?"

Zach looked up to confirm the fact. She was smiling fully at him, bathed in the bright sun pouring through his living room window. Despite her smile and her beautiful face and her warm and welcoming body and all the love and joy her presence represented in his life and for his future, Zach still felt queasy at the awkward situation he found himself in, that he'd created in his desire to keep everyone happy. "Yes," he said in a voice barely above a whisper.

"I'll call a wrecker," Barton said and hung up.

14

By midweek, under daytime sun with temps in the mid-fifties and warm nights above freezing, this greatest snowfall in Shefford's history had disappeared everywhere except on the shadiest of north-facing slopes. Zach kept looking for the Boston-style heaped mounds of gray snow at roadway intersections and the corners of parking lots, the sorts of obstacles to movement, sight, and hope that had plagued entire months of his previous two winters. These mounds were nowhere to be found, as there were virtually no snowplows used (or, apparently, available) in Shefford or on Avery's campus. Local officials elected to let nature accomplish the snow removal, even twelve inches worth; and in this case, this action of inaction worked. By Wednesday afternoon, the roads were clear and mostly dry, and crocuses and daffodils were popping out in the moist brown soil along campus walks.

On Wednesday afternoon, Zach showed up at Barton's house for a meeting they'd arranged a week ago. He noticed the churned up soil along the edge of the drive where it met the road. He'd have to tend to that after they got back from Rome. He tiptoed his way up the pine-straw path, avoiding the softest muddy spots and the few patches of snow that lingered in the shade of thick beech trunks.

Barton opened the front door and greeted him with a terse nod. "Survived the Blizzard of '80, I see."

Zach nodded. "All in one piece. You?"

"In like a lion, out like a lamb."

"Your car O.K.?"

"It's fine. Buster didn't even have to hook up the winch—just rocked it out of the ditch, turned it around in the road, and took it back up the hill."

"Must be from the north."

"No. Just familiar with driving in slick conditions—grew up on dirt roads in Person County: red clay slick as transmission oil after a hard rain."

"Good skill to have, if you're a wrecker driver."

"Maybe not—he didn't charge me anything."

Zach was shocked. "Need to at least charge for his trip out."

"Not a cent."

Zach shook his head in wonder. "Different world down here."

Barton smiled. "Good old country folk. I'll take him a six-pack next time I stop by the shop."

"Better make it a case."

They skipped the drinks (it was still early) and went directly to the living room. Barton handed Zach a clean manila folder containing two typed pages related to the forthcoming trip—one a detailed itinerary and schedule, with departure times underlined; and another with a list of supplies to pack, subdivided into two categories: critical and optional. Zach smiled as he looked over the meticulously prepared documents.

When he looked up, Barton was staring at him with his copies of the same two pages spread out on the coffee table before him. "I hope you don't find me presumptuous in giving you my lists—I prepare them for myself and figured you might as well get a copy."

Zach nodded. "That's fine. Thank you. I've got a list in progress—not near as thorough as this, but the same idea."

Barton nodded. "Look it over, and feel free to make corrections or suggestions now or later."

Zach took a few minutes to look at the lists in detail. "Four pair of underwear? Four pair of socks?"

"To save room for bringing back souvenirs. You can wear each item two days running, or we can do an in-room laundry midweek."

"In-room?"

"Meaning in the sink and hung to dry over the tub."

"You've got it all figured out."

"Travel a lot, travel light."

Zach nodded. "Good advice, but I might bring a few extra pair of socks—my feet sweat something awful."

Barton laughed. "Don't need stinky feet offending our Italian friends."

They went over a few more details, including the plans for Saturday morning (Zach would drive to Barton's and leave his truck there along with Barton's Mercedes, to discourage prospective thieves; Larry would drive them to the airport and keep an eye on the house while they were away). As they finished up, Barton asked, "Anything else?"

Zach shook his head. "Looking forward to it," he said brusquely.

Barton glared hard at him. "I can't believe you restarted that romance just days before our trip."

Zach looked at the floor in silence.

"I considered cancelling the whole thing, but decided I didn't want to throw away all that money or end our friendship. And I need to check out those scenes for the novel."

"I can stay home," Zach said weakly. "You can go alone or take someone else."

Barton shook his head slowly. "Do you want to go?"

"Yes, absolutely."

"Are you going to mope around the whole time?"

He shook his head.

"You're sure?"

Zach looked up slowly. "Five minutes a day? When you're asleep?"

Barton considered the proposal. "Deal," he said finally. "But only when I'm asleep."

"I promise," Zach said and extended his hand.

Barton shook his hand above the coffee table and his lists. "Now I'm looking forward," he said with a smile that indicated the words were true.

15

The night before leaving, Zach took Allison out to dinner in honor of her twenty-first birthday. The actual day of her birthday was early next week; but since he'd be away then, he gave her an early treat. They went to the Cornwallis Tavern in Axton and she actually drove—in the dark on those winding country roads and she did great! The Cornwallis Tavern had become their hideaway, a retreat well beyond the reach of Avery and any possible awkward encounters that might occur there. Plus, the venerable old inn and restaurant reminded them of similar colonial institutions in New England, and also recalled their first night in North Carolina, treated to dinner here by Barton. It was hard for either of them to believe that night was less than nine months ago.

Zach had seen little of Allison over the last several weeks. From his side, he subconsciously left her out of the turmoil surrounding Becca during those weeks, not wishing to give his heart or hers any misleading signs. A deeply buried part of him knew he would happily salve his heartache and confusion with her warm and familiar comforts, and that she'd probably just as happily comply. But in addition to his reticence to lean on her, she'd contacted him far less frequently since the night she'd stayed over. He sensed no hostility or withdrawal. Whenever they were together, she was as affectionate as ever, maybe more so. But clearly her life was moving on, beyond him. She was painting and prepping the trailer she'd be moving into with Sue later in the month (and he'd agreed to help them with moving the larger furniture in his truck); and seemed to have many other commitments and social engagements. He was very happy for her, but also had to admit a certain sense of bittersweet loss at watching her grow-up and away, less dependent, a loss that felt as much parental (what he imagined parental would feel like) as romantic.

"Did you ever think you'd be going to Rome?" she asked over their standard "family style" southern feast.

"Not in a million years. Part of me still doesn't believe it."

"Two years ago, you hadn't even been on a plane."

Zach remembered that flight from Riverton to Boston via Denver, vividly recalled the doubt and turmoil and desperate longing he felt for the one he was flying to—this woman seated across from him, or the girl she'd once been. Who was the boy that had got on that twin-prop in Riverton? Who was the girl he'd gone to? And how had they ended up here, no longer living together but closer, wiser, richer than ever before? Who was the one responsible for this resurrection from the scattered ashes of chaos, the furious quest for independence and self-determination? Who or what had got them here? "Two years ago I didn't know what it was to fly." He knew she'd miss the not-so-subtle allusion; and for the first time ever, he didn't care.

"And now you're flying across the Atlantic."

"New adventures at every turn."

"And you're not worried about staying in a hotel room with Barton for over a week?"

Zach studied her carefully. He'd come to realize since their separation that she was quite astute in her instincts and perceptiveness. But he'd never seen her use those insights to plant mean or small insinuations. He decided to take her words at face value. "I spent the first twelve years of my life rooming with the worst kind of slob in Justin. I can handle a week with Mr. Clean."

Allison laughed. "Two peas in a pod—won't be a towel out of place or a toothbrush not in its holder."

"Toothbrush holder? Damn, knew there was something I missed on Barton's list!"

She shook her head. "Y'all deserve each other."

"I'm afraid you're exactly right."

She nodded. "I hope you both have a great time."

He nodded thanks. "You got any plans?"

"If the team advances past this weekend, I might be going to Kentucky." The second round of the basketball tournament would be at the University of Kentucky.

"Really?"

"Yes. I have a friend on the cheerleading squad," she said with a glance away.

Zach didn't know until exactly that moment that he could be happy and jealous at the same time. But most of what he felt was pride in and for the woman that had emerged from the child he'd started dating seven years before. Her journey had been as great and propitious as his, if far less dramatic and self-conscious. "Well then I have that much more reason to hope they win this weekend."

She looked up from the table. "Thank you for saying so. I'd give you a call to let you know my plans, but you'll be kind of far away."

"I'll follow the team in the paper and be thinking of you the whole time." He took a small box out of the pocket of his sport coat and handed it across the table.

"What's this? You shouldn't have got me anything!"

"Just a token of friendship."

She opened the box. It contained a necklace of a piece of polished jade hanging from a silver chain. "This is beautiful, Zach. Where'd you get it?"

"I guess you don't recognize it."

She looked at him in consternation.

"It's the piece of jade you found while we were camped at the sheepwagon. I had a jeweler polish and set it."

Tears ran down her face. "I had no idea it was so beautiful."

Allison could say the darnedest things and not even know it. "It is," Zach agreed.

When Zach opened the door to his dark apartment after Allison dropped him off, he found a note that had been slid under the door. It was a small piece of fine rag-linen paper folded in half. On the inside in her finest elegant script it read: you touch me. B. On the back, in her normal hurried and harried hen's scratch was an addendum: Sorry I missed you! Have a great trip. I love you. Becca.

Zach already missed her, desperately. But he'd have to find a way to hide that fact from the world for nine days, starting right now.

Rome

The white taxi that seemed little more than a shoebox on wheels zoomed alongside the lofty and forbidding stone walls of Vatican City before merging into heavy traffic on a broad boulevard. The driver weaved his way around and through (and under?) the stalled traffic all the while maintaining an animated conversation with Barton in the back seat, constantly gesturing, sometimes with both hands at once. Barton clearly loved it; and though Zach couldn't understand what the two were saying, he knew Barton well enough to realize he was gently egging the driver on. He only hoped Barton was discreet enough not to prod the effusive driver to the point where he looked away from the jammed road and their shoebox ended up flattened beneath a truck or against the old stone buildings that were startlingly close by.

They'd landed at Da Vinci International Airport an hour earlier, about twenty hours after leaving Barton's house the day before. The flights over had gone smoothly, with only minor delays and little turbulence or discomfort. Zach had especially loved seeing the sun rise over the endless deep blue of the Atlantic, and later passing over the snow-covered Alps with their quaint villages tucked into the valleys looking all the world like the make-believe villages of snow-globe dioramas. Their luggage was slow in reaching the baggage carousel, but they were waved through customs without any inspection or even a stamp on his brand-new passport. When he saw all the carabinieri patrolling the airport with their conspicuously displayed machine guns, he figured incoming customs must be a minor concern compared with the ever present threat of the Red Guard. He'd never seen a machine gun displayed in public, not even by soldiers marching in Dover's annual Memorial Day parade. He wondered if the sight made him feel safer or more vulnerable.

Barton had hailed the cab outside the Arrivals platform; and the short and round cabbie shoe-horned their bags into a kind of vertical trunk at the back of the Fiat, shoe-horned his two passengers into the baby-carriage sized back seat, and off they'd gone for the half-hour ride from the airport to downtown Rome. At first Zach tried to define his space in the back of the cab, but finally gave up and leaned lightly against Barton as he carried on his lively conversation with the cabbie. Despite the swerving car and honking horns and unbroken babble of the two men, Zach drifted into a daze, feeling simultaneously profoundly secure (in Barton's sure hands) and profoundly vulnerable, and finally not letting either concern affect him, letting both his body and mind surrender themselves to fate—safe delivery to the hotel or maiming on this crowded roadway: it didn't matter which.

Fate decided on the former, though not before they'd bounced up onto the sidewalk and brushed back a pedestrian as the cabbie squeezed off the busy boulevard onto the one-way side street leading to the Hotel Cassiodora, their home for the next week. Zach pulled himself out of his daze, then pulled himself out of that sardine can and grabbed the two biggest bags while Barton settled with the cabbie. Though they'd landed in bright sun, the afternoon had clouded up on the drive from the airport and now there was a light drizzle as they scurried under the hotel awning and relinquished their bags to a grinning young bellhop. Barton checked them in and they were guided to a spacious and elegantly appointed third-floor room. The bellhop drew back the curtains in front of the large window to show the building across the street, then shrugged and closed the blinds. They'd not come all this way to sit and stare out a window anyway.

As if to prove that point, Barton took two minutes to pee and splash some water on his face, then came out of the bathroom and said, "Where to?"

Zach laughed through his weariness. "I suspect you have an answer to your question."

Barton pulled out his pocket guide. "Piazza Navona is a ten-minute walk."

Zach shrugged (and in so doing adopted a popular Italian gesture, aptly demonstrated by the bellhop a few minutes earlier). "When in Rome—"

"—do as Barton says."

"My thoughts exactly."

And out the door they went, leaving their bags unopened on the floor where the bellhop had left them.

They crossed over the Tiber on Ponte Umberto, and looking to the west from the middle of the bridge saw the golden dome of St. Peter's glowing through the low haze. Zach looked from the dome to the sluggish flow of brown water beneath the stone bridge and wondered how many millennia of hopes and pleas, prayers and dreams had found their way into those waters or toward that dome. One rose spontaneously in his mind, directed first to the languorous water but rising quickly to the glowing dome—deliver us. It was his two-word condensation of the Lord's Prayer, a prayer he'd not spoken in its entirety for years (after having spoken it weekly, sometimes even daily, for most of his prior life). Barton had planted the reminder of this prayer in his head with his gift of the New Testament last month, and followed that gesture with a growing emphasis on faith and prayer as recourse in the face of emotional upheaval and heartache. Barton had even gone so far as to offer his own two-word summary of the Lord's Prayer—thy will. Zach had reflected long on that bold assertion and finally deemed it too presumptuous (though he'd not told Barton this). So he'd formulated his own two-word counter, and prayed it silently now—a clear plea, not a demand or an assumption.

By the time they entered the long open plaza, the drizzle had stopped and the low clouds lifted enough to brighten the day by several shades of beige reflected off the limestone facades of the shoulder to shoulder buildings ringing the square. The space was busy but not crowded on this Sunday afternoon, with most of the strollers appearing to be Italian school kids. Zach was utterly charmed by this first exposure to the physical expressiveness of young Italians of both sexes—constantly holding hands, draping their arms over and around one another, kissing each other lightly on the cheek or the forehead, dragging one another from shop window to shop window. Zach and Barton did a quick circuit of the plaza, including brief pauses at the two baroque fountains—one with its muscle-bound kneeling warrior spewing water from paired horns (Barton winked and said "My kind of man!") and the other a phallic obelisk with a heap of marble bodies at its base. If Zach hadn't known he wasn't in America before, he clearly knew it now. No American could've conceived of such lush and sensuous intemperance, let alone funded and executed it.

On their second circuit they stopped at an open air café and sat under the awning and ordered coffee and sandwiches then topped off the afternoon snack (they'd not eaten since a decent breakfast on the plane over the Swiss Alps) with a gelato.

Barton said, "Welcome to Rome," following the statement with a slow sigh that clearly evoked, almost in words, Here at last!

Zach nodded. "Feel at home already."

"Really?"

Zach considered his impulsive statement. "In an odd way, yes—like waking up in a strange house and knowing where all the furniture is, what the rooms are. Just feels natural."

"It's the people," Barton said. "After all they've been through and accomplished, there's not a bit of pretense about them. I love Italians."

"They built those fountains." He gestured at the monstrosities dominating the plaza.

Barton laughed. "Just kids having a little fun."

"Yeah, if your kid is Bernini with the full backing of the Papal treasury."

"That helps."

They settled back and watched the passing tourists and locals and breathed in the moist Roman air. Buried deep in Zach's consciousness, Allison's question of less than forty-eight hours before reverberated—did you ever think you'd be going to Rome? The answer was—of course not; who could've conceived of such an outrageous sequence of events? But the rest of him—conscious and unconscious parts—simply accepted the reality, both the place and the improbable events a natural fit for his life and future, a natural fit because of the man seated beside him, one whom he trusted without reservation or doubt. And if one could take that kind of chance on a person, what was it to find oneself a third of the globe from home, in a city built on three millennia of struggle, triumph, and loss? That part, at least, was easy.

2

They spent all except one day of their week in Rome, and divided that time almost exactly between the Vatican complex and its associated museums on the west side of the river, and the classical ruins and restorations surrounding the Forum and the Colosseum on the east side of the river, with side excursions to some of the innumerable churches and plazas scattered along the way. They toured long, ate late, retired late, rose in mid-morning to room service continental breakfast or brunch in the hotel coffee shop, then off again into the welcoming folds of this exquisite city. The weather was generally fine and never an impediment—early spring days in the 50s, more sun than clouds, an occasional light shower or early fog: much like the weather they'd left behind in central North Carolina.

Their first full day they were walking back toward the hotel along the Via Nationale in early dusk when two bomb blasts in quick succession rumbled the pavement beneath their feet. A cacophony of car alarms and building sirens instantly filled the streets, followed in less than a minute by the shrill undulating sirens of dozens of the match-box police cars racing west along the broad boulevard, their flashing blue lights a surreal contrast to the red lights common back home. In a momentary suspension of his natural tendency to flee danger, Barton followed Zach's lead as his tall friend (with a better view over the growing crowd) followed those police cars and most of the pedestrian traffic toward the blast site. Some three blocks ahead, they joined a growing crowd held back by police and emergency vehicles and viewed the collapsed façade of a non-descript building in the midst of an unremarkable stretch of road. Zach relayed a description of the scene to Barton lost amidst the jam of shorter onlookers. Barton in turn translated Zach's description to a cabbie leaning nonchalantly against his moored vehicle. "Una bombe," Zach heard Barton say. "No, dué bombe!" the cabbie emphatically corrected. Barton nodded vigorously and proceeded to engage the cabbie in an extended and highly animated exchange, down there with the shorter people.

A few minutes later, Barton looked up at Zach and reported, "Armenians have bombed the Turkish Airlines office, with multiple injuries. They've cordoned off the entire block and are searching for additional bombs or possible suspects. See anything new?"

Zach shook his head. "Just a bunch of toy cars and toy policeman."

"With real guns."

"That too."

Barton suddenly gasped and pulled Zach's coat sleeve to get him to lean down.

"What?" Zach asked in annoyance at surrendering his height advantage.

"If you can see them," Barton hissed in an urgent whisper, "then they can see you! The cabbie says they sometimes have snipers after the bombings!"

"Then what's he doing here?" Zach asked, dismissing the concern.

"More to the point, what are we doing here?"

Zach shook his head put surrendered to Barton's revived anxieties. Besides, the excitement was over—there wasn't any more to see. He followed Barton's lead back out of the crowd, leaning low in deference to Barton's concerns. Two blocks east and three blocks north, they were finally able to hail an available cab. With downtown at a chaotic standstill, he had to take them the long way around to the hotel. On the way, they passed a low fortified building with armed guards flanking the entrance and provocatively attired beautiful women loitering on the opposite side of the narrow street. Barton spoke in Italian to the cabbie then told Zach, "Anti-terrorist secret police headquarters." "And the women?" "Their 'companions'." Zach wondered what kind of Oz they'd landed in.

The next day they found themselves in a different sort of Oz as Barton carried a letter of introduction to the office of a highly placed Vatican official. Monsignor Sposito had been raised by the family of Barton's sister-in-law's father, and had not forgotten the kindness despite rising to his lofty post as overseer of Vatican investments and holdings. He was a round-faced, round-bodied elderly gentleman who might've been a jewel smith or a shop owner except for his black cassock and red cap and the stream of believers and functionaries who knelt on one knee, sometimes kissing a gold ring on one of his pudgy fingers, as he passed them in the rooms and hallways of the inner sanctums of the vast Vatican complex.

Zach and Barton were treated to viewings of works of Giotto, Pollaiuolo, Raphael, Michelangelo, Titian, and Botticelli hidden away in rooms never visited by the public. The Monsignor used a key to open a small door and they stepped into a lofty hall with a tall wall of painted plaster to their right. It was only after their eyes adjusted that Zach and Barton simultaneously realized that the room was the Sistine Chapel, and the wall of painted plaster within easy reach was Michelangelo's "Last Judgement" fresco, with workmen in white overalls starting to erect the scaffolding that would be used in the controversial fresco cleaning that would be done over the coming decade. The Monsignor released the slightest grin of pleasure at their shock and surprise and clear joy at this exclusive access to one of the great works—maybe the greatest—of western art.

That afternoon, following a brief return to the hotel for lunch and a quick nap, they were taken on what was at the time a rare tour of the recent excavations in the grottoes beneath the high altar of St. Peter's Basilica, where researchers had discovered numerous human bones including those believed to be the bones of St. Peter himself. Later in the week, Monsignor treated them to an eight-course "lunch"—caviar and champagne, smoked salmon, gnocchi, sea bass and prawns, salad, ice cream and pastries, café, cognac—at the palatial Villa Mellini on Monte Mario overlooking all of Rome. On the last day of their stay, he gave Barton numerous gifts to carry back to his in-laws, gave them each commemorative Vatican coins, and gave Barton a kiss on each cheek with tears streaming down the elder's round face glowing in gratitude and nostalgic recall.

The next day, on an excursion through the east—or "classical" in their nomenclature—side of the river, they made a pilgrimage to the Keats-Shelley Museum next to the Spanish Steps. The building included the tiny room where Keats died of consumption at age twenty-five in in February, 1821. The room was closed to the public and the gray-haired curator at first declined Barton's request for a peek. But Barton gently persisted in his gracious, well-practiced manner and eventually convinced the kind gentleman that they were not mere tourists following a generic tour guide but in fact were devotees of the poet. So convinced, this dignified and reserved gentleman suddenly threw up his arms and exclaimed, "Passione di Keats!" and invited—no, thrust—them past his desk and through the doorway to the death room. It was crowded with glass topped display cases, bookshelves, and paintings on the wall. The curator stood and watched them a minute, then silently retreated as they studied in close detail every object displayed. They later carefully stepped off the room—approximately twelve feet long by six feet wide ((Zach couldn't have stretched out fully on the bed Keats died in)—then before exiting recited together in soft-spoken reverent tones the eight oh-so-brief lines of "This living hand," a hand gone "cold" at twenty-five on this very spot, in this narrow crypt.

3

That night over a late dinner at Al Passetto, the finest of the many excellent restaurants they ate at in Rome (they'd return here for their final meal on Saturday night), they remained ebullient despite their draining day.

After the morning stop at the Keats Room, they'd gone on to the Operahouse (to buy tickets for tomorrow night's performance of Elektra), did slow and deliberate tours of two massive churches—Santa Maria Maggiore (St. Mary Manger with its purported fragment of the original manger) and Saint Pietro in Vincoli (St. Peter in Chains with the purported prison chains of the apostle and, as a minor sidelight, Michelangelo's stunning sculpture Moses)—walked around (an appropriate preposition) the Colosseum, walked the length of the Forum three times (with a long reflective pause at the site of Julius Caesar's cremation following his assassination in 44 BC), did a slow tour of the sprawling Palatine Hill with its gardens overlooking the Forum and the Circus Maximus and much of Imperial Rome, then a walk over the Capitoline Hill with its massive tri-part Capital complex in the midst of restoration and cluttered with scaffolding, past the stately but simple bronze statue of Marcus Aurelius mounted on a horse (one of the few objects in Rome suggesting the egalitarian ideals of American democracy), then past the massive Vittoriano monument looking like the world's biggest nationalist wedding cake (and evoking troubling images of militarist fascism) followed by a swing past the Pantheon and the Borghese Palace then over the Ponto Cavour back to the hotel.

After they'd ordered their first four courses (including selecting their entrees from iced carts bearing entire fish, heads and tails included, and another with slabs of glistening raw meat and game), they eased back with their cocktails in the comfortable but lean upholstered chairs and reflected on their trip so far, already rich beyond all hopes or imagination.

"To pilgrims in Rome," Barton toasted with a raised glass.

Zach tapped that glass. "Luckier than those poor first pilgrims in Jamestown."

"I'll say," Barton affirmed with a long swallow of his Scotch. "You're starting at the top."

Zach nodded. "I know. Nowhere to go but down."

"Or stay at the top."

Zach leaned forward and took a deep breath. "A challenging goal."

"Just choose to honor what's important with your whole life. The rest will follow."

"If it were that easy, this restaurant would be a lot more crowded."

Barton shook his head emphatically. "Nothing easy about it. Discovering what's important is hard enough; fixing your eye on that goal is harder still—apparently darned near impossible, based on my observations of the human muddle."

Zach leaned back in his chair and smiled. He suddenly realized he could simultaneously indulge Barton and take his advice to heart. He wondered where that insight and confidence came from, and his mind kept drifting back to Keats's death room—the greatest Romantic poet barely more than a boy drowning in his own blood at age twenty-five, just two years older than Zach. What in the site of that awful death could free him to seize his life, come what may? "So how does one discover what's important?"

"You already have—today, yesterday: moments of perfection. Taken alone, these moments are glorious memories; knit together, they're a life's calling."

Zach nodded slowly.

They paused as a young apprentice waiter brought the beautifully arranged antipasto platter and the wine steward uncorked their bottle of champagne and poured full two fluted crystal glasses.

Zach knew Barton was right, realized now that a large part of his motivation in inviting Zach to come along was to expose him to these world-class and life-changing sights. He was awash in enough perfect moments to last a lifetime, with no doubt more to come. But, surely contrary to Barton's intent, Zach's mind suddenly summoned Becca's smiling face, felt her skin and smelled her hair; and his heart knew with absolute certainty that all these moments of perfection—all these lifelong treasures—only took on meaning when brought to life by that perfect love. That's why Keats's room had such resonance. He wasn't the poet Keats was and never would be, but he knew something that Keats didn't—he knew Becca, he knew their love.

"So how do you stay the course?" Zach asked after their graceful and dignified servers had nodded respectfully and left (none of the superfluous and annoying small talk of American waiters).

Barton grinned. "Has your faith been reawakened?"

"Never slept."

"Stirred, then; aroused?"

"More like erupted!"

Barton nodded. "That's it!"

"What?"

"Faith—that what God has shown you, God will deliver you to, and sustain you along the way."

"I'm guessing that's not as easy as it sounds either."

"The world will make sure of that—doubts and obstacles at every turn."

Zach nodded. "Thanks for the warning."

"That part is easy."

Life lessons shared, they settled back and enjoyed the wonderful fare and the elegant setting.

Midway through their pasta course, that quiet setting became somewhat enlivened. Two tables away, a stiff-backed, stern-faced tough guy (Barton mouthed "Mafia" to Zach), seated with a buxom blonde half his age attired in the slinkiest and skimpiest of scarlet mini-dresses, growled at a young waiter as the boy mixed their oil and vinegar salad dressing at tableside using two forks and a shallow saucer. Apparently the boy's technique didn't meet with this patron's approval. He gestured dismissively for the server to take away the plate of unacceptable vinaigrette and return with a clean plate and utensils for him to mix his own. The crestfallen waiter put the plate of dressing on his cart and rolled it off to the kitchen. A few minutes later, the same waiter returned with his cart bearing a clean mixing plate and tools along with the cart's extensive selection of ingredients. He rolled the cart next to the tough guy's table. The man took the mixing plate and started to assemble his choice of ingredients on it.

Then they started appearing. Without a word or an inappropriate gesture or look, every other member of the restaurant's extensive wait staff—waiters, wine steward, salad mixers, meat cutters, fish tenders—arrived to stand, literally shoulder to shoulder, with the chastened waiter and watch as the tough guy demonstrated how to hand mix a vinaigrette. The man pretended to ignore the crowd, but clearly he was flustered by the show of solidarity. He quickly finished mixing the oil and vinegar and seasonings, poured it over his companion's mixed greens then his own, and put the used plate and forks back on the cart. The crowd of servers melted away as silently as they'd assembled, and the salad server rolled his cart back to the kitchen with his back a little straighter, his shoulders a little squarer than just a few minutes before.

Barton looked at Zach. "One more of those moments."

"To guide a life."

4

A peculiar episode occurred in the hotel bar late their last night in Rome.

That morning Barton had hired a driver, Alesandro, to take them into the countryside north of Rome to visit the castle ruins of Santa Maria di Galéria. Barton had visited the ruins more than twenty years earlier and included them as a setting for a central scene in his novel. The day was beautiful—sunny with a few fluffy clouds, the temperatures approaching 60 degrees: the warmest of the week. Zach definitely felt relieved to escape the weightiness (literal and figurative) of Rome proper, and Barton was especially cheery and playful as they rooted through the underbrush and found the thicket-covered stone walls and caved-in ancient rooms. Barton became for that brief hour the effusive student on the lip of adulthood and renown that he'd been when he'd first visited the site. He all but skipped around the overgrown complex, shouting in triumph when he found this or that recollected landmark—a surviving stone archway, a silted in cistern, a collapsed staircase. The only intact structure was a stone bell tower at the heart of the ruins, its gaping dark arched openings looking out over the surrounding valley in all four directions above stone-relief circles that once were clocks, their brass hands long since looted for scrap, their round faces testament to endurance now, not time. Though the stairs to the tower had long since rotted to powder, its broad and sturdy base provided the platform for a breath-taking view of the countryside—rolling hills of green fields with white flowers blooming interspersed with brown woods just starting to don the pale green sheen of spring growth, tin-roofed buildings of farms, cattle milling in muddy pens, the jagged roofs of a village in the distance. If Barton felt renewed by this encounter with a happy past, Zach felt reassured at this overlook reminiscent of his childhood, the lush fields paused on this lip of new birth, renewed life.

Alesandro returned them to the hotel shortly after noon. They'd eaten lunch at a family pizzeria, San Marco, just across the street. Then Barton, ever dauntless, waded back out into the city for one last tour of his favorite sites east of the river. Zach, finally succumbing to travel fatigue and homesickness (for you-know-who), stayed behind in their room and wrote in his journal before taking a long nap. Barton arrived back in the room around six and took a half-hour nap himself before they both rose and changed into the least wrinkled and sullied of their clothes and did a brisk ten-minute walk through the clear cooling evening to Al Passetto for their farewell dinner—as fine a meal as earlier in the week though tinged with nostalgia this time.

So now they were seated at the glitzy hotel bar as the clock—luminous digital in a recess above the bottle shelves' backing mirror—clicked past midnight, then past 1:00 AM. At this point there were only six people in the bar—Zach and Barton, Lino the piano player, Augusto the bartender who it turned out was within a week of being exactly Zach's age, a white-haired swarthy skinned gentleman in a black turtleneck and gray suit seated at a booth in the far corner of the room ("Iranian," Augusto whispered in thickly accented English; "policia negra," he added and put a finger to his lips), and a svelte dark-haired young woman with her beautiful fair skin highlighted by a sleeveless full-length black evening gown with thin straps over her lovely shoulders sitting alone at a round table in the middle of the bar sipping amaretto neat from a cube-shaped crystal tumbler ("Sara" Augusto whispered; "she take-a the Visa" he added, miming the sliding of the bar of a credit-card imprint platform).

Barton immediately focused on Sara as the object of his writer's curiosity, gently plying Augusto for details about her, whispering softly in Italian. Zach on the other hand had no discreet curiosity about the woman. A bourbon and a half bottle of wine at Passetto followed by three double bourbons on the rocks at this bar (finishing off Augusto's bottle of Jim Beam) had left him drunk enough and horny enough to stare at the beautiful and sexy woman with undisguised lust. That Barton had done nothing to temper this show, had in fact been quietly egging him on for over an hour with comments about her irresistibly soft skin and perky breasts and regular refills of his glass struck some deeply buried intellectual part of Zach as both inappropriate and dangerous. Was he taunting Zach or testing him? Or was something else going on? Was he reminding Zach that there was beautiful and seductive skin apart from that of a blonde girl on the far side of the world? Or was he just a little drunk himself and having fun with Zach, or at Zach's expense? It was only several days later that Zach realized yet another motivation for Barton's persistent focus on Sara—he was using her as the excuse for an erotic flirtation with the cute and loose-lipped Augusto. Zach, unschooled in gay pick-up techniques and protocols, didn't perceive this interplay as it was going on and had no idea if Augusto was aware of the game or a clueless innocent.

In any case, as much as Zach's libido—stoked high by Barton's goading and the drinks and the overt transference of a week's worth of stockpiled longing—craved the touch and smell and contiguous presence of the beautiful Sara, he had neither the funds nor the guts nor, finally, the depravity to surrender to this longing. And Barton, for all his not so subtle prodding, probably wouldn't have let Zach indulge his desires had he chosen to try, any more than Zach would've stood by if Barton had acted on his flirtation with Augusto. They were in this together—just the two of them—for better or worse.

They polished off their drinks as the digital clock spelled 2:00. Barton left a huge tip for Augusto who had disappeared through the door at the end of the bar. They rose together and headed for the elevators and bed. Zach nodded politely to Sara as he passed her table. He thought he saw her grin demurely in response.

Outside in the lobby, they saw the hotel manager giving Augusto a harsh dressing-down. Zach didn't have to understand Italian to know that he was being upbraided for inappropriate gossiping about hotel guests (and Sara, Augusto had let them know, was a "guest," had a room reserved for every Friday and Saturday). More than just Zach would have a throbbing hangover from his long and lurid last night in Rome.

North Carolina

Zach knew the minute he opened the door and saw her, the doubts were back. Her eyes were too honest, his heart too vulnerable, for him to miss a fact so plain. He tried to dismiss the foreboding as the result of travel fatigue and nervousness at this long-anticipated reunion. She was here, after all, as she'd promised. Wasn't that proof enough of her love and commitment? She smiled and stepped up into his living room. He pushed the door shut then folded her into his arms. She pressed her face into his chest, her hands still at her sides. He leaned his cheek against the top of her head. They stayed like that for a long time.

It was 10 PM on Sunday. Zach and Barton had waked twenty hours earlier to a clear and warm spring morning in Rome. After coffee with the Monsignor at their hotel, they'd been driven to Da Vinci International airport and spent the rest of their day in airports and in the air from Rome to New York, New York to North Carolina. Zach had arrived at his apartment twenty minutes earlier and called Becca even before taking off his coat. She'd been waiting for his call all night and had driven straight over after grabbing a few clothes and toiletries and stuffing them into her book bag.

After his long and stressful day, after an enjoyable but tiring week, Zach would've been happy to stand there wrapped around Becca till they could stand no longer, then simply lie down where they were and go to sleep in each other's arms. This embrace had been all he'd thought about, when he'd had time to let his mind drift, for the ten days since he'd seen her last. Now claimed, he didn't want to let it go.

But he was worried about Becca—worried about what he'd seen in her eyes, worried about her face pressed so desperately into his chest. He would protect her forever, but thought he needed to know what he was protecting her from—having forgot, just that fast, he already had his answer.

He kept his arms around her but leaned his torso back from her face. At first she leaned into his retreat, kept her face pressed against his flannel shirt. Finally she reneged, stood straight up, granted a few inches of space between her face and his chest.

"You O.K.?" Zach asked.

At first she wouldn't look at him then she did. Her eyes were so sad, seemed lost. "I missed you too much, Zach."

"I missed you that much and more."

She shook her head in resignation. "No, you didn't."

"I'm sorry."

"I know you are. That's one thing I know for sure."

"Can I help?"

"Can we go to bed and you just hold me?"

"Till the cows come home."

"How about till we fall asleep?"

"Whichever comes first."

Becca looked up at him and offered her best effort at a smile. It was more than enough to lift his heart. "Thank you, Zach." She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him lightly on the lips. "Welcome home."

"Wish I'd never left."

"Me too." She slid past him to put on her pajamas, brush her teeth, slide into bed. He followed after she'd finished.

In the darkest moment of that dark late-winter night, with Zach and Becca both sound asleep and still in each other's arms, facing each other inches apart on their separate pillows, their legs twined under the blankets, their feet touching lightly, their breaths rising and falling in unison—God stood over them. He loved them both, knew them well. Before time and the universe, he'd willed each into being. He'd watched them grow in separate spheres, both strong and smart and sensitive. He'd seen the approach of their intersection from far off and blessed it, even (and this against his own rules) gave their headlong rush toward each other a few gentle nudges, rare gifts of hope and promise. He reveled in their union, their moments of transcendent love—of his heart but not of his willing: they'd discovered or stumbled into that joy on their own, reaped its rewards. Nor had he willed this looming fracture. But he mourned it, cradled it in his heart of infinite suffering.

But he wasn't here to mourn—there'd be time enough for that. He stood here to gaze one last time at the perfect harmony this pair shaped, at their union of flesh and sense and spirit—gift for them, gift for him—that was the latest return of the love he'd sent forth at the dawn of time. He could only hope for them that this vision of perfection survived the coming discord—he could do no more. Then he left his beloved children locked in their last touch of divine love.

Becca rose first, showered, and dressed for class. She'd already made herself tea and toasted an English muffin when Zach walked into the kitchen in his underwear. He rubbed his eyes and tried to get himself awake. "What time is it?"

Becca laughed at the helpless vulnerable child in a man's body standing before her. She rarely saw Zach helpless—the sight was charming. "Eight o'clock, sleepyhead."

"Feels like I slept ten years."

"More like ten hours. It's called jet-lag, Zach. You'll get over it. Hey, it's two o'clock in Rome—already lunch time."

Zach turned and trudged back into the dim bedroom. "Call me for supper," he said and lay back down on the bed.

A few minutes later, Becca knelt on the floor beside the bed. "I'm off to the library. I need to do some research before class." She leaned over and kissed him then stood.

"See you tonight?" he asked, his words muffled by the pillow.

"Sure," she said. "But I can't spend the night."

He was too tired to protest or ask why.

She headed out into the bright new day.

Zach finally rose for good around noon. A long hot shower washed away whatever fog lingered over his senses. By the time he'd shaved and dressed, he felt close to normal, if still a bit disoriented about the time of day. He ate a light lunch and unpacked from the trip. He checked his mailbox, stuffed full with a week's leavings—all bills except a small envelope addressed in Becca's hand and bearing a Greensboro postmark from the middle of last week. He tore it open while standing barefoot on the cold concrete slab in front of the building's bank of mailboxes.

The envelope contained a small folded sheet of pale green, rough-cut fine linen paper with no initials or markings on the face. Inside in steep sloping script it read: Where are you? I can't stand this. B. Zach wanted to cry and sing-out both. Instead he slipped the note back into its envelope and jogged up the stairs to his apartment.

He paid the oldest bills and addressed and stamped the envelopes. He pulled a bowl of beef burgundy, the leftovers from the dinner party he'd hosted before Rome, out of the freezer to thaw. He made a short grocery list then headed out the door to run by the bank, the post office, and the supermarket. He returned late in the afternoon and spent the rest of the day preparing for dinner. He set his bar-table with a linen tablecloth, his best two plates (the only ones that weren't chipped), his utilitarian stainless silverware shined as best he could, two wine glasses, a single candle in a small glass holder, and a daffodil he'd picked from the edge of the parking lot in a juice-glass vase. He clumsily wrapped Becca's gifts from Rome in a double layer of white tissue paper. He spent a few minutes sprucing up the living room and its upholstered chair and couch. He then changed into a pair of dark dress pants and a neat if well-worn light blue shirt. By the time Becca tapped at the door shortly after dark, he had his feet solidly planted on North Carolina turf and his heart tightly bound in love.

He opened the door and she stepped into the room with a bulging book bag over her right shoulder and a stack of a half-dozen books cradled in her left arm and tucked against her chest. She dropped the stack of books on Zach's coffee table and he helped her slide the heavy book bag off her shoulder. She wore baggy gray sweatpants and a gray sweatshirt over a white T-shirt with its crewneck collar showing above the sweatshirt. Her long blond hair, still damp from a shower, was woven into a single braid tied at the tip with a rubber band. Wisps of hair had worked loose from the braid and the hair pulled tightly over her ears and head, giving her the appearance of one busy but not quite harried, radiating grace through stress. Her appearance reminded Zach of Botticelli's Zipporah, daughter of Jethro the Midiannite, from the Moses Cycle fresco on the wall of the Sistine Chapel, the image of all the myriad artworks he'd seen in Rome that had held his attention the longest, and for obvious reason. Becca could've donned a queen's robes or Cinderella's gown of finest satin and he would've found her no lovelier than she was at that moment.

Becca slid off her field coat and dropped it on the couch then turned to Zach. "I'm beat."

"Long day for you."

"You don't know the half of it."

"Sit down. Rest."

She flopped down on the couch. "But only for a minute," she said. "Too much work to do."

"Some wine?"

"No way—I'd be asleep in two minutes."

"Tea then?"

"That sounds great."

When Zach returned with the cup of hot tea, she was curled up on the couch asleep. He knew she'd be furious if he let her sleep, but he took a moment to gaze down on the loveliest sight he'd ever seen or ever would see, the beginning and end of his life's search. Then he set the cup on the coffee table, knelt beside the couch, and kissed her lightly on the lips.

She opened her eyes inches from his. "My prince," she whispered and smiled.

"I wish I could've let you sleep."

She grinned. "You know when the best time for sleep is?"

He nodded and they said in unison, "Later."

She sat up, cradled the teacup between her two hands, and sipped it lightly. "Thanks, Zach."

He sat in the armchair that was perpendicular to the end of the couch, retrieved the three gifts from the end table, and handed them to her.

"You shouldn't have."

"I should have and did."

She opened the first. It was a hardcover copy of a Henry James novel, The Europeans, in Italian. Becca opened the book and laughed loudly, the best sound Zach had heard since returning home. "How am I going to read this?"

"You've had two years of Italian."

"Maybe good for ordering dinner, but reading a novel? Henry James?" She laughed again.

"A challenge," Zach said. "So when we go together, you can take care of me."

"Well, when you put it like that—." She set the book aside.

The second gift was a silk scarf in a burgundy paisley print. "This is gorgeous."

"The nicest I could afford, from a boutique in Piazza Navona."

"Thank you, but you better not have spent your lunch money."

"Spam from now on."

Then she opened the small box. It contained a two-inch tall crucifix—a silver Jesus hanging from a walnut cross. She held it to the light of the table lamp.

"From the gift shop at the top of the Dome of St. Peter's," Zach said. "And blessed by the Pope."

Becca nodded. "I can use all the help I can get."

"That'll bring it."

She set the gifts and the crumpled paper to one side, rose and took one step toward Zach, and sat on his lap. "Thank you, Prince." She kissed him and hugged his face.

"Hungry?"

"Starving."

"Give me about ten minutes."

Becca slid off his lap and back to the couch. "I'll polish off this James novel while I wait."

"There will be a test, all in Italian, later tonight."

"I'll be ready," Becca replied; but she was already unpacking her book bag to work on her History thesis.

When he called Becca to the table, the lights of the kitchen were off and the table's lone candle lit, the wine glasses were full (Becca's with ice water, his with French burgundy leftover from making the entrée weeks before), and the food—beef burgundy over noodles and steamed broccoli tossed in fresh lemon juice on warmed plates, tossed salad on salad plates, and crusty French rolls in a bread basket—was carefully and lovingly arranged at the two place settings.

Becca standing in the entry to the kitchen gasped at the sight. "Zach, what did you do?"

He laughed. "For you," then added, "and for me." He thought a moment then said, "For us."

"I feel so underdressed."

"Not in Zach's Restaurant." He came around to her side of the table and pulled out the stool for her to sit, which she did with a grace befitting the setting.

Becca said, "What did I do to deserve this? What did I do to deserve you?"

Zach smiled. "Let me show you something I learned in Rome." He retrieved a saucer from the kitchen counter and in the candlelight put a sprinkle of salt in the middle then added a stream of olive oil from a flask at the far end of the table then poured alongside the oil a small amount of wine vinegar from a matching flask. He took two narrow-tined forks, wedged the handle of one between the first and second fingers of his right hand and the handle of the other between the third and fourth fingers, and proceeded to rapidly spin the paired forks in the oil and vinegar on the plate. His hand spun so fast that the tines of the forks were a blur. He stopped spinning the forks and added some coarsely ground black pepper and some freshly grated parmesan cheese from finger bowls on the counter then resumed spinning the forks in the mixture. About a minute later, he set the forks on the counter and held the saucer in the candlelight for Becca's inspection. The mix of distinct ingredients had become a homogenized salad dressing.

"Voila," he said. "A cracked-pepper and parmesan vinaigrette for Mademoiselle." He poured half of it on Becca's salad and the balance on his. "Sorry about the French—a week in Rome and it's still the only Romance language I'll venture."

"That's amazing. Where'd you learn that?"

"At Al Passetto, the nicest restaurant we went to. We ate there twice. They have apprentice waiters that do nothing except prepare salad dressings to order at tableside. They have a cart with all sorts of things to add—minced anchovies, chopped scallions, ground hazelnuts, sun-dried tomatoes, capers, various mustards, several kinds of honey: you name it, they'll mix it into your dressing before your eyes."

"And they taught you?"

"Well, I watched carefully then taught myself this afternoon—with vegetable oil and cider vinegar. Just as well you missed the practice round—oil everywhere!"

"Well, I'm impressed."

"Good. You're supposed to be."

Becca raised her wineglass of water. "To learning new skills."

"With old hands."

They clinked goblets, drank, then ate.

The silence that settled over the candlelit meal was portentous for both, but in divergent ways. For Zach, the silence seemed to encircle and affirm the glimpses of perfection he'd seen in Rome and the glimpses of perfection he'd shaped with Becca the two weekends prior to his trip. For Becca, the silence reminded her of the nearly paralytic emptiness she'd felt in Zach's absence, an emptiness and dependence that undermined everything else in her life she valued and needed. She didn't want to and didn't expect to give Zach up (such a sudden change, sampled last month, had produced a core tremor all its own), but she knew she couldn't give up everything else for him.

"Did you get my note?" she said finally, her plate empty but while still nibbling on a crust of roll.

Zach nodded. "I'm sorry you were so lonely."

"I wasn't lonely, Zach. I had my parents and Sarah and Katie. I had plenty of company. But I was lost on the inside. I don't want to be that lost; I can't be that lost."

"I certainly don't want you to suffer like that."

"I know you don't. Please help me find a balance that works."

Zach felt something in his heart give way but chose to ignore it. "I'll try," he said, then began to clear their plates.

Becca stood to help.

When they'd finished clearing the table and setting the plates and silverware in the sink, Zach said, "Dessert is a surprise."

"As if the rest wasn't?"

"More surprise then, but it'll take a minute."

"That's O.K.—give me a chance to digest all that dinner."

"Want more tea?"

She said, "Please. And can I clear the table and spread my books out here? I'd like to be near you while I'm studying."

He wrapped his arms loosely around her waist. "You mean I won't be too much of a distraction."

"Not tonight, Mister Chef par Excellence."

He kissed her then stepped back. "Bring your books in here."

Becca turned on the overhead light, blew out the candle and set it and the daffodil on the kitchen counter, then carefully folded the tablecloth.

Zach boiled water in a pot and made her another cup of tea.

Becca gathered the books and notebooks she needed from the couch, spread them out on the table, and resumed her notetaking.

Zach set her cup of tea on the only spot on the table big enough to hold it. "That's a lot of books."

"This is just for the History thesis. I've got my German Lit paper and two other term papers to finish in a month, not to mention the trip to the marine lab."

He shrugged. "It'll all work out."

"Easy for you to say—I can't just sit down and have this beautiful concise eloquent prose come out. Writing is hard for me."

"Can I help?"

"You can't write my papers, Zach. You helped give me some ideas. The rest is on me."

"How about I finish dessert?"

She smiled. "That'll help for sure."

As Zach hand-whipped the heavy cream with a wire whisk in a chilled bowl, a dark foreboding settled over him—the foreboding he'd felt a few minutes earlier, the foreboding he'd felt on first seeing Becca the night before, the foreboding that seemed to lurk ever near despite their recent joy, a foreboding all the darker for the brilliance of that which it threatened. By the time the cream had finally thickened in the glass bowl, he was in a deep trough. All the fears he'd held at bay these past few weeks had regrouped in a powerful counterattack and overrun his hopes, his ever tenuous grasp on optimism. His spirit was suddenly as dense and dark as the bittersweet-chocolate hazelnut mousse over which he spooned the fresh whipped cream.

As he stood before Becca with a bowl of mousse in each hand and waited for her to clear space on the table, he wondered what had changed. She was still what she had been from the start—cause and vessel for every ounce of love he would ever have to give. That certainty remained unshaken in him. But just now that love seemed more burden than blessing, more sacrifice than solace.

Becca looked closely at the mousse he set before her. "Is this what I think it is?"

Zach managed a grin. "Try it."

She did, then jumped out of her seat and ran around the table and gave him a hug and mousse-fringed kiss. "Stan's bittersweet-chocolate hazelnut mousse! I can't believe you got the recipe and made it!"

"What are friends for?" he sighed.

"Just for me."

She gave him another kiss then returned to her stool to savor each spoonful of her surprise treat. When she'd finished by licking the rim of the bowl (acceptable in Zach's Restaurant), she said, "You're the best."

He nodded. "Thank you."

"Is it O.K. if I get back to studying?"

"Study away." He collected the bowls and carried them toward the sink.

"And it's O.K. if I don't spend the night?"

Zach turned in front of the sink and faced her from across the kitchen. "Why can't you?"

"I told you—I've got too much to do."

"You've got to sleep. Why not here? Your clothes are here, your books."

"Even if all we do is sleep, it's not the same as sleeping by myself."

"Why not?"

"I'm too wrapped up in you. It doesn't leave room for anything else."

"And that's bad?"

"Zach," she shouted. "What have I been telling you? Yes, it's bad for everything else; and it's bad for me."

"What if it's what I need?"

Becca's eyes suddenly lost their anger and revealed the sadness that seemed now their natural state, a condition that had been barely held at bay through concerted effort these last twenty-four hours. "Please don't put that question before me, Zach," she said, little more than a whisper.

Zach stood a moment in silence gazing at those eyes, at what they spelled to them both. Then he turned toward the sink to wash their dishes.

Becca, her heart heavy, tried to refocus on the mountain of work before her.

After washing and drying their dishes and putting them away, Zach did his best not to disturb her. He went to his desk in the bedroom and reviewed his reading assignments and notes for class the next day. He pulled out his journal and wrote the entry for the last day in Rome. He went through the various souvenirs he'd collected on the trip, and set some on his desk (the limited edition Vatican coin the Monsignor had given him, the golf-ball sized marble chip he'd picked up in the Forum) while storing others on the bookshelves or in the closet. While going through these materials, he discovered that his 35 mm camera had one picture left unexposed in its roll of thirty-six exposures.

He walked into the kitchen and touched Becca lightly on the shoulder.

She jumped at his touch. "You scared me."

"Sorry." He held out the camera. "I've got one picture left. Can I take it of you?"

"I must look terrible."

Zach circled around in front of her and studied her face. "Nope. Don't see any terrible there."

She looked doubtful.

"Besides, I don't have any pictures of you."

Becca shrugged. "If you insist."

Zach smiled. "I insist." He backed a few feet into the kitchen to get a clear shot.

Becca slid her stack of books to one side, sat up straight as she could manage in the stool with its short back, and stared calmly ahead at Zach, never once touching her hair or face.

Zach brought her into focus, got her face centered in the frame, and snapped the picture. He stepped forward, kissed her on the forehead, and said, "Thank you." He wound the film as he walked around the table toward the bedroom.

Becca nodded as he walked past then returned to her notetaking.

It was 1:00 AM when Becca finally closed her books and gathered up her papers spread across the table. She packed her books and notes into her book bag then carefully laid her gifts on top of the books and closed the zippered flap. They'd hardly spoken since dinner, not out of overt anger or misunderstanding but in fatigue—from the long day and the highly emotional several weeks they'd had—and for lack of anything to add, at present anyway, to what had already been said. Besides, Becca had needed to concentrate on her studies and, truth be told, Zach needed to give some attention to his schoolwork as well.

Zach emerged from the bedroom and followed Becca into the living room in his bare feet. He helped her put on her coat then hoisted the book bag onto her shoulder.

"Can I leave those here?" she asked, pointing to the stack of books on his coffee table.

"Sure."

"I'll get them later in the week."

"No problem." He opened the door on the cool and cloudy night.

Becca hesitated a minute in the doorway, looking out into the night. She took a deep breath and released it slowly in a quiet sigh then faced Zach. "I wish I could stay, Zach. I really do."

Zach nodded.

She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. "Thank you for the gifts, the wonderful dinner, and for your love and patience." She tried to smile in the face of his neutral stare but couldn't quite pull it off. So she turned and left.

As he closed the door in her wake, Zach surrendered any hope of finding a lesser love that might prove sustainable to them both. He would give her all his love, always, whether she accepted it or not. But he would not give her any less; he couldn't.

They saw each other for dinner and a movie the following weekend, and Becca picked up her remaining books. They had a light supper together in his apartment a few days later. Then Becca went on her Marine Biology field trip for five days. Then she had a bad cold and stayed with her parents in Greensboro to recover. They talked about getting together but never found a time that worked—Becca was busy, Zach also. They didn't see each other except in class for over a month.

When the roll of Rome pictures came back from the developer several weeks later, Zach opened the mailer while standing just inside the door to his apartment. He flipped through the snapshots of Barton and the photos of Roman monuments and Italian landscapes with fond recollection. The photo of Becca at the bottom of the stack caught him by surprise. He'd forgotten he'd taken it.

He gazed at the picture for long minutes—those bottomless eyes, his permanent calling and purpose, so distant and sad. He slipped the picture into a plain white envelope, sealed the flap, and didn't open it for decades. In all those years of recalling the image of those eyes burned into his heart, he always saw them as a symbol of his sacrifice and loss. It wasn't until he unsealed the envelope and looked again that he saw the imprint of his guilt and shame.

A Dream—Lost Food

I recall now that I acted the dream, physically performed in response to what my subconscious was telling me.

It started like this: plain sleep slowly filling with imagery—normal dream, harmless. But at some point the play got serious. Somewhere nearby, hidden, there was a message that would save my life. That the message was from you, I was absolutely certain. But how and when it arrived was a mystery. And it was somewhere near—in the apartment, probably in the bedroom, maybe even within reach.

Here my body entered the fray. I know now what I did, remember the acts, but was not conscious of what I was doing at the time. I turned on the lone light, threw back the sheets, and searched the bed. I believe I spoke then, simple questions like "Where?" or "How?" and a plea "Help me." No response. Then I thought you were somewhere near and frantically searched the rooms. No luck.

I paused to pee, perhaps hoping that act would yank me back to reality. But thirty seconds and a toilet flush later, I was back in the bedroom searching your message. My total ignorance of its contents made my search all the more desperate.

Then I knew—my books. I went to my desk, adjusted the light, and leafed through every page of every book I had there, sure your message was hidden somewhere in those pages. Why the books? And, of course, no message.

I was near full consciousness by then, my waking mind struggling with lingering dream to claim rights to my exhausted body. Neither side won. I switched off the light, returned to bed, finally found dreamless sleep.

Your message remains hidden. Or does it? I spent a frantic half hour in blind and vulnerable search for something I knew you'd given me that had been misplaced—message enough.

2

After helping move her bed, dining table and chairs, and sofa into the trailer, Zach stayed on for a spaghetti dinner with Allison and Sue. It was a warm and bright Saturday in early April and the pungent odor of the freshly plowed cornfield across the gravel road drifted through the trailer's open windows.

"Took me and Sue to find your farm country," Allison said to Zach.

"Better hope your farmer doesn't fertilize with manure," Zach countered.

"Oh, no," Sue exclaimed.

"Chicken or cow manure, Sue—what's your preference?" Allison teased, directing a wink toward Zach.

"Or human," Zach added. "I read where they're spraying sewage-plant sludge on county fields."

"Can they do that?"

"Long as it's not for human food."

"That's just great!" Sue said. "Move out in the country to get covered in shit."

"Joys of country living," Zach said.

"Makes my cramped apartment in town sound better all the time."

Allison gave Sue a light hug as she drained the cooked spaghetti in to the sink. "Don't listen to Zach. He's just trying to scare you."

"I'll bring you both clothespins if it gets too bad."

"Thanks a lot," Sue said as she delivered plastic plates of spaghetti topped with store-bought sauce.

Allison pulled the foil-wrapped garlic bread out of the oven and set it on the table. Zach opened the bottle of red wine he'd brought as a house-warming gift and poured the juice glasses full. The three sat at the table surrounded by cardboard boxes—some empty, some still loaded—and ate the simple meal.

Both Allison and Sue grilled him about his Rome trip—what was the food like? did he see the Pieta, the Colosseum? were the people nice? was it expensive? Though he'd returned less than three weeks before, Rome seemed a distant memory, almost a dream, detached from his current life and needs. He remembered all the events and places quite vividly, but as one might remember a dream—with feeling but no essence, no substance. Of course he didn't tell them any of this, gave them the stock answers—it was fun, beautiful, captivating. Part of him believed what he said.

Also during dinner he found out more about Allison's trip to the basketball tournament in Kentucky. Avery had advanced through the first round and played Kentucky on their home court in the second round, winning by one point when an Avery player blocked the last-second shot of Kentucky's star. But after that draining victory, a deflated Avery lost in the next round with a trip to the Final Four on the line. Allison and all the Avery fans that had made the trip had a very glum ride home on the chartered busses. Zach couldn't help but wonder what sorts of consolations might've been exchanged between Allison and her cheerleader "friend" during that long ride home, or what the earlier victory celebration in the hotel room might have included. In some ways, what Allison had experienced during her spring break trip carried more weight and power in Zach's heart than all of the rich experiences he'd had in Rome. By the end of the meal, despite the spring day and his garrulous company, Zach felt quite empty inside.

They all helped clear the table, but then Sue shooed them out of the cramped kitchen. "This is a one-person sink," she said. "You two go for a walk and find out what kind of manure they're going to spread on the field."

Allison looked at Zach over Sue's shoulder.

Zach shrugged.

Sue said, "Go on. I'll finish up here."

Allison said, "Yes, Mom!"

Sue wagged her finger at her. "And don't you forget it!" but backed her words with a generous smile.

The sun had set as they crossed the gravel drive littered with their three vehicles parked at odd angles for unloading. They strolled out into the straight and dusty road that ran off into the distance in both directions. Allison let Zach choose and he immediately picked west, into the glowing sunset. She nodded but wasn't sure why—for his choice or his certainty or some other reason. They fell into an easy silent stride, both looking at the road rather than the bright horizon, separated by about a foot of cooling damp spring air.

"Barton doing O.K.?" Allison finally asked.

"He's fine. He has a new friend."

"Oh?"

"Yeah—Gerald, a bank executive from Axton."

"That's news."

"Just since Rome—met him at a party, now they're almost inseparable."

"How do you feel about that?"

"How I feel doesn't have much to do with it."

"Has everything to do with you."

He stopped in the road to look at her. She took one more stride before pausing and turning toward him. Her eyes, clearly visible in the twilight's luminous pink glow, showed no trace of malice, were in fact quite attentive and concerned. "Barton and I are fine. Everything we had before we still have, just a little less time for it is all."

She nodded. "I'm glad to hear that. You seem a little down."

"I do?"

She laughed. "Zach, I've known you forever. I might know you better than you know yourself. You're a whole lot more subdued than you were before you went away."

"Just busy," he said. "All the end of year papers and deadlines and functions—kind of snuck up on me."

She nodded. "Been a long winter."

"A long year."

They resumed walking. An evening star, surely Venus, grew steadily brighter as the western sky dimmed. For the longest time, it was the only light in the sky, its brilliance magnified for its lack of competition in the whole cloudless blue dome unfurled unimpeded above them—no lights or buildings or vehicles visible (the trailer hid behind a hedge of cedars behind them in the middle distance). That star seemed simultaneously companion and destination as they walked on. To their right a low mist formed over the fresh plowed field; to their left, the trees of the cutover woods became first skeletons silhouetted against gray horizon then were slowly knit together by the dusk to form a solid wall of black beneath the dimming sky. Gradually other stars began to appear—behind them at first, then overhead, finally in the sky ahead, arrayed around the brilliant evening star.

It was unclear how far they'd walked when they finally turned around—surely a mile, maybe farther. It was so dark now they could only discern the road by the light of the stars showing a slightly duller shade of slate splitting the denser dark of the trees, the fields. Allison reached out and found Zach's near hand, gently twined her fingers around his. Zach wondered about the meaning of this simple gesture. Was it for her comfort or his? He realized it didn't matter. He was just happy to have her touch, feel her skin, however cool.

"Neither one of us will ever be alone," she said.

He waited a long time before acknowledging her words. "I didn't know it would hurt so much."

"Maybe it won't always."

He didn't know whether to hope for that or not.

3

He met Barton at his house in mid-April for a semester-end teacher conference to be followed by a light dinner. The academic part of the meeting combined his recitation of "Lycidas" for the Milton class and a final review of his long story for the writing class. Barton was meeting with each member of his writing class to review their submission and give them their final grade. Most of these meetings took place at Barton's office on campus, more for the convenience of the students than for any concerns about privacy or propriety. Several other students in this year's seminar had their meetings at Barton's house, and within a few years Barton would begin the practice of hosting an annual end-of-class party at his house for all his writing students.

Zach easily and comfortably recited the whole of "Lycidas," all one hundred ninety-three lines taking about twelve minutes in his deliberate cadence. He stared at a spot on the pine paneled wall above Barton's head for most of the recitation, not wishing to break his concentration or his reverie by meeting Barton's eyes or focusing on any of the countless distractions in and around the room. But he lowered his gaze for the final stanza and said the words directly to Barton's attentive stare (who'd stopped following in the text on his knees early on, knowing the poem by heart himself and knowing in that same heart that Zach knew it cold):

"Thus sang the uncouth Swain to th'Oaks and rills,

While the still morn went out with Sandals gray;

He touch't the tender stops of various Quills,

With eager thought warbling his Doric lay:

And now the Sun had stretch't out all the hills,

And now was dropt into the Western bay;

At last he rose, and twitch't his Mantle blue:

Tomorrow to fresh Woods, and Pastures new."

Barton clapped twice slowly then offered his standard rewrite of the last two lines:

"At last he rose and twitched, his mantle blew,

Tomorrow to fresh beds, and raptures new."

Zach tried to laugh but could only manage, "Maybe not Milton's true intent."

"Don't be so sure—twenty-nine years old, toast of the town, the world and more than a few willing bodies laid out before him: he was at the top of his game and well aware of it."

"So I've got a few years left to hit my stride?"

Barton studied him closely. "Yes—maybe, probably. Don't squander the opportunity."

"No chance of that."

Barton nodded slowly, then closed the Milton text and set it aside on the couch. He grasped the folder containing Zach's story and handed it to him over the coffee table.

Before he opened the folder, Zach asked, "My recitation satisfactory?"

"You know the answer to that."

"I'd like for you to tell me please, Professor Cosgrove."

Barton nodded. "Mr. Sandstrom, that recitation of John Milton's "Lycidas" was the best I've ever heard." He paused, then added with a grin, "Except for one."

"And whose would that be?"

"Why, some chap named Cosgrove," he said in his finest Oxford accent.

Zach shook his head and tossed Robert Frost at his immodest teacher:

He thought he kept the universe alone

For all the voice in answer he could wake

Was but the mocking echo of his own

From some tree-hidden cliff across the lake.

Barton shook his head but played along:

"Some morning from the boulder-broken beach

He would cry out on life, that what it wants

Is not its own love back in copy speech,

But counter-love, original response."

And Zach said:

"And nothing ever came of what he cried."

He stopped there, less than halfway through the poem.

Barton looked at him closely. "You O.K.?"

Zach exhaled a brittle high-pitched laugh. "Never finer. How'd we get on Frost, anyway? I thought this was a Milton class?"

"It was a Milton recitation transitioning to a short-story conference before you brought old Robert into the fray."

"Oh, yes—sorry." He opened the manila folder and looked over the corrected short story. It was a highly stylized story about a man who camped along the Sweetwater River in the Wyoming sage wilderness and who gets stranded by a late blizzard. It was as much about the place, the wilderness, as it was about the human drama that unfolds in its midst. There were very few red marks or comments on this story, and the circled red "A" on the last page was accompanied by a simple but deeply gratifying phrase—send it out. Zach looked up. "Really?"

Barton nodded with professional seriousness. "It's a very fine story, and I don't think it needs any more work. So I suggest you look to place it. I've got some ideas in that regard, if you're interested."

"Of course."

"I'll get the names and addresses before you leave."

"Thank you."

"Any questions about my comments or the grade?" He let a little smile leak out at this last.

Now Zach could release his full grin of relief and pride. "None at all. After last time, I was expecting the worst."

"You did a great job, Zach—not only with the story, but with the two classes and your appropriate level of involvement in the discussions. I didn't expect any less, but you fulfilled my high expectations, and I thank you."

Zach nodded. "Good teacher."

"In both directions."

After the requisite late-day cocktails shared in the living room, they adjourned to the downstairs dining table for Barton's barebones dinner of store-bought French bread pizzas enlivened with generous toppings of anchovies, capers, black olives, and feta cheese. In the dim recesses of that basement cave lit only by the seven candles of the centerpiece Menorah, their relationship donned another of its many hues—that of fraternal confidantes. Though Barton shared no more details of his affair with Gerald than Zach had shared of his with Becca—that is to say, only the basic outline of their activities and the broadest summary of associate emotions—it was immediately clear to Zach that this young romance was already in the midst of a tempest, something to do with Gerald's ex-wife who might not be an "ex" after all.

"So you don't know if he's actually divorced?"

"Truth be told, I know precious little about his life outside of these four walls."

Barton's typically evocative phrasing had the accidental (or intentional?) effect of planting in Zach's mind the deep impression of these familiar walls vibrating with both the moans and the raised voices of Barton and his still faceless paramour. The allusion disquieted Zach, but he quickly accepted that this was a just (and thus presumably conscious) return on the many painful images his rollercoaster romances had heaped on the not entirely objective Barton. In both cases, their rapacious imaginations filled in the details their tact and privacy had foregone, more vivid and engrossing than if they'd actually shared the graphic accounts aloud. "So what are you going to do?"

"Be pissed for another twelve hours, or maybe just two, then call and ask him to come over."

That was another image Zach would've been happy to live without. "Good luck."

"Life would be so much simpler without romantic love."

"But not near so interesting."

Barton gazed at Zach through the flickering dance of the Menorah's candles. "Why couldn't you have been wired differently?"

Zach sometimes wondered the same thing but said, "Why couldn't you have been born a woman?"

Barton chuckled and paraphrased a line from "Lycidas"—"Ay me, we fondly dream!"

Zach nodded. "Sometimes it does seem a dream."

"When we wake up, I'll meet you on the front porch and we'll just sit and watch the cars go by."

"And talk about the good old days."

"And all those past loves."

Zach cooed assent. "I'll provide the rockers."

"I'll bring the beer."

"You don't even like beer."

"Maybe I will by then."

Dover

A week after his last exam and three days after graduation, where he'd gone to bid farewell to a handful of departing acquaintances—including the still ravishing but now aloof Megan with her face already turned toward new opportunities and conquests—Zach loaded the truck with a mix of work clothes and a couple of books in progress—A Passage to India, Ulysses—and made the twelve-hour drive to Dover for a ten-day stint on the farm to see his family (it'd been nearly a year) and help with planting. During the stay he enjoyed his mother's delicious home cooking (and was more than happy to suppress his instinct to offer suggestions or assistance), mingled politely with the dozens of relatives and friends invited to a Sunday afternoon picnic in honor of the prodigal son's return, partook of more than a few beers with Justin in the newly refurbished milking parlor and with Mark (also fresh-released from college for summer break) in various bars around town, and visited some of his old haunts (including both the turnout in front of Allison's family's house where he would sit at night and wait for her bedroom light to go out, and the restored nineteenth century village where they'd been married three summers before).

But mainly he reveled, immersed his body and consciousness, in his long days—often ten or more hours at a stretch—on the tractor plowing and harrowing the river-bottom fields to ready them for planting in field corn. The rhythms he'd learned in years of doing these same tasks in these same fields—empirically unchanged loamy soil, recalcitrant rocky ledges, brambly hedgerows—before he was married returned within minutes of first lowering the plow mounted on its hydraulic three-point hitch, pulling the tractor's hand throttle to wide-open, releasing the clutch and hearing the engine's throaty roar as it pulled against the three-bottom plow's eight-inch deep cut of soil. The mixed odors of diesel exhaust and tilled soil joined with the engine's purr and the cloudless sky to ease him into a suspended timeless trance where the world beyond the borders of the current field was the dream, the elusive and ephemeral construct, and the sun and sky, soil and steel, were the only realities, insistent and sure.

Out of this inverted ordering of his world—the present become the past, the real surreal, the trance definitive—Zach discovered a single life-changing truth: he'd been given everything he needed for the rest of his life, no more imperative to search. This deeply gratifying understanding provided a few minutes, maybe a few hours (how did one measure time in a timeless state?) of calm and consolation, until the trance yielded another ponderous realization: he had no idea how to use this life's store of sacred gifts. How should he honor the perfect love he'd been given in Becca (whatever the constraints she'd placed on it)? How was he to fulfill his lifelong calling to "protect" (he'd not forgot the verb from his prose poem last summer) Barton? How was he to continue his marital vows to Allison outside the condition of cohabitation? Perhaps most elusive of all, if he'd glimpsed the full power of art, dimly perceived its direct conduit to God and faith, how was he to live within that knowledge, balance the full force of that gift with his life's, his body's, his heart's equally consummate demands? Was Barton's explicit advice and implicit model of subordinating the heart to honor fully the art the best guide for him? Or was there another way to reconcile these seemingly divergent goals? Were they divergent? If not, where in God's name did they meet?

His current surroundings and the abundant gifts and experiences of his past year—indeed, of his past three years, however traumatic and challenging they'd been—offered ample and unquestioned evidence of the creator's love and deliverance. But unless he died this day, on this tractor turning earth (Fred Clark did have a heart attack while plowing—the tractor had gone straight as a line into the woods till it hit a tree too big to dislodge and its tires had churned twin holes in the soil then rested on its axle and plowed on in place till its fuel ran dry) he'd be confronting new challenges tomorrow and the next day and the next, all versions of how to use his prodigious unearned gifts—permanent question for the enveloping sky, for his yearning heart.

2

Dear Zach,

I'd forgotten how lonely this hill could be. So now I guess you just can't leave (for more than brief stints, anyway). The trees and the hawks and the fish in the pond won't have it, not to mention this one forlorn soul rattling around in his too quiet cave.

In all my hours of solitude, I've been steadily retyping the final draft of the novel, incorporating all your careful observations and corrections. If only I'd had your meticulous eye on my previous manuscripts . . .

I attended the local Neighborhood Watch meeting the other night—one burly pistol-packing detective and eight white-haired little old ladies and yours truly. I guess you can tell how much fun I had. The video-taped (Fanny Barton had a Betamax—can you believe it?) enactment of a rural break-in managed to thoroughly stir up all my old anxieties, fears only partially numbed by the endless inane questions of the white hairs. I kept myself moderately distracted by the unsettling vision of stocking-capped thieves breaking into our houses while we were all safely confined in this one place. I even raised that question to the detective and he raised an eyebrow and said, "Better not give them any ideas!" I thought but didn't say—if we know it, so do they. But, thank God, not that night. I returned to a still secure house with my armload of guides to protecting my home and possessions and a headful of new and old fears.

Went alone to see The Blue Lagoon. It is, as you predicted, fuzzy filmed trite phrased softcore porn. Despite all that it was easy on the eyes, and I left with the thought that every Milton student ought to see it—it's the best depiction yet of innocents in Eden (and such lovely loving bodies!).

I've not yet made good on my threat to take a solitary jog around the field. Those few pounds hard-earned in Rome are still glued to my middle but so is the arthritis in my knees. It'll take your not so gentle nudging (try drill sergeant's barking!) to get me off my duff and around that field (and if I collapse in mid-circuit, you'll carry me home, right?).

Dottie was here yesterday for her weekly scrubbing and conversation, and at some point she looked up the hill toward the field and said, "That be a nice spot for a little garden. You should ask"—she pronounced it axe—"Mr. Sandstrom." So I'm axing—maybe too late for this year (or is it? ask your dad if he thinks we could squeeze a tomato or two out of this long growing season); but if not this year, keep it in mind for next spring.

It's over with Gerald. You'd probably gathered we were on the outs before you left, but it's official now. If I can only collect the $497 he owes me, I'll wash my hands of the whole affair. If I don't get a check in the mail by next week, I guess I'll have to write a terse letter. Or should I just chalk it up as an uncollectable debt? Now there's a story title—Uncollectable Debts. It might need to be a collection of stories, with all the sad tales I have to share. (By the way, that title is mine till further notice—don't get any ideas!)

Not a very cheerful letter, is it? It's the sort of doom and gloom missive I would've penned in my homesick days at Oxford then torn up and tried again. But this time I'll take a deep breath and send it on, trusting you to sift through these ashes and find the glowing ember beneath, well summarized in earlier words from Dottie: Look like the Lord just sent us Zach!

Hurry back!

Yours,

Barton

3

Zach and Justin finished milking (Justin did the milking, Zach did his best to help without impeding the new routines in the upgraded parlor) after 10 PM and were bone-tired. But Mark cajoled and pleaded and goaded them into trudging out to the paved silage pad (the silage pile all but gone now, fed out over the long winter and early spring) and its basketball hoop mounted on a pole at one end of the asphalt. Mark had spent most of the afternoon dragging out the extension cords and changing the burnt out and broken floodlight bulbs that lit the pad for nocturnal silage distribution or, in this case, basketball playing.

Mark had recruited Billy from up the street with the bribe of free beer so that they could play two-on-two. Mark assigned himself to Zach's team, leaving Billy with Justin. Justin didn't much care for that alignment—"You'll kick our ass!" he said emphatically. But he had not once since the cradle ever surrendered to Zach's dominance, no matter what the odds; and he wasn't going to start now. "We at least get the ball first?" he asked belligerently. "Got to shoot for it," Mark replied. "What the fuck!" Justin said. He grabbed the ball and tossed it without looking over his head. It struck the backboard hard and went cleanly through the hoop. "Guess you get the ball first," Mark laughed.

Zach and Justin guarded each other. Though Zach had several inches on Justin and much more finesse and skill, Justin's profligate beer consumption had endowed him with a sizable increase in mass since his high school days, most of it still in the form of muscle. He used this advantage in weight to back Zach down under the basket time and again, leading to frequent easy hoops from short range. Zach, when he had the ball, repeatedly wove mesmerizing circles around and through and over his slow-footed brother, leaving Justin gasping for breath and cursing. Much of the time Mark and Billy just stood to the side and watched the show being put on by the pig-headed pair—lanky Zach and bull-necked Justin—laughing and cheering and offering play-by-play dialogue.

Justin's team trailed by one, 21-20, in their game to twenty-one (win by two). Justin had the ball and again backed Zach under the hoop. But this time, Zach waited for Justin to begin his motion to shoot and suddenly spun around him and stole the ball as he went up for the shot. Zach dribbled backwards as a glaring Justin closed in. Zach waited till Justin was upon him then rose up smoothly and swished the shot from twenty feet out. Justin shook his head, Mark laughed, Billy yelled for a foul on Zach (when he'd stolen the ball) though they all knew there'd been no foul—ball game over.

Justin pulled two beers out of the cooler then walked over to Zach. "At least I can beat you in beer drinking." He handed him one then threw his free arm over Zach's shoulder. "Avery could've used you against Purdue."

Zach laughed. "I would've been buried so far down on the bench the coach would've forgotten my name."

Justin stared at him and his voice turned serious. "Why didn't you try out?"

"More important things to do," he responded. He'd not once questioned that choice, had actually forgotten it.

"Like what?"

Zach knew he couldn't answer that question. "Things," he said.

Just then, Mark pulled the plug on the lights. Night instantly returned, and with it the stars, the sharp scent of fermenting silage, the lowing of the herd in the barnyard—the domain of the farm, the distant past.

4

On the first harrowing of the High Street lot he discovered a killdeer nest built since he'd plowed the field four days before. Though undisguised atop a curl of plowed dark soil, he'd have never spotted it from the tractor seat if not for the round-headed mother bird's insistent broken wing act played out in the cut of a nearby furrow. Zach got off the tractor and after a few minutes' searching discovered the nest by looking where the killdeer clearly didn't want him to venture.

It wasn't much of a nest—a few strands of straw in a slight depression in the dirt holding a single speckled beige egg. Much as he wished he could leave the nest undisturbed, the spot was too far into the field to work around. As the bird shrieked desperately and did a more animated version of its broken-wing ruse, he gently scooped the egg and its few pieces of cushioning straw into his hand and cradled it to the edge of the field some twenty feet away. There, well outside the bounds of his plowing, he found what looked to him a nearly identical shallow depression in the soil and gingerly set the egg and straw in that safe pit. Then, trying to ignore the clamoring woeful bird, he climbed back on the tractor and harrowed over the former nest. Each time he passed the spot on his next several circuits, the killdeer went through her same broken-wing act though the place where the nest had been was now level and smooth and empty.

Two days later, on his second and final harrowing before planting, he was greeted by the same bird doing her same convincing act in the same area of the field as before. He got off the tractor and this time didn't have to search long as the nest, now with three eggs, was readily visible atop the dusty level soil, in its former place some twenty feet into the field. Zach shook his head and clenched his teeth and efficiently but carefully picked up the eggs and carried them to the nest he'd established beyond the edge of the field with the bird now abandoning her broken-wing ploy and flying circles close to his head, shrieking all the while. The few strands of straw remained in the depression but no egg or pieces of shell or signs of what he'd left a few days before. He laid the three eggs atop the straw and went back to the tractor and finished prepping the field for planting, blocking out the real bird's protests and pleas whenever he passed near the nest site, and the shrill shrieks echoing in his head long after he'd finished that field and moved on to the next.

Three days later in cloudy and cool pre-dawn grayness, he stopped by the High Street field on his way out of town. He parked the truck at the edge of the road and walked into the vast stillness of the open field blanketed in a thin mist. His dad would plant it later that day if the rain held off. He walked across the loose-tilled earth, his boots leaving shallow prints in the dark soil. The killdeer rose silently off her nest and disappeared into the mist. As he'd known all along, the nest was back in the field, the eggs—four now, including those he'd moved or all new?—in the exact spot of the original nest though far more conspicuous and vulnerable, not only to modern farm equipment but to any passing person or predator. Zach knew his dad wouldn't skip planting the spot, or jog the tractor and the four-rowed planter around it. Justin would have a fit at such a waste of prime and fully prepped soil.

He went to the hedgerow at the edge of the field, broke a branch out of a dead and brittle oak sapling, and carried that stake and pushed it into the soft soil a few feet to the front side (in the direction his dad would be coming with the planter) of the exposed nest. His dad would see the stake, perhaps understand the sign (no doubt with the aid of the highly demonstrative display of the plaintive bird), maybe find a way to straddle the nest with tractor tires, planter tires, and the four steel prows cutting the soil, dropping the tarred seed at six-inch intervals four inches deep, instigating anew this wanton cycle of life.

Then he left through the mist to start his twelve-hour drive home.

North Carolina

Zach extended his right leg out into empty air, his left foot firmly planted on the less than firmly planted pontoon dock that shifted from side to side in the lake's gentle current and the day's soft breeze. He wavered with his leg over the water and considered pulling that leg back to the relative stability of the shifting dock, waiting for things to calm down before trying again.

The uncertainty and new fear made him angry, and he silently resolved to make it this time or fall in trying. He extended his arms straight out to either side, found a new balance in the pose, then slowly but confidently lowered his leg till it touched the side of the wooden rowboat below, then reached his leg out even farther till his right foot was fully and squarely on the middle of the boat's stern seat. The dock was a veritable Rock of Gibraltar compared with the floating, spinning, drifting small boat; and Zach wondered again if this hands-free stride into the rowboat was such a good idea.

But now that his foot was on the stern seat, he had no choice except to go forward—the rowboat would not offer enough stability for him to push off and get his foot back onto the dock. He frowned to himself, shook his head once, and pulled his left leg off the dock and out into the air over the boat. With all his weight suddenly on the stern of the rowboat, it sank low in the water and pitched away from the dock. To keep from falling backwards and maybe cracking his head on the side of the dock, Zach threw his arms and upper body forward toward the front of the boat. He half-fell, half-stepped into the ribbed bottom, spun around on his left foot newly planted in that bottom, and sat with a graceless thud on the oarsman's bench spanning the middle of the boat.

He looked up at Becca standing above him with their cooler and knapsack at her feet and the oarlocks in her hand. He raised his arms and extended his hands palm up as if to say, "No problem."

Becca was still miffed at his refusal to accept her offer of a steadying hand as he'd begun to step off the dock, a refusal she understood to be a token punishment for her scarce presence these last couple months. She shook her head once and frowned. But she couldn't remain long angry at his sheepish grin and finally had to laugh. "If I had a video camera, you'd never live it down."

"What do you mean? Graceful as Baryshnikov."

"On a greased skateboard in an ice storm."

"That's what I meant." He stood on wobbly legs in the rolling boat and took the cooler then the knapsack and set them in the bow. Then he took the oarlocks in his left hand and helped guide and steady Becca with his right as she sat on the edge of the dock then slid slowly down onto the boat's stern seat. Zach couldn't help but note that this was the longest they'd touched—skin to skin—in what? at least ten weeks.

Once securely and comfortably situated, Becca released his hand. "Thank you," she said, before smoothing her khaki shorts and white T-shirt and pulling the band holding her ponytail tighter to her skull. Then she looked up at Zach still standing between her and the oarsman's bench. "Well, onward James."

"At your service, ma'am," Zach said, and sat on the bench, set the oarlocks in their holes, then pulled the long wooden oars up from under the bench and set them in the open notch of the oarlocks.

Becca said, "Whoever thought of taking the oarlocks for security rather than the oars ought to get a raise. Can you imagine trying to get into the boat carrying those oars?"

Zach laughed. "Might be a good balance pole."

"You could've used one," she said.

"Made it, didn't I?"

"Barely." She reached out and slid the rope tether's loop off the hook on the side of the dock.

Zach made two strong paired pulls on the oars and the boat glided away from the dock and out toward the middle of the lake. Zach lifted the oar tips out of the water by pushing the handles down into his lap. The boat, powered by no more than those two pulls and whatever invisible currents and breeze assisted, slid silently across the clear water sparkling in the day's brilliant sun. Zach closed his eyes for a moment, letting his mind float free along with the boat and the day, let the tension ease from the taut muscles in his neck and back, let the sun warm the crown of his head and his shoulders, slowly inhaled the late-spring pond-scented air, then offered the air back in a long slow silent sigh.

When he opened his eyes, Becca was staring at him. "New man?"

He nodded. "Out here, always."

"So I see. Thanks for letting me come along."

"You're welcome."

By then, they were near the middle of this narrow part of the lake. Zach pulled hard on the left oar to turn them right, toward the channel south, into the sun.

Zach often rowed by himself on this man-made lake, a reservoir for the town's drinking water that meandered for miles across the largely deserted fields and woods of what were once farms, fingers of pure blue water extending up former valleys and gullies that once held barns, dirt trails, moonshine stills. Zach's muscles had grown well-accustomed to the whole-body rhythms of rowing—the rower's waltz he called it. His feet would brace against the bottom of the boat, his calves and thighs would contract and push his torso up and back, his arms and shoulders and chest and upper body would lean out at a steep angle toward the bow of the boat, steadily leaning away from vertical and toward horizontal, as his hands holding the oars came toward his face and under his chin, thrusting the far end of the oars submerged in the water in the opposite direction, pushing against the water and propelling the boat forward, even as he was facing the rear of the boat, looking in the direction he'd just come, watching his wake. Then, with the oar handles up close to his chin and the oar tips at maximum extension away from his body, his hands holding the oars would drop toward his lap, lifting the tips out of the water, and he'd reverse the former sequence—raising his upper body toward vertical, loosening his calves and thighs and shifting his body toward the rear of the boat as he extended his arms away from his center of gravity and the oar tips floating above the water angled toward the bow of the boat. Then he'd raise the oar handles up, drop the tips back into the water, tense his thighs and calves, and begin the cycle all over again in this whole body exercise, this rower's waltz.

Over the next twenty minutes, they glided without speaking steadily away from the docks and toward the remote center of the sprawling reservoir. In that long silence Becca again avoided confronting those questions about their relationship that lurked ever at the edges of her consciousness, choosing instead to focus on Zach's body, the graceful interweaving of all his parts with the oars and the boat and the day a more appealing draw than reflection on their past or speculation of their future.

The little boat pushed onward across the broad lake, passing both wild and domesticated animals on the shore and oblivious to their presence—a heron unmoving in the shallows, a deer threading through brush, cattle grazing in a field, two mules stone-still on a hill. In the steady back and forth rocking of the boat and the warmth of the sun on her face and arms and legs, Becca drifted into an mesmerizing daze. She opened her eyes when the rhythms suddenly stopped.

Zach smiled at her from his seat a few feet away, the oar tips in the air, the boat drifting. "Sorry to wake you."

Becca smiled back. "I wasn't asleep, but it does feel like a dream—one huge, warm, seductive dream. And all our own."

"Not many boats out here on weekdays."

"Lucky us."

Zach nodded. "Want to find a quiet cove and tie off for lunch?"

"We could eat right here."

Zach looked in all directions—not a building or boat or human visible. "Nah, too crowded."

Becca laughed. "The recluse speaks."

"Besides, the sun's getting hot. We can find a little shade close to shore."

Becca didn't mind the heat but said, "You're driving."

Two seconds later, he was—pulling hard and fast on the oars this time, stretching his muscles and legs and arms and lungs and heart. The oars groaned in their oarlocks, nearly jumping out of the metal holders at the furthest thrust of each beat. In less than two minutes Zach had them close to shore. He slowed his pace and turned the boat to the left and ran parallel to the shoreline, maybe twenty feet or so out in the water, looking for a suitable cove to tie off in. He remembered an especially picturesque inlet somewhere along here, with a tall weeping willow reaching out over the water in a natural canopy. He'd begun to think he'd already passed it when they glided around a fallen tree and there was the cove with the willow. He turned the boat into the cove, checked the depth of the water, looked for possible submerged hazards, and glanced over his shoulder to gauge the distance to shore. He gave one last gentle thrust to the oars, then lowered them handles down into the bottom of the boat, stood and turned and caught the lowest willow limb as they glided past. Becca handed him the rope, and he tied them off to the limb.

The air was at least ten degrees cooler in the shade, and noticeably less humid. Along the bushes on shore, songbirds jumped from branch to branch, calling back and forth, trying to determine if these intruders were a threat. On a half-submerged log jutting at an angle into the air, a line of pond turtles stretched from where the trunk rose up out of the water to the tip of the log some five feet above the water. As Zach watched, the lead turtle at the end of the log was nudged forward by the line of turtles following and fell to the water's surface with a loud splash. The songbirds were suddenly silent; somewhere farther inland, a crow cawed once then stopped.

Becca looked around the canopied cove in wonder. "So this is why you come out here."

Zach nodded. "One of the reasons."

"It's amazing—like something out of The Lord of the Rings."

"Better."

"How?"

"It's mine."

She looked closely at him. "Thanks for sharing it."

"Plus none of those stupid little people rooting around in the dirt."

Becca laughed. "If you'll hand me the cooler, I'll serve lunch before those little people steal it."

Zach swung the cooler from the bow onto the seat beside her.

She unpacked a small feast—pimento-cheese sandwiches on thick slices of fresh-baked whole-wheat bread, hummus on pita wedges, and banana bread with peanut butter for dessert: and all of it except the peanut butter made by Becca's own hands. She handed Zach a heaping plate, then offered him cola in a bottle or beer in a can. He took the beer.

After quickly consuming more than half of his meal, Zach looked up at her and said, "You'll make someone a hell of a wife."

She bit her bottom lip lightly. "You can cook circles around me, Zach."

"That doesn't change my assertion."

She nodded slowly while nibbling on her sandwich. "Then thanks, I guess."

They ate awhile in silence. Water bugs skittered across the surface of the lake. Another turtle tumbled into the water with a splash.

"It'll be a long time till I marry, if ever."

Zach said, "Why?"

"England this summer, then my last semester, then work somewhere, maybe travel some more."

"Grad school?"

She shook her head. "In what? Nothing I want to learn. Well, actually, everything I want to learn—just no one thing needing more school."

"I know the feeling."

"And you?"

"Marriage? Been there, not looking to go back."

"No, grad school."

"Like you—no one thing worth pursuing."

"Not even your writing?"

"Don't need grad school to write—only gets in the way: an exercise to avoid the loneliness of writing."

"Doesn't sound like fun."

"It isn't."

They finished their lunch in silence. Zach took the plates and rinsed them in the lake, then set them in the sun to dry. Becca repacked the cooler and handed it to Zach to stow in front. Zach sat down again on the oarsman's bench and looked around the cove and fiddled with the oarlocks. Another turtle fell into the water.

"Maybe we should head back," Zach said. "It's a longer row against the current, and I've got dinner plans with Barton and some of his friends tonight." He grabbed the oar handles.

At first Becca nodded agreement, but then stopped and asked, "Can we stay a few more minutes. It's so beautiful and peaceful here."

Zach shrugged. "Sure. No rush." He set the oars back in the bow.

Becca watched him. He kept looking at the shoreline, or up the hill through the dense underbrush, or out toward the lake—anywhere except toward her. "Can we stay a few more minutes with you looking at me and maybe just a little closer?"

He looked directly at her for the first time that day, maybe the first time for weeks. She was the same girl he'd fallen in love with nine months earlier, the same girl he'd poured his whole heart into in a reckless risk his heart was now paying the price for. She was that same girl. What's more, his love for her was as strong as it had been from the start, not one iota diminished. But his heart was deeply bruised, and that pain held him back now. "If I sit on that seat with you, we'll swamp the boat."

"Zach, can't you let me be nice to you? Can't you at least let me try?" She took her beach towel and spread it on the bottom of the boat at her feet. "Sit here please." She pointed at the towel.

He laughed. "You're cute when you're mad."

"Don't push it. Sit!"

He slid off his seat and sat cross-legged on the towel facing her.

"That looks uncomfortable," she said.

"It is."

"Then turn around, stretch your legs out toward the front of the boat, and lean back against me."

He followed her directions, rocking the boat from side to side, but finally getting settled with his legs stretched forward under the middle seat and his back and shoulders leaning against Becca's knees.

Becca cradled his head gently in her hands and eased it onto her lap.

Zach felt all the hurt rising up in him again, pain rising in a crescendo. But he also knew he was helpless to resist. She was Becca; she was the love of his life.

"Zach, I care for you more than anybody in the world. I respect and admire you more than anyone I know. I wish I could be with you all the time."

She lightly massaged his temples as she spoke. He was dying in joy.

"But I can't be with you all the time. Your love, your whole personality, is so big. It takes me over. It's not your fault; it's not my fault; it's who we are. And who we are is too much if we're together too much, if we get too close."

"Not for me."

"Then for me. And I think for you too, even though you won't admit it. You'd throw away everything for me—your scholarship, your writing, your friendship with Barton, your future: all of it."

His eyes stayed closed, but he said, "You're right. I would walk away from all that if it meant being with you."

"That's insane, Zach. People don't do that."

"I would."

"People shouldn't do that."

"I would."

"You're wrong."

They were at a familiar impasse. He wasn't sure why Becca had to hear it one more time. He didn't have to hear it anymore; he lived it every minute of every day.

"But thank you, Zach, for giving me the space I need and still letting me see you. Thank you for still loving me even if it's less love than you want to give."

Zach hardly heard her. All he felt was her hands on his head—how wonderful her fingers felt lightly rubbing the skin of his forehead, how absolutely heavenly they felt. His mind, his heart, his whole body leaned toward those hands, folded itself into those hands. His mind, his heart, his whole body longed for whole touch against her again, longed to merge their two skins into one flesh again, makes themselves again into the single entity they'd been. Then suddenly he knew he could. The water bugs skittering on the surface of the water wouldn't care. The turtles tumbling, the songbirds twittering, the crow up the hill cawing wouldn't care. In fact, they'd bless the union. This cove, the lake, the grand beautiful day would bless their union. What's more, he suddenly knew, Becca longed for that union—as much as he, even more than he. Every fish in the lake, every creeping thing upon the ground, every bird in the sky, every leaf on every tree, every star hidden in the heavens pointed them toward one more merging, one more link in their golden chain of love.

Which is precisely why he sat up suddenly, then stood, turned in the boat, sat on the rower's bench, pulled the rope's knot loose from the limb, took up the oars, dipped their tips in the water, and made a couple shallow pulls toward the broad center of the lake.

Becca, her eyes bewildered and hurt, pulled the rope out of the water and into the boat.

Then he began his rower's waltz, the pulls strong and unbroken, the rhythms sure—thrust then release, thrust then release—not pausing once in the hour-long push to the dock, knowing with each firm oar stroke that he could not bear, would never accept, the universe's blessing of a last union with the one who would always carry his soul.

2

Zach wrote the following reflection on a photograph of him taken by Barton in the Roman Forum:

Simple Face:

for Barton after Rome, 1980

They'll say it was a simple face—

enormously open (as the sky it has

just begun to fear), broad sloping

plains of skin hide white gristle,

red muscle, together twist into half-

smile though uncertain; skin and

mouth and hair conspiring to mask

questions the child's brow (still

smooth but threatening lines) betrays,

unruly ledge over eyes retreating

to wait behind that simple face.

But look—a tree grows out of the

head, rooted parasite-deep in blind

shoulder; ancient ruins bask in sun.

Even simple faces grow old,

Wither, die.

The tree extracts rare blood.

(Accept this pause as gift—

mine, yours.)

3

Dear Mr. Sandstrom:

It gives me great pleasure to inform you that your exceptional story "Sweetwater" will be included in the fifth volume of West Words. You make the West sing, giving sonorous voice to the soft trilling of the sage prairie as well as the booming bass of the craggy peaks. In fact, or at any rate in my humble opinion, you have an original gift for transmuting prose into song, into the true intonation of a place and a moment in time.

I'm copying this letter to Barton Cosgrove and also sending him West Words 4. Perhaps he'll share that volume to give you an idea of how your work will appear in print.

Thank you for a fine story. All best wishes for your future and your writing.

Sincerely yours,

Dalton Woodbridge

Editor, West Words

In congratulation and celebration, Barton treated Zach to dinner at their favorite steakhouse in nearby Beech Grove. It was a cloudless weeknight in late June and the college town—Beech Grove was the home of a large branch of the state university system—rested in deserted dormancy between semesters. It seemed Zach and Barton had the world to themselves, in more ways than just the empty village and quiet restaurant.

"Feel different?" Barton asked across the booth's varnished pine table.

"Sort of."

"How?"

"Like the prettiest girl in the school just said 'yes'."

"Yes to what? Holding hands? A kiss? A free feel?"

Zach laughed. "Getting a little carried away there, Bar." He paused and thought a minute. "'Yes' to my invitation to the prom."

"I thought you didn't go to your prom."

"I didn't—wasn't interested."

"But now you are?"

"It's a metaphor, Barton—you know, those little devices us writers use to make a point."

"Maybe not. Sometimes I wonder if this Rebecca Coles infatuation is you fulfilling your missed high school fantasies—needing to parade the cheerleader around on your arm, have that visible affirmation."

Zach flinched as if slapped. They'd not spoken about Becca for weeks. He'd not heard her name in Barton's mouth for months, and no more than a handful of times ever. "I'm not sure what that has to do with having my story accepted."

"Maybe more than you think. This is a milestone, Zach—a hard-earned and richly deserved accomplishment. Milestones are a cause for many responses, including weighing the past and considering the future. You've got some choices coming up."

"Worldly pleasures or artistic rigor?"

Barton laughed—they knew each other too well. "Doesn't have to be 'either or', just 'now and later'."

Zach studied his mentor across the table. He didn't resent being manipulated into this corner—he recognized it as Barton's right as his teacher and mentor. Part of him actually enjoyed the debate, whatever its encroachments on his privacy and independence. No one else had ever been willing to bring to light of day the hard questions he confronted inside himself all the time. That he could speak such hard questions aloud, and wrestle over their meaning and answers with another of such intelligence and insight (and strong opinions) seemed to him a rare if perilous gift. "I know I have forthcoming choices. Believe me, I know. But I'm not prepared to so clearly delineate my options, or my life."

"You proposed the delineations."

Zach laughed. "Seated at the feet of the master."

"I would only say there's a time to emphasize work and there's a time to emphasize love."

"What if the world gives you both simultaneously?"

"Then choose well."

"I thought you said the delineations weren't so clear."

"I lied."

Zach shook his head slowly but smiled throughout the gesture. He raised his glass of bourbon. "In thanks to the one who in many and various ways helped bring me to this auspicious moment."

Barton held his glass tight to the table. "Even if fraught with choice?"

"Most especially because it's fraught with choice." He paused then added, "A choice accompanied by loving guidance."

That freed Barton to lift his glass, though he added while raising it to meet Zach's, "And listening ears."

Barry, the chubby and gregarious owner and head chef of the family restaurant, strode up to their booth and raised an imaginary glass and said in a loud voice, "Here-here," then added in quieter tones, "What are we toasting?"

"Zach getting published," Barton said.

"Life choices," Zach added.

"Well, congratulations and good luck. Maybe I can enhance the celebration with some expertly aged and perfectly grilled prime beef!" He reached behind him and rolled forward a cart displaying slabs of beautifully marbled, carefully trimmed prime beef in three different cuts—New York strip, ribeye, and filet. "What's your fancy?"

Zach selected ribeye and Barry slid his gleaming knife slowly along the top of the slab till Zach said "there" and Barry sliced off the designated cut. "Cooked how?"

"Rare."

"Cool-center or warm?"

"Cool."

Barry nodded approval. "Your first good choice in the rest of your life."

"Of many, I hope," Zach affirmed.

As they exited the restaurant in new languorous dark, Barton spotted a bearded, shabbily clothed man selling potted plants out of the back of a rental truck on the far side of the parking lot. He led Zach over there and they spent a few minutes looking over the sizable assortment of palm plants, ficus trees, and schefflera bushes in two-gallon plastic pots. Barton tried to engage the attendant smoking a cigarette while seated on a milk crate. "Any recommendations?"

The man looked at him with a hard stare, exhaling a long stream of silver smoke. "One good as the other."

"But all good?"

"They'll live," the man said reluctantly, then added after a pause, "If'n you treat them right."

"Isn't that always the way?" Barton said.

The man didn't answer.

Barton dragged a three-foot tall braided ficus from the middle of the dense display and set it aside. "What do you think?" he asked Zach.

"It'll do well on your patio."

"And in the fall?"

"I'll help you move it into the living room."

"I have a bleak history with house plants."

"Maybe I can help change your luck."

Barton nodded then said, "Pick one for yourself."

"You sure?"

He nodded. "To remember the day."

Zach smiled. He'd already identified his favorite—a ficus that was shorter and with less foliage than the rest but with a strong single trunk. He slid the pot beside Barton's choice.

"That it?" the attendant said as he rose from his crate.

"For now," Barton said, reaching for his wallet.

Barton's ficus lived over twenty years, with Zach dragging in the ever growing tree and expanding pot (needing to use a hand truck in later years) every fall, dragging it back onto the patio each spring. It died one summer after Barton pruned it too radically.

Zach's ficus followed him through multiple residences, grew to a height of over ten feet and nearly that far across its lush canopy. One day thirty-one years later, every leaf in that luxuriant full canopy wilted and didn't revive, the same day Barton died.

3

Zach held the chair and waited for Becca to sit. The perfectly woven braid of her blond hair laid along her spine atop her linen dress seemed to him a tether to a bygone life. If he were just allowed to touch it maybe that bygone life would be placed right again. Becca sat, and he gently slid the chair under her. He circled to the other side of the table nestled in the alcove and sat opposite her.

They were at the finest restaurant in town, maybe in the whole state, a restaurant specializing in provincial French cuisine with some creative twists borrowed from many traditions—delicately seasoned rich food served in multiple courses of modest portions, all painstakingly prepared and beautifully presented on fine china set gracefully on white linen tablecloths. They were there at Zach's invitation in recognition of two events—the imminent departure of Becca for eight weeks of study and touring in Great Britain, and the recent acceptance of one of Zach's stories for publication. It was a clear warm weeknight in early July, the college town was near empty in its summer somnolence, and the restaurant was not busy. They had the alcove off the entry foyer of the converted bungalow all to themselves. It was for them, ever lovers of peaceful, quiet elegance, the perfect table in the perfect restaurant on a perfectly nondescript summer evening.

Two long tapering white candles framed Becca's face, the flames at their tips almost invisible in the brilliant late sun pouring through the foyer window. Zach slid the bone china bud vase with its single long-stemmed red rose from the center of the table over to the side along the wall to get an unobstructed view of the beautiful woman seated across from him. She never failed to take his breath away if he paused and looked straight at her. Tonight was no different.

Becca gently brushed the crisply ironed tablecloth, lightly touched the perfectly aligned, gleaming silverware. "Same Maison," she said with a touch of awe. They'd been here together once before, early in their relationship. It'd been an eye-opening experience for Becca. She'd thought she knew good restaurants, had been to her share over the years; but she'd never been to a place where food was elevated to art, and the entire dining experience shaped as a drama engaging all the senses. Following that first visit to La Maison, and largely unconsciously, Becca began to contemplate a career in fine cuisine.

Zach looked around. "Lot less crowded; prettier day." Their previous date had been in winter, a cold day with snow flurries and a biting wind, early dark, no golden sun pouring through the foyer window.

"Same handsome date."

Zach felt himself blush and wondered how she could still do that after ten months and all they'd been through. "You all packed?"

Becca laughed. "Are you kidding? I've packed and unpacked and repacked I don't know how many times. My mom keeps getting me new stuff to take, which means I've got to take something out to make room. Hardest part is I have no idea what I'll be wearing. They say prepare for cool and damp. Zach, I can't fathom cool and damp in July and August. The idea does not compute. I keep putting in shorts and T-shirts, and my mom keeps taking them out."

"If you do find cool and damp, send me some in a box. I'm already tired of hot and humid."

"Why don't you go and I'll stay."

"Why don't you stay and I'll stay."

Becca bit the side of her lip lightly. "I miss you already."

This unexpected claim cut Zach to the quick. They'd seen each other only occasionally in the prior three months and only once since the rowing trip to the lake three weeks earlier. If she were missing him—really missing him—she had an odd way of showing it. But he made a silent decision not to challenge her assertions, not to try again to get to the bottom of her feelings for him. He'd not go down that path this night, in this place, with her departure just two days away. "You'll be fine, Bec. They'll swoon over your Southern charms in Merry Olde."

"Or plow them under."

"Not possible."

The waitress came and took their order. They passed on a shared bottle of wine but did order two glasses of champagne. While waiting their first course, they toasted Zach's story's acceptance, Becca's forthcoming trip, and the beautiful evening. By then the sun had set and their alcove was bathed in the salmon-colored glow of twilight. The flames on the candles to either side of Becca's face were more noticeable in the dimmer light, delicately flickering, the tapers still tall but slowly, imperceptibly shrinking.

The waitress delivered their first course and they dove in with appetites hearty despite the warm day and the emotional occasion. Becca had cold cream of tomato soup with basil oil and crème fraiche, and Zach had a rabbit and multi-colored beet terrine served in thin slices accompanied by crusty French bread. Without perceiving the shift, they settled into their old best selves—joined over fine food, no need for small talk or idle conversation, content in the glow of each other's presence, in the world but also in their own world, briefly freed of all demands or expectations, embraced by love.

By the time they finished this course and looked beyond each other, the twilight had turned to dusk and the room beyond their candle-lit table receded in grainy gray light. Zach felt a shiver of fear at the discovery of this new sudden dark. He focused on Becca's face for reassurance and comfort and found her smiling fully at him, even more beautiful than before in the flickering glow of the candles. Despite her beauty, maybe because of it, he felt uneasy to see her so sharply etched against the new gray background—a blonde angel withheld from him, devoid of history or promise, a stark and overwhelming and transitory celestial messenger.

The waitress brought their main courses. Becca had poached salmon over tarragon and chanterelle rice, and julienned carrots in a Pernod and butter reduction. Zach had thin sliced beef tenderloin with a caper cream sauce, crispy potatoes provencale, and asparagus spears tossed in lemon oil and ground salt. The food was delicious, and both ate eagerly.

But something had changed in the new dark. Their private alcove suddenly felt very lonely to Zach. He felt isolated, estranged not only from the world but also from the woman seated across from him in the candlelight, an arm's reach away.

"What's the matter, Zach?" Becca had finished her salmon and slid the plate aside and leaned forward. "Tell me what's wrong."

He looked at that beautiful face, those bottomless dark eyes, the candles' flames just inches from her golden hair, the perfect gentle arc of her temple, the flames' sparkling reflection like a living thing inside those dark eyes, her whole being intent and loving and caring, this face, this person who was and would always be his definition of perfection, of Heaven, of life fulfilled—she would never be his, never be what he needed her to be, never be what God had placed her before him to be.

He set his fork down, reached across, brushed her cheek with the backs of his fingers, even his knuckles—so deprived of nerve endings—feeling fully the painful softness of her skin, her beauty. "Nothing, Becca. A raven's wing brush of fear in the night, gone now."

She watched him closely, still leaning toward him.

He smiled. "Got any room for dessert?"

She leaned back finally. "No, but that doesn't mean I won't have any."

They both could laugh.

Set back from the candlelight, her face appeared safe again, donned once more a hint of hope, a whisper of promise.

The waitress came around the corner to clear their plates. "Boy, got dark in a hurry," she said, and turned on the wall sconces. The room jumped forth in light that was briefly blinding before settling into a warm glow. The candles' flames faded to their normal role as flickering accents in the diversely lit room.

The waitress cleared their dinnerware and brought them dessert menus. Becca ordered Amaretto-mousse cake and hot tea, Zach ordered Normand apple-calvados tart and espresso.

While they awaited their dessert, they sat and simply gazed at each other. Gone was the desperate longing that had characterized their joined gaze in the early days—the hunger, the need to express their feelings, release them to the other. Replacing this hunger was a comfort and trust born of all they'd shared in a short time—all the chances ventured, rewards garnered, risks survived: love and care intact. This gaze said they'd always honor this love, whatever their futures.

From her side, Becca felt deep gratitude for the love this man had bestowed on her without condition or constraint. That love had reshaped how she saw herself, given her confidence she didn't know she had, helped her build the courage to undertake this long trip overseas, so far from home. She sometimes wondered if she'd have been able to attempt the trip without the strength he'd given her; she was glad she wouldn't have to try. She'd take him with her wherever she went, now forward. She slid her hand across the table and into his. "I wish I could tell you how much you mean to me."

"I already know."

She nodded. "Then you know how grateful I am."

"I know."

The waitress brought their desserts. Atop the full meal and the full day turned to night, in the flickering light of waning candles and in the dancing long shadow of all they'd shared, the desserts, while delicious, seemed anticlimactic. Maybe this was a good thing—who could've borne more of the same?

Later that night, Zach sat at his desk and typed a five-line poem he'd send to Becca by first mail the next morning. The poem culminated in a two-word plea, a plea he knew in his heart to be hopeless. Still, he typed the words. He said them aloud, then said them again.

Parting Prayer

Go then with me,

With my best wishes, blessing,

Endless thoughts.

Go, Kindest.

But return, please.

4

He set his paperback copy of A Farewell to Arms in the bow of the boat and lay back against the stern and closed his eyes. He wanted to think he was letting his mind truly drift—randomly afloat like his body in the boat on the lake with the day of the world through time. Take me God where you would have me go. But as the boat was tethered to a bush—a more or less impermeable shell holding out most of the encasing water under a screen of foliage filtering the baking sun safely hid in the sheltering cove till he chose (not God or Fate) to exit this sanctuary, return to the real world—so his mind was safely hedged by moorings intended and unconscious—the familiar and all too poignant setting, the aptly titled and safely known text (with its fitting climatic rowing scene), the known strength of his body (to get him back to the dock, onward through life), the reassuring knowledge of a dinner date tonight with Barton, lunch on campus tomorrow with Allison. Zach knew adrift (Boston was, after all, little more than a year past); and he was far, far, from being truly adrift.

Yet the departure of Becca had put an exclamation point at the end of their active relationship. They could get dressed up and play at being close, disguise themselves as lovers to the world and maybe to certain moments of facile wishing; but the slow dissolution that had begun in the wake of Rome—passive parting Zach labeled it in moments of reflective candor—had progressed too far to be denied, or reversed. And this end left a huge void—not only in his heart (and in his bed and in his nights) but in his understanding of purpose and priority. If pure love—wherever it had come from, and why—could suddenly stop (be frozen in time, outside of time—not gone but elsewhere), then what was he to do with the remains—of himself, his life. He'd wagered a lot more than just his marriage and his heart on this gift of love; he'd wagered pretty much everything he knew or hoped and some things he hadn't known but grown addicted to, could no longer imagine living without. How could he go forward from here? Where was there to go?

He wanted to understand this impasse in the cherished and revered words of his stalwart guides—Dickinson (and then, I brake my life—and lo, a light, for her, did solemn glow, the larger, as her face withdrew) and Frost (the question that he frames in all but words is what to make of a diminished thing) and Robinson (for they that with a god have striven, not hearing much of what we say, take what the god has given). But while he found solace in those and many other verses, he discovered no answer to his question: where forward with this void?

Though floating safely couched and tethered, he was nonetheless lost, drifting toward, maybe already over, the perpendicular end of his earth.

5

With his head pillowed on his folded arm atop the blanket on the sand of the beach, Zach secretly studied Donna's face and upper body in profile, her eyes closed (was she asleep?) against the hot August sun. He tried looking at her clear-eyed; he tried looking at her squinting; he tried closing his eyes and breathing in the sweet scent of her coconut-oiled skin. He tried every way he knew how to shape her into a salve for the hollow pit at the center of his being. But at the far end of all that effort, she was still just Donna—a caring companion, a dependable presence against his loneliness, a balm for his ego and a suitable ground for the sparking static of his libido. She'd happily agreed to fill all these roles for Zach, would've just as gladly donned more, if he'd asked—and all without, she claimed anyways, any expectation of commitment or promise. "I just want to be with you," she'd told him repeatedly when he'd warned that he wasn't available for a serious relationship. "No expectations; no obligations."

He'd taken her at her word and today they were at a deserted inlet of Bodie Lake, a sprawling man-made reservoir that straddled the border between North Carolina and Virginia. Donna learned about this secluded beach from some distant relative that owned a weekend trailer nearby; and she knew where the key to that trailer was hid, in case they needed to use the toilet or otherwise avail themselves of indoor shelter. But so far they'd spent the whole afternoon outside, either lying out on the narrow strip of sand beyond the lofty pines with their soft bed of needles, or swimming in the murky and warm water with its slimy bottom and mix of submerged hazards (tree stumps, decaying vines, maybe even some old fence posts and rusting wire). The water was safe if you floated on the surface or swam to the deeper channel off shore, and they'd taken a couple dips to cool off from the oppressive heat of the day.

But lying on the blanket in the dreamy lazy daze of the hot sun and sultry humidity eased Zach toward a primal urge momentarily freed of his sadness and heartache. He extended his free arm and lightly traced his finger across her damp skin between the two pieces of pink bikini. His index finger did a slow circuit of her taut midriff. Though he was only touching her with the tip of that one finger, his entire body felt itself plastered full-length against her, felt every square inch of his skin pressed against her matching, and non-matching, body parts. He felt in that moment he was breathing her body into him, sustained by her warm and welcoming skin.

"Oh, that's nice," she cooed without opening her eyes.

His finger traced its way up to the rope of fabric tucked under her breasts then slowly slid downward across the shallow depression of her navel to the elastic waist of her bikini bottoms, drifting into the soft valley at her right thigh, climbing the rise of her pubis, flowing into the valley beside her left thigh then climbing again to circle her taut abdomen.

"Tell me more," she whispered.

He extended the rest of his fingers and spread his hand across her stomach. It covered almost her entire waist. He let it rest there, lightly pressing down.

She rolled her face toward him and opened her eyes. "Don't you dare tickle me," she warned with a taunting smile.

The spell was broken. She wasn't Becca. She wasn't his fantasy angel. She was Donna—a girl he had deep affection for and an obligation not to hurt or mislead or use. "And if I dare to tickle?" His fingers tightened slightly, pressing a little deeper into her flesh.

"I'll tickle you worse," she cried and rolled atop him and straddled his waist and started to tickle him along the sides of his abdomen and up under his arms.

Zach was extremely ticklish. He began to laugh uncontrollably and roll violently from side to side, giving Donna quite a ride atop him.

But Donna refused to surrender her advantage and did her best to stay astride him as she continued to tickle him, along his stomach now and down lower, toward his groin.

Zach had had enough of this and wrapped his arms around her, pinning her arms to her sides, and stood up while holding her.

She threw her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck. She suddenly kissed him.

And he for just a split second kissed her back. Then he turned his lips away from hers.

She buried her face in his neck, licking and kissing along his neck and up to his ear then down to the pit at his shoulder.

He carried her to the water and waded out to his waist, stumbling a few times on the way.

She held on tight, had no intention of letting go.

When they were deep enough Zach tumbled into the water. They both sank together toward the bottom. Eventually, and only because they were in danger of drowning, Donna released him from her stranglehold. They rose together to the water's surface, still touching all along one side—legs, hip, arm—but no longer entangled.

Donna looked at him from a few inches away, only her head above the water. "Sorry. I guess I got carried away."

Zach laughed. "Carried away is right—by me, into the water!"

She looked at him shyly. "You're not mad?"

"I'm grateful, Donna—I can't tell you how much." He laid his hand on the side of her face, gently pushed the wet hair away from her eyes. "But I don't want to hurt you, and I don't want to confuse me."

She sighed. "As much as I think I'd be willing to be somebody else for you, I don't guess that would be good for either of us."

Zach shook his head slowly.

She looked at him doubtfully. "Still friends?"

He nodded. "The best kind."

"The kind that can tickle each other?" She reached a hand to his waist under the water.

He pushed away and started swimming toward the deep middle of the inlet. "Only if you can catch me."

She swam after him through the sun-spangled water.

Later that night, after they'd changed at Zach's apartment and gone out to Milt's for pizza and a couple pitchers of beer then returned to his apartment for a few more beers and conversation that was by then growing a little blurred, Zach had completely forgotten his noble words and intentions at the lake and knew only one need—he did not want to spend this night alone.

"Would you stay here tonight?" he asked simply without warning.

She wasn't surprised. She'd seen that hunger in his eyes. He was quite unlike anyone she'd ever known, but he was also a human being—he was finally a creature in need of physical affirmation and comfort (as was she). "I would love to."

A few minutes later they were in his bed with the lights out. She'd put on a pair of his gym shorts and an over-sized T-shirt before getting into bed, but neither of them quite knew why—those items were quickly removed along with her panties and his boxers and the whole assortment pushed far down under the covers to the end of the rudimentary bed.

Zach had forgotten how lovely the feminine body was. Well, no—he'd not forgotten it. It had just been so long (or seemed so—an interminable pause) that everything seemed fresh and new, an unfathomable, indescribable heavenly gift to be honored and adored. He did exactly that for many minutes—adored her body, her skin, her femininity, her sanctuary against loss and harm. She instinctively knew even in her intoxication (of alcohol, of affirmation) not to try to match his praise with reciprocal acts, knew enough to lie there and give what he needed to take, take what he needed to give. She'd never been so honored, never would be again.

But when he rose above her to claim what they both had for many minutes now perceived as the goal of their yearning, the final end of their joint quest, he faltered, paused, as Becca's face passed before his eyes then gone. And he knew instantly, in sudden total sobriety, two truths—everything this night to this moment was right, pure gift decreed by God as solace and sustenance; and everything that they were pointed toward beyond this instant was wrong. This feeling didn't derive from any sense of guilt or obligation toward Becca. Such obligation ended for him months ago, at her first request for space and time-off. Nor did this feeling derive from any sense of moral propriety—he was, for better or worse, the product of his promiscuous generation. But to engage in intercourse outside of love—the absolute love he'd been given by Becca, the absolute love he'd been given by God—would be to dishonor not so much intercourse as love, and by dishonoring love dishonor the one from whom it had derived. He wouldn't do that—not tonight, not ever this day forward.

As his pause—propped on locked arms and taut knees above her, his penis brushing the tips of her labia—stretched from seconds into minutes, Donna whispered, "What's the matter?"

Zach dipped his head slowly out of the grainy air above her and gave her a chaste kiss on the cheek. "Nothing, darling," he said then slowly rolled from above her to lie beside her.

She faced him, "What did I do wrong? What can I do?"

He felt so sorry for confusing her, a contrition that was almost perfectly balanced by a sense of relief at discovering his mistake before it was too late. He took her face between his two hands and held it gently, lovingly. "You did nothing wrong, Donna. You were perfect. You're beautiful. It's all inside me." He leaned forward and kissed her lips, held that kiss for many seconds. He only grudgingly broke that contact. "Can we just lie together, sleep together like this?"

"With our clothes off?"

He laughed. "Please—with all our clothes off!"

She nodded enthusiastically and pushed her body against his, top to bottom, including pressing her mons veneris against his slowly deflating counterpart.

That part reversed course and roused against her insistent welcome and request. They giggled over the grinding rough play of their groins, touch-teased each other unmercifully for another hour then several times on waking in the night.

But he knew he wouldn't break this vow to himself and God. And she understood it wasn't her fault, that he had some inner compulsion, a need stronger than millennia of procreative evolution—just like Zach to dream something like that up out of the thin and rarefied air of unbridled lust on the verge of release.

He was safe. They were safe.

Appomattox

They stood in the shade of the Appomattox Courthouse portico to escape the afternoon sun and the worst of the oppressive heat of the late-August day. The door to the Visitor Center on the ground floor of the Courthouse was locked and a hand-written sign on the doorframe read Gone Home—Help Yourself.

"Help yourself to what?" Barton asked. "The furniture? The siding? The bricks and mortar?"

Zach laughed. "Let's not get carried away now, Barton. They have Confederate snipers stationed just inside the tree line to pick off any would-be thieves."

Barton actually looked up and squinted through the humid haze to the green line of trees beyond the field to the north. Though not one building in the tiny hamlet survived from its improbable date with history over a century ago (every brick and board claimed by souvenir takers or speculators or fire or termites), the meticulously reconstructed village in deserted late-summer torpor felt original, oozed 1865 as much for what was missing (asphalt, power lines, light poles, cars, sidewalks) as for what was present—a smattering of nineteenth century structures divided in two by a dirt lane (the old Lynchburg-Richmond coach road) and surrounded by rail-fenced pastures and deep green woods. What gave it away as a stage set was the absence of sounds—no children shrieking or cows lowing or sheep bleating or roosters crowing, just a stillness more stifling than the air: help yourself to what, indeed.

Barton pulled a dog-eared text dating from his childhood out of the recesses of his shoulder bag and opened its brittle pages.

Zach laughed. "What's that—the original surrender document?"

"You have a better guide, Mr. Hep Yousef?"

"Hep Yousef—I like that. Wish I had a towel to put on my head—could've used it today."

"Or stick it in your mouth to shut you up."

"I'll give you something to stick in your mouth," Zach said.

"Anytime, Hep; anytime."

Zach shook his head—he had to be careful about using his standard schoolyard retorts around Barton.

Barton found the page he was looking for and read from it:

The agreement to surrender took place on Palm Sunday, April 9th 1865. After the failure of a final attempt to break through Union lines in the early morning, General Lee consulted with his officers and determined that the only course of action was surrender. He sent a letter to General Grant asking to meet with him to discuss terms of surrender. Grant responded by allowing Lee to choose the place of the meeting.

Lee's aides identified a house in the village of Appomattox Courthouse owned by Wilmer McLean. Early in the afternoon, General Lee in an immaculate dress uniform with a ceremonial sword at his side met General Grant in a mud-splattered private's uniform and carrying no sword in the parlor of the McLean house. Together they agreed to the terms of surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia to the Army of the Union. The meeting adjourned at approximately three o'clock in the afternoon.

The actual laying down of arms by the Army of Northern Virginia took place along the Lynchburg-Richmond coach road on the morning of April 12th.

"So the cigar-chomping Yankee showed up in his work clothes," Zach summarized.

"To meet the dignified southern gentleman attired in his Sunday best."

"Pretty well says it all, doesn't it?"

"And about a half million lives lost," Barton added as he put the book back in his leather bag.

"Except the wrong side won."

"Oh, the right side won, much as it pains me to say it. All that chivalry and dignity was built on the backs of millions of slaves. The beautiful façade hid a rotten core."

"No give to that assessment? Rural versus urban? Agrarian versus industrial? The South had a lot of virtues, the North a lot of vices."

"And all that paradise destroyed by the one sin—didn't you read your Milton?"

Zach laughed. "Who's he?"

By then they'd cooled enough in the shade to risk a stroll down the bright dirt lane to the reconstructed McLean house, a few hundred yards ahead on the right. It was labeled with a white sign out front though its lofty stature and dignity—brick veneer, a two-story front porch, chimneys at each end—marked it as the focal point long before the sign was legible. They walked up the wide front steps and stood on the broad porch.

"What do you suppose Lee felt as he walked up those steps?" Zach asked as he turned and looked out over the front path to the road and the parking lot beyond, visible from this vantage point, Barton's Mercedes shimmering in the sun.

"Relief," Barton said slowly. "To have it finally over."

"The killing?"

"The responsibility."

Zach nodded. "A heavy weight to bear."

"For a hopeless cause."

"And Grant as he walked down these steps?"

"Pure elation, don't you think?"

"The world laid out before him."

"His spoils to choose."

"All spoiled five days later—Good Friday."

"Ford's Theater."

"Lincoln dead."

"Tough week."

"On all sides."

That seemed a fitting end to their brief self-directed tour. They took a minute to look in the tall window at the parlor with its period furnishings and modest elegance. It was impossible to reconcile all the carnage that had led to this humble place, ended (or at least paused—still no true ending in sight) in such understated dignity. One would've thought the myriad shallow graves of the battle dead would've opened in protest to such a calm reconciliation, the cries of the bereaved united in a deafening riot at this dismissal of their loss. Where was the justice? What was the justice?

They departed the empty stage set for the three-hour drive home in stifling late day heat, leaving the ghosts of Appomattox to help themselves to whatever tangible remains they could find in the dirt, in the thin mist slowly rising out of the fields at dusk.

North Carolina

Zach hosted a dinner party for Donna and a half-dozen of her sorority sisters the first weekend after fall classes started. It was a joyful reunion with lots of wine to go along with the lasagna and garlic bread and salad and cheesecake. The girls were all beautifully tanned from their diverse summer excursions, and that tanned skin was on generous display around their light-weight summer attire—halter dresses, midriff-baring shirts, bright tank tops. In the warm and crowded apartment, Zach was immersed in feminine presence and scent and touch. He should've been in heaven.

But he wasn't. The one female he wanted present, had been craving for months, was missing. His frequent letters to England had gone unanswered except for a postcard that arrived late in the summer, its few lines chatty and casual as it ended: Hope your summer's been fruitful. Take care, Becca. She was surely back in town by now (she had one semester left to graduate), but he'd not heard from her. He had a possible address—a duplex somewhere near South Campus—from a mutual friend he'd run into at the Library. But he wasn't sure of the house's location; and besides, he couldn't very well just show up on her doorstep. So his longing steadily grew, those flames fanned high this night by the numerous female bodies surrounding him, brushing against him, and by the large amount of wine he consumed in the misguided attempt to dampen those flames.

With the food gone (those girls could eat!) and the bottles of wine empty, someone suggested they adjourn to a fraternity party on campus (there were, after all, seven of them and only one male—and that one sort of claimed by Donna; time to find more male bodies to balance the scales of swelling lust). So they piled into Zach's truck—three plus Zach on the front seat, four in the cavernous back—and drove the short distance to campus, parking illegally (though who would care at 10 PM on a Saturday night?) in a lot over by the basketball arena and walking to the main quad and the fraternity party in full swing—one of three open-bar parties in that quad alone.

The gang of sorority sisters quickly deserted Zach. Even Donna left, dragged away by Janet needing support and encouragement as she pursued a cute guy she'd met in class earlier in the week. She'd waved as Janet led her away and signaled that she'd return soon. Zach had smiled and waved back, wished them well in their fishing expedition.

He told himself he was glad to finally be alone, could focus now on himself and his interests. There were a lot of people at this party, a lot of potential new friends—male and female. But first he would need reinforcement—to help him overcome his shyness and intimidation in this sort of social setting, and to help him forget the emptiness at his core. He made his way to one of the several bars scattered throughout the party and, after surveying the diverse offerings spread out on the table, instructed the bartender—a fresh-faced boy several years younger than he—to pour three double shots of tequila.

The kid asked, "Where are the other two?"

"Two what?"

"Drinkers."

Zach said, "I'm it."

The kid hesitated a second then shrugged. "Your funeral," he said and poured three shot glasses full above the white line marking a double.

Zach smiled and nodded then knocked back all three glasses in rapid succession.

The sound of that third glass striking the table was the last clear memory Zach had until the next morning. He had snippets of fuzzy memory—falling into some bushes and cracking his head on a stone walk, Donna trying to wrestle away his truck keys, shimmying up a signpost and reading the letters M-A-C-O-N, a black cabbie cussing him—but nothing coherent or reliable.

He woke with a start in bright sunlight and immediately thought—Where's my truck? He was in his clothes from last night atop the covers of his bed. His keys and wallet were on the desk. He quickly checked his various body parts and, except for a large bump on the right side of his forehead, seemed to be intact. He stood and managed to remain upright with the support of the chair. Though he felt like hell (and looked worse, if he'd bothered to look in the mirror), he ran out the door and to the end of the breezeway to see if his truck was there. It wasn't.

Terrified that he'd been in an accident or worse, he ran into the apartment and called Donna.

"You're alive," she said with what seemed genuine surprise.

"Barely. Do you know where my truck is?"

"Zach, you refused to give me your keys and drove off like a crazy man. That's the last I saw of you."

"Do you know where I was headed?"

Donna laughed bitterly. "You said you had to see 'her.' I think we both know who you meant."

"Yeah, but where'd I go?"

"How do I know Zach? I don't know where Becca lives."

"Neither do I."

"Then where the hell did you think you were going?"

"Good question. Can you please help me try to find my truck?"

Donna sighed. "I'll have to borrow Jennifer's car. I'll get there soon as I can."

Zach took that opportunity to shower and shave and put on clean clothes. By the time Donna showed up, he looked almost presentable though he still felt terrible. He remembered the M-A-C-O-N on the street sign and had pulled out a local map and found Macon Street—a short street in an old neighborhood he'd never been to, at least not till last night. He grabbed Donna's hand without inviting her in and led her back along the breezeway and down the stairs to the parking lot. Before letting go of her hand to circle to the passenger side of Jennifer's car, he leaned over and kissed her on the forehead. "Thanks for being such a good friend."

Donna beamed but said, "I'm sorry I couldn't save you from yourself last night."

"Thanks for trying. Let's just hope I can find my truck."

Neither of them had to say the obvious extension—and that it not be wrapped around a light pole or a car or a house or a person.

Zach spotted the truck not on Macon Street but on a perpendicular side street. It was parked askew with one front tire up on the curb and the driver's side door wide open. But a quick circuit of the vehicle indicated no new dents or damage; and though the door was open, nothing was missing from the glove compartment or the interior of the truck—not that there was much to take. The rundown, impoverished neighborhood looked like the sort of place where abandoned vehicles were not all that uncommon, and apparently no one had thought twice about this latest addition or bothered to call the police.

Zach had never felt so relieved in his life, and looked to the bright September sky—a Sunday morning, he suddenly recalled—and thanked God, or whatever guardian angel he'd appointed, for watching over him the night before. He swore that moment he'd never again get drunk to the point of blacking out, and added to it a vow to abstain totally for the foreseeable future. While part of him knew that both these vows were easy commitments under the circumstances, he intuitively understood that his actions of last night were the product of a moment of weakness and an inadvertent return to an outdated self-destructiveness. He now had much to live for. The same God that had protected him last night had blessed him with innumerable props and guides and understandings over the previous fifteen months. He would not dishonor that God or those gifts by throwing it all away in a moment's self-pity. He'd find the strength to survive those inevitable lows and losses. God would give him the means. God already had.

He looked to Donna standing beside Jennifer's car. "All in one piece," he said with a broad grin.

She smiled. His face, though still bleary-eyed, had been reconstructed in that instant's blessing and relief. "Good," she said.

"Make you some breakfast?" he asked.

"It's almost noon."

"Lunch, then."

She laughed. "I'll take either."

"Follow me."

She did.

2

Becca did call him a couple days later and they met for dinner at Milt's late in the week. Though the location held many powerful and passionate memories from there time together, in the bright warm September evening it was just another restaurant—a little boring in its menu offerings, a little shabby in its décor. Becca too, it seemed, had lost her shine. By any objective measure, she was still stop-dead-in-your-tracks beautiful, maybe even more so since leaving ten weeks before—a little more wisdom and maturity behind those alluring eyes, a greater confidence in her posture, the tilt of her head, the steady gaze. But then Zach wasn't an objective observer, would never be with Becca. What he knew was that something had shifted in his heart with Becca, or if not shifted become buried—buried deep to protect himself, protect her, protect the sacred love they had shaped and defined for a few months a long time ago. With that love buried deep, he could look at her calmly, bear her every smile or stare or blush. But he also knew the pain—not the love, but the pain of its loss—lurked close to the surface, could maybe bubble up at any time. He'd have to watch out for that, hoped against hope (he'd never been here before—never cared for something so dearly or had to suffer a loss so painful) that his pride and his love for what they'd been, in some ways still were—in his heart, his memory—would hold that pain in check, at least when in her presence.

She shared with him a generalized account of her travels. It was quickly obvious that she was not sharing any details of her adventures for fear of unintentionally disclosing secrets she'd rather he not know, information she knew would hurt him, images of her encounters that would haunt him. Zach felt like a parent—or what he imagined a parent would feel like—hearing from his teenage daughter about her adventures the first semester away at school. He knew there was much more to her story, but he was silently relieved she'd chosen not to tell him. The irony of this development was not lost on either of them—he who had bared his soul to her from that day she'd first asked him out to dinner, who had asked as much from her and gotten that same for a few months, were now relegated to the stiff and safe roles of parent and child. It was as if they were two different people. They were two different people. How had that happened?

Late in the meal, Zach said, "I lost my truck trying to find you."

She laughed nervously, as if he'd just recited the punch line to a joke she should've known but didn't.

"Last Saturday night," he continued in a calm matter-of-fact tone, "In some neighborhood I'd never been to before. It was like a surreal dream—a nightmare, really—except when I woke up the next morning my truck was gone. The nightmare was real."

Her eyes narrowed, betrayed just a hint of pain—or was it fear? "What happened?"

"I remembered one street sign from inside the dream. I got out a map and found the street and went there and found my truck."

"You walked?"

"A friend drove me."

"And your truck was O.K.?"

Zach nodded.

"Thank God," Becca whispered.

"I was looking for you."

She held his frank stare for a second then looked away, her summer's store of confidence and assurance suddenly dissolved. "I'm sorry I wasn't in touch sooner."

Zach took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. "That's alright. Nobody got hurt."

"Probably good you didn't find our house. Harry would've called the cops." Harry was Nancy's boyfriend, the couple Becca's new housemates.

Zach nodded. "I've stopped drinking."

"I wondered why you didn't get a pitcher." She grinned. "Thought maybe it was in honor of my return."

"It is," he said simply.

She blushed.

Back at his apartment building he invited her in (he wasn't quite sure why) and she accepted (she wasn't quite sure why) saying, "for just a few minutes."

They sat in their old arrangement—he in the chair, she on the end of the couch at right angles to him, their knees almost touching there beside the coffee table's corner. With neither touch nor drinks in their hands to occupy them, they both seemed unsure what to do and spent much time gazing out the living room's window at the twilight turning to night. Zach told her a little about his writing and his summer spent largely alone. He made it sound lonelier than it really was, with Barton and Allison and Donna keeping a close eye on him throughout those weeks. But at the moment with her sitting there, so near at hand yet so distant, barred from touch by some unspoken rule, barred from saying what he really felt by his will to preserve what they'd once had, the summer's loneliness felt very real and pervasive indeed. Worse, that loneliness persisted—into this present, into his future. It seemed now the very air he breathed, would breathe the rest of his life.

"When I was with him, I felt like I was cheating on you," Becca said suddenly, in a quiet but firm voice, her eyes looking out into the new night.

She'd made passing reference, in both her postcard and the summary of her trip earlier in the evening, to a mutual acquaintance she'd befriended in Oxford. Zach had understood the fuller meaning of these vague allusions. He didn't need, and most certainly didn't want, a more detailed description of this summer fling; nor could he bear the weight of her confession now. "You owe me nothing," he said, staring hard at her profile through the gray dim air.

She faced him then. They were both glad for the dark, their eyes shadowed. "I felt like I did."

"You don't," Zach said, ending that line of conversation and, effectively, ending their evening. She left a few minutes later.

In the months and years that followed, he sometimes wondered why he hadn't posed the obvious question in the wake of her confession—If you felt that way, why didn't you act on those feelings? But he hadn't asked that question, would never get that answer.

3

They stood together at the kitchen counter looking out across the front yard to the pond beyond. Barton was barefoot and dressed in jeans and a V-necked white T-shirt. Zach was in his work clothes—boots, well-worn jeans, a hooded sweatshirt over a flannel work shirt. He'd stepped inside for his mid-morning break—a glass of water and a couple of store-bought cookies. Barton had decided to take his break from writing at the same time, was sipping thick black espresso from a big-bellied olive-green mug (they called the glaze "frogskin" at the Moore County pottery where he'd bought it) and nibbling on a cookie. A couple of mallards paddled lazily on the dusty water at the far end of the pond. A gray heron stood in the near shallows like a statue. The morning had started off cool but was warming steadily under the bright sun.

"Close to freezing this morning," Zach said.

"I know," Barton groaned. "Be winter before you know it."

Zach shook his head. "Fall's barely started—my favorite season. Don't rush through it to winter."

"My least favorite—everything dying then the long gray tunnel to get through before spring."

"Need to get you something to look forward to."

Barton turned to him with a sly grin. "How about Christmas in Rome?"

"Christmas?" Zach said, only slightly startled. He'd gotten used to Barton's surprises.

"Yeah. Let's split this wild and crazy scene."

Zach laughed at Barton's allusion to Steve Martin, a young and hilarious comic just starting to gain national exposure. "O.K." he said slowly, following Barton's lead. "And Rome?"

"Best city on earth, as you well know. And I can't imagine a better place to be on Christmas Eve than Santa Maria Maggiore—watching them parade their piece of the manger down the cathedral's center aisle." Barton had described the ritual, witnessed by him on his first visit to Rome decades earlier, in great detail when they'd visited the church last spring.

Zach didn't doubt the power and spiritual resonance of that ceremony, and was instinctively aware of its importance to Barton as a touchstone for his faith and his youth. But something made him say, "What about Bethlehem?"

"Bethlehem?" Barton exclaimed.

Zach nodded. "That would be the place to be on Christmas Eve." He paused then retreated just a tad, "If you're asking."

"Bethlehem?" Barton said again, as if just now learning the word.

Zach laughed. He'd never seen Barton so befuddled. "You know—that little town in the Judean hills: David's home, the birthplace of Mary and Joseph's little boy." He looked at Barton with a scolding stare. "Do I need to get you a Bible?"

Barton chuckled. "The idea never occurred to me. What about the PLO—bombings, kidnappings, assassination attempts." Just a few weeks before, the mayor of Nablus had lost his legs in an assassination attempt for the grave sin of talking to his Israeli occupiers.

"There will be no safer place on earth than Bethlehem on Christmas Eve," Zach said confidently.

Barton thought about of the news reports he watched every year of Christmas Eve festivities in Manger Square. He realized Zach was right—through all the Middle East mayhem of the last thirty years, there'd not been the slightest incident in Bethlehem, on Christmas Eve or any other time of year. Immediately behind this realization came another, more compelling one—he'd always wanted to go to the Holy Land, since receiving, at age three, Wonderful Stories of the Bible with its mesmerizing drawings of strangely attired people and exotic landscapes. "Bethlehem," he said, no question mark this time. He glanced up at Zach with fresh-faced wonder, as if having just awakened.

Zach shrugged. "Why not go to the source?"

"I'll look into it," Barton said.

Zach knew his friend well enough by now to know where they'd be this Christmas Eve.

4

Zach settled into an academic routine that was, given his life of the last several years, refreshingly sedate. Unlike his first two semesters, when the thrill and challenges of his unfolding mix of intense relationships preoccupied him, this semester the relative calm of his personal life allowed him to focus—wonder of wonders!—on what he was supposed to be here for—to get an education and a degree. Freed of a crammed social schedule and the accompanying late nights and numbing alcohol overload (he sustained his vow of alcohol abstinence throughout the semester), Zach let his four classes and their heavy reading demands give rhythm and structure to his daily schedule. He was happy to have those well-ordered routines, and for the first time in his life felt like an adult with a job (student) and well-defined social responsibilities. That he also at times felt bored and unfulfilled seemed to him a small price to pay for this peace and tranquility after all the recent storms. That he was writing neither fiction nor poetry during this period troubled him only a little—he had plenty of class assignments to absorb his writing energy, and also wrote several essays not required for class during this period.

The two constants throughout this period were Allison and Barton. He talked to Barton every day and saw him at least several times a week, sometimes every day of the week—for yard work sessions, meeting on campus for lunch, at restaurants around town, going to movies, or spending time at his welcoming house: sharing a drink, talking literature and writing (they had no formal academic relationship this semester), eating dinner, watching a videotape, sometimes sleeping over in his guestroom. They both now took this daily contact for granted, and missed it profoundly if one or the other was out of town. Their multi-faceted relationship still produced plenty of disagreements and occasional misunderstandings. But after the tempests of the past year, they were both glad for this relative calm and the steadily growing mutual reliance that accumulated therein.

He didn't see Allison near as often—for lunch or dinner once a week or so—and the demands they placed on each other were, on the surface anyway, far simpler—occasional companionship, reliable friendship. But they both understood, each in their own way, that they provided a depth of history and intimacy to the other that could not be found elsewhere, would never be found elsewhere; and they both chose to honor and preserve this gift, despite the occasional awkwardness and jealousy. Early in the summer, Allison moved yet again—into half of a duplex in town, rented alone—and Zach helped her move and spent extra time with her until she felt comfortably acclimated (including one night he spent on her couch after gunshots in the neighborhood left her shaken and terrified). Winding its way like a thread through all these exchanges was the open question of whether, after this was all said and done—Zach's school and travel, Allison's growth and independence, their joint hard birthing into adulthood—they would again be a committed couple in the eyes of the world, in their own eyes—or, more accurately, if they would become such a couple for the first time.

Midway through the fall, Zach saw these two unfailing pillars of support brought physically together. Barton, with Zach's consultation and approval, invited Allison to join them for dinner at his house. That Saturday, Zach worked all afternoon raking leaves while Barton cooked in the kitchen. They showered and changed and were standing nervously together looking out the kitchen window when Allison's white Honda (she'd traded in her used teal-blue version for this new white one, bought with a modest loan from her bank) turned into the drive and made its way up the hill.

"Never thought I'd see the day," Barton said.

"What?"

He chuckled. "Allison—driving alone, finding her way out here." She parked, cleanly and efficiently in the wide space on the far side of the drive, and got out of the car and strode up the hill. Barton continued in wonder, "Parking the car, getting out, walking confidently up the hill."

Zach laughed. "Barton, she's not an invalid!"

"She was."

Allison spotted them looking out the window and waved. They waved back then went around to the front door to greet her, Barton leading the way.

Barton had played it safe with the menu—baked spaghetti with Italian sausage and mozzarella (no mushrooms or peppers or anchovies), a green salad with a selection of bottled dressings, warmed sourdough rolls. Though simple, the meal was tasty and well prepared; and they all ate their fill, all—Allison included—left plates cleaned down to the last morsel.

Like the food, the conversation remained safe. Barton asked Allison about her new job—she'd recently transferred to the Oncology Department at the hospital, doing data entry and patient follow up. Allison asked Barton about his forthcoming novel. Zach talked about his classes, highlighting a quirky Shakespeare professor and a fascinating Art History class. They talked about movies they'd seen (Zach with Barton, Zach with Allison), books they were reading, T.V. shows ("Dallas" was a universal favorite that they'd all watched the night before, each alone). All three seemed intent on steering clear of risky subjects. Over the course of the evening, Zach gradually grew relaxed, and without the help of alcohol. When returning from the kitchen with more rolls, he paused on the shadowed steps and gazed with relief merging into joy at the sight of his two faithful guardians talking comfortably and smiling—that is, until Barton without turning or looking up, said, "Those rolls can't find their way onto our mouths with you hoarding them on the stairs." Zach laughed—caught again.

Late in the evening—the three of them seated in the living room (Zach and Allison each in an upholstered chair, Barton on the loveseat), Zach and Barton sipping coffee, Allison tea—the conversation drifted into more risky territory. It started innocently enough, with Zach and Barton taking turns entertaining Allison with animated accounts of their adventures in Rome—Barton telling of their visit to Keats's death room, Zach describing Barton's panic on the narrow walkway at the top of St. Peter's Dome (Barton was terrified of heights).

Then Barton spoke of their last night in Rome, their marathon session in the hotel bar, the beautiful woman, Sara, seated alone sipping her Amaretto. "She take-a the Visa," Barton intoned with a broad smile directed toward Zach.

"Or so we were told," Zach added. "No first-hand proof."

"No," Barton agreed, "But don't pretend you didn't think about it."

"Not really," Zach said slowly, wondering where Barton was going with this—or if he were already there. "No more than with a novelist's curiosity."

Barton hooted. "You were one lovesick puppy."

Zach sat in silence.

Barton turned to Allison. "We almost lost him, didn't we?"

Allison glanced from Barton to Zach, saw him looking fixedly at his coffee mug. "Many times," she said quietly, hoping he'd look up.

He did, a few seconds later—saw first in the eyes of his wife care and assurance, then in the eyes of Barton honesty and the determination that lay beneath and behind it. And he understood in that moment—and fully for the first time—the trials he'd put these two through. In the immediate wake of that discovery, he uncovered no regret in either his heart or his head. But what he did feel, permeating every inch of his body and soul, was boundless thanks for the care and love they'd both found their way to providing at considerable cost to their own self-esteem and needs. There was no way he could express that thanks in words or gestures—not tonight or ever—could only offer it forward in reciprocal care and deeds. He figured they understood all that, hoped they did. "But safe now," he said finally.

Allison nodded.

Barton raised his mug in a toast but said only, "Let's keep it that way."

Allison left a little while later, amid thanks and brief hugs. Zach stayed on, as planned, helped load the dishwasher before retiring to the guestroom.

Dover

Zach stood with the others and—though braced by his mom on one side and Justin on the other, the balance of his family strewn out in either direction along their pew, more family (grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins) and friends and church members to the front and behind, the sanctuary nearly full—he felt very much alone. He was not isolated by the moment or the occasion—the start of his Uncle Jacob's funeral at Trinity Lutheran Church, the church he'd been raised in. Nor was he set apart by his scarce contact with all these familiar faces that had once been close—some dear, some life-shaping and defining—but seemed now virtual strangers, inhabitants of another time and space.

What isolated him was a certainty that God was speaking directly to him—not in the familiar cadence of their long-standing pastor (almost a second father) or the by-rote responses of the gathered assembly but in sounds in his head that almost became intelligible words but not quite, remained chords and tones and whispered harmonies that gradually merged into visions, there in his eyes though his eyes were open on the bright sanctuary, late autumn sun pressing through the stained glass, visions that like the sounds almost but not quite assumed recognizable shapes, remained blurred but no less compelling for their lack of definition, all the more insistent for that condition, the sights and sounds seeming to call him, summon him—to see, to hear, to understand.

But understand what? Death? His uncle—his mom's eldest sibling, hale and hearty the last time he'd seen him—struck down at fifty-seven by some rare cancer nobody had ever heard of let alone knew how to treat? Understand time? Permanent loss? Grief? What was the message being delivered in this warm and lofty space that he'd watched emerge from this hilltop and grow into the world his sixth-grade year, a massive God-plant thrusting toward the sky like the inverted prow of a ship, cleaving the brittle country air and shouldering it to either side, east and west, till the plant was firmly rooted, the inverted prow sailing forth on its sea of sky, visible for miles, tens of miles across the countryside north, and in one last gesture of victory or folly thrust a lean white finger toward the heavens and capped it with a cross—a modest intersection of horizontal and vertical, miniscule in comparison to its supporting superstructure, requiring careful attention if viewed from the near valley, requiring imagination or trust or knowledge of its existence to be seen from farther away than that: what message here, in this sacred space, in the blurred sounds only he heard, the blurred sights only he saw?

The pastor sat. The congregation sat.

Michael, Jacob's eldest child, made his way to the lectern, a single sheet of yellow lined paper quivering in his right hand. He set the paper down and grabbed the lectern's edges with both hands, leaned hard against its support, his knuckles white, the skin on the back of his hands taut. He gazed downward for many seconds that seemed an eternity, sniffled a couple times, shook his head slowly from side to side as if in denial or blank refusal. Then he raised his eyes and fixed his stare on his grandparents, Jacob's parents, seated stiff-backed and unmoving in the front pew. And Michael spoke without once breaking that riveted gaze.

"My dad moved next door to Grandma and Grandpa to help care for them. He knew Grandpa's legs were failing and that he and Grandma would need help if they were going to stay in their house. So he built a house on the lot next door and moved out there to care for them. Then he got sick, and they started caring for him. The two of them put aside their many challenges and needs and cared for their son. And when Dad collapsed that last time on the walk"—his voice faltered here but not his gaze—"when Dad went down, Grandpa, bad knees and bad heart and all, picked him up and carried him into the house and watched over him till the ambulance arrived. I saw many acts of courage when I served in Vietnam and heard of many others but know of no greater heroism than Grandma and Grandpa's care of Dad there at the end, of Grandpa carrying Dad's limp body to safety." He paused. His grandfather never flinched or in any way acknowledged the words, stared straight ahead. "I salute you, sir; and I thank you," Michael said and nodded to his grandfather before turning and walking back to his pew, leaving his unused paper on the lectern.

At the reception in the fellowship hall after the committal, Zach told his mother of his forthcoming Christmas trip. He would've preferred to tell her at home, not surrounded by so many people. But she brought up Christmas preparations while they snacked on cucumber sandwiches and lemon bars, and he felt that he couldn't ignore the subject.

"Barton and I are planning to go to Israel over Christmas," he said firmly.

She stared at him with a penetrating gaze.

He squirmed in his chair. "I'm sorry," he said finally, looking down at his paper saucer now empty of the treats.

"I've gotten used to your absence," she said and released an ironic grin.

"I suppose you have."

When he told his dad later in the afternoon, just before getting into Mark's car for the trip to the airport, his dad said, "Barton Cosgrove is good for you."

Zach nodded. "He's become a dear friend."

His father shook his head slowly then said, "He's the father I failed to be."

Zach was stunned, not so much by the simple confession as by its astuteness. He recovered enough to extend his hand and grasp his dad's gnarled and swollen counterpart. "You were a good father," he said. "Still are."

His dad managed a thin smile but still shook his head. "Never enough for you. I'm sorry."

Zach released the hand, managed to forestall the tears until he was alone and waiting at the departure gate. He rushed to the bathroom and found an empty stall where he could hide till the spasms passed.

North Carolina

Allison appeared unannounced in front of the Archives reception desk early one afternoon in December. She stood there smiling down at him in her brown corduroy pants and plaid cotton shirt under her open wool-lined nylon winter jacket. He wondered what she was here for (she rarely visited him on campus) and why the big smile, but she apparently wasn't going to tell him without being asked.

"To what do I owe the honor of this visit?" he said quietly, hoping not to disturb the three patrons scattered around the reading room.

"Do I need a reason?" she asked in a voice just a bit too loud for the setting.

"No," he whispered. "But you usually have one."

She laughed—but quietly, taking his cue. "We've known each other too long."

"A long time," he agreed. "But not too long."

She nodded then brought her hands around from behind her (had they been there all along?) and extended an unmarked white envelope across the desk. "Thought I'd save court postage—they charge an absurd amount for the service of simply mailing a document."

Zach, momentarily confused, accepted her offering. "I should open it now?"

"Sure. It's your copy."

He flipped back the envelope's unsealed flap and slid out the single sheet it contained. He unfolded the legal-length paper creased in neat fourths. He read the top fourth:

State of North Carolina

County of Shefford

Allison Mayes Sandstrom, Plaintiff

—vs—

Zachary Carl Sandstrom, Defendant

Judgement

and he read the last fourth:

It is now, therefore ordered, adjudged, and decreed that the bonds of matrimony heretofore existing between the parties be, and are hereby dissolved, and the Plaintiff and the Defendant are granted and absolute divorce from each other.

This the 16th day of December, 1980.

The bottom included a judge's scribbled signature in the center of an embossed seal.

"Sounds pretty final," he said, still staring at the decree.

"It is," she said. "It's what we agreed."

Last winter, while they were still in the process of getting Allison set up in her first apartment and giving her driving lessons, they'd agreed to go forward with filing the divorce papers. Allison accepted responsibility for initiating the process, and Zach had received a summons—an official announcement of the divorce request, giving him a proscribed time period to challenge the complaint—last spring just before heading off to Rome. He'd not challenged the request, and not thought about the divorce in all the months since.

Zach eventually found the strength to look up at her. "It doesn't seem like congratulations are in order."

Her smile slowly faded. She seemed puzzled by his reaction. "It's what you wanted, Zach—a new beginning for you, for me, for us."

"Somehow it doesn't feel like that."

"It is. Got to have faith."

He managed a faint grin—that last an unlikely word in her mouth.

"What?" she said. "You think you've got a corner on the faith market?"

Zach shook his head slowly.

"We'll be O.K. We can start fresh." She glanced at her watch. "Got to get back to work. Call me and we'll set up a time for lunch before you jet off to Israel."

"And you head north for Christmas."

"Need to get together at least once before the new year."

"Thought it was new already?"

"New us, old year," she said before heading out the right-hand side of the pair of glass doors.

A half hour later he skipped the sandwich and chips he'd brought to work and walked over to the Chapel for his lunch break. The massive space seemed especially somber on this gray cool day and was nearly empty—a small group of tourists strolling out as he entered, a few people scattered, each alone, in the ranks of pews. Zach joined them, walking silently down the center aisle till he was about halfway up the nave then entering an empty pew and sitting near its center.

He had no idea why he'd come here. While he loved to look at the Chapel from the outside (it was hard to miss, from almost anywhere on campus), he rarely took the time to go inside. The last time he remembered being inside was at worship with Becca almost exactly a year ago. The sanctuary had been full then—not only of people but of colors and sounds and movement and feeling, both from inside and from outside pressing in. This afternoon it seemed an utterly different space, and it was. But he noted that the banners and altar cloths were the same Advent blue, and the pew he was seated in was (by accident or unconscious intent) the exact pew they'd sat in last year—a little further toward the side, the elderly couple sitting where he was now. And those gentle prods were all it took to sweep his mind and memory back to that worship service, to that moment when his heart (not to mention his body) was bonded to that angel, the love of his life.

The warmth and joy of that memory held just long enough to lift him to a perilous height before the present returned and dropped him down the deep shaft of loss and loneliness—the loss of Becca, and today's loss of his marriage. He understood, and agreed with, Allison's assertion that the divorce marked a beginning as well as an end. And his gentle parting from Becca—he still saw her occasionally for lunch or dinner—left him free to recall their divine juncture (as today) with at least as much joy as sorrow. But at just this moment, in this empty cavern devoid of sound or brightness or purpose, all he felt was loss. Worse, he perceived himself as responsible for all this loss. Blessed by God in abundant and various manners—from internal abilities to external loves—he'd somehow managed to screw it all up to the point where, though not alone exactly, he felt devoid of what he needed: a holy purpose. He'd had that purpose in his marriage, and it was over (years before and officially yesterday). He'd had that purpose with Barton, desperate in the wake of the robbery; and they'd fulfilled their joint calling too well, each reliant on the other but neither needing the other. He'd had that purpose with Becca, called to honor the only perfect love he would ever know, and that calling had proved to be its own ending, the weight of his love more than she could bear. He knew himself blessed beyond all measure or hope, and suffered now the loss or fading of sacred purpose contained in those abundant gifts.

Atop that understanding (not new but somehow more pointed today) he realized for the first time he'd never again find a purpose to match those three. For one thing, he still had those three to honor, in any way he could, the rest of his life. How could he make space for another new calling as great or greater? And he also knew he'd never again find himself at that juncture between youth and adulthood where he was young enough to risk everything and old enough to follow through (instinctively more than consciously) on that wager. He was already amazed by the profligacy of those three gambles, the danger he'd placed himself and, more significantly, those three loves in. He was far removed from being able to take such a risk ever again, and growing farther removed by the day (today's delivered decree being a big kick down the road away from risk, toward fear).

This fairly simple analysis (lucid only because he reflected on these matters constantly, during his many hours alone) left him not so much in pain as hollowed out, feeling as empty as this massive sanctuary now was (he suddenly realized, looking around and seeing that all the others had quietly departed—like those passionate loves and callings). The question before him this moment and onward into the future was not what to do with this rich past and legacy of love. He'd found his way to honoring those loves, would continue to do so long as he had breath. The question this day was how to live in the absence of an over-riding cause. Like Lily in To the Lighthouse, he'd had his vision. So what now?

The sanctuary offered no answer, unless endless voids of gray air were his answer—a grim future.

2

He bought a dozen white roses and slid into the back of Holden Auditorium late in the mid-year commencement proceedings. He didn't have an invitation and knew he wouldn't get a seat, but that was fine by him as he had no desire to sit through the interminable lame speeches and tedious conferring of degrees. He figured he'd wait in the wings for the program to end and the crowd to thin and hope for a few seconds alone with Becca to give her his congratulations and best wishes. He found a place along the hall's back railing, amongst the student marshals and a handful of other stragglers.

Though the two hundred or so graduates down front were all dressed in identical red gowns with matching mortarboard caps, he instantly spotted Becca seated a couple rows from the stage on the right side. He wondered how he could identify her from the back so readily and with such certainty. There were dozens of girls with shoulder-length blond hair. But he knew her, absolutely. His Becca blindness persisted, probably would forever, despite the end of their romance.

The president of the university, an amiable white-haired southern gentleman, wrapped up his fatherly closing remarks, the campus chaplain offered a closing prayer of Godspeed, the university pep band launched a closing fanfare, and the commencement proceedings were over. There was no formal recessional as the auditorium's lobby was not large enough to accommodate the graduates and their families, and nobody wanted to march outside into the cold dark. So once the stage was clear of the visiting dignitaries and various presiders and speakers, and the band brought its trumpet-laden fanfare to a rousing close, the graduates unleashed a loud cheer, a few of them tossing their caps into the air; and they gradually dispersed among the seats and aisles and broad clearing at the foot of the stage—greeting family, hugging friends, saying goodbyes.

Zach held his ground in the back as Becca made her way to her family in the middle of the auditorium—her beaming parents, her dour-faced older brother, her sister Sarah bouncing Katie attired in a bright red Christmas dress on her shoulder, two older couples (grandparents?) Zach didn't recognize. Becca greeted their broad smiles with hugs and kisses, and melted into their safe enfolding arms, their secure fortress of blood and birthright. Since arriving in North Carolina eighteen months ago, Zach had encountered surprisingly few situations where he was reminded he was an outsider; but he became acutely aware of that fact now. He liked Becca's family (Katie most of all), and they'd always been polite and kind to him. But both sides knew from the start they'd never be friends, and that they were in a grave battle for Becca's heart and future. Against that foe, Zach never had a chance.

Still, his heart flowed to her. Across the sloping seats and milling bodies and babble of cheerful voices, every part of him that mattered or would ever matter cleaved to her. He would never let her go. She'd written on the last page (you had to read the book to discover the message) of a novel she'd given him last winter: Zach, You will be forever in my soul. Becca. Well, she was right about that—his permanent habitation.

He turned and made his way through the crowded lobby. Outside in the brittle clear night he passed a dark-haired coed still in her gown but without her cap sitting alone on the stone wall lining the entry plaza. He nodded to her and she smiled back. He took a few more strides toward his truck and home when he stopped suddenly, turned and walked back to the girl and handed her the roses.

"Congratulations," he said.

"Why?" she asked.

"You earned it," he said. "I hope you have a long and happy life."

"I will."

He smiled and turned.

"You too," she said to his back.

Israel

Zach and Barton stood in the stone-walled low-ceilinged anteroom to the small Franciscan monastery inside Jerusalem's Old City in what was meant to be several lines but was really just a mob of people trying to make headway to the low wooden table with three friars seated behind fielding questions and handing out passes to that evening's midnight mass at St. Catherine's Church in Bethlehem.

It was the morning of December 24th—a cool clear day—and they'd arrived in Israel late the afternoon before and picked up their rental Fiat at the airport. Zach drove them (he'd do all the driving this trip) to Jerusalem in thick Judean dark and they'd taken up residence in a palatial suite (a free upgrade from a regular room) at the King David Hotel, their narrow balcony offering a beautiful view of the lit walls of the Old City.

After a quick freshen up, they'd made the ten-minute walk to that Old City and entered through the ancient Jaffa Gate, past the Citadel (the site, though much evolved, where Jesus was tried before Pilate) and the Tower of David. The ancient square was nearly empty, and they ducked into one of the few places open this late—a tiny restaurant called the Citadel Bar. There they had their first of many pleasant encounters with Palestinians, much the most friendly and forthcoming of the diverse local residents. The dignified elderly couple—Palestinian Christians, they soon learned—who owned the bar were seated at a table sipping tea and greeted them warmly as they entered and were tended by a younger dark-haired woman (a daughter?). Throughout this first meal in Israel—moussaka for Zach, hummus and fresh grilled flatbread for Barton—the patriarch of the establishment provided them both welcome and information in clear though heavily accented English.

"Of course, Professor," he said, having learned Barton taught at a university, "You and your friend must walk to Bethlehem. Pilgrims must walk to the holy places. It is not far, only ten kilometers; and the road is good. I myself have walked it many times and would walk it tomorrow except my knees are not so good."

"No danger?" Barton asked, regretting the query almost before it was out.

"From Palestinians? Never! We welcome the pilgrims! We honor their faith! Now the Israeli authorities we cannot control. They make their rules and incite their violence. But in Bethlehem you will be the honored guests of the Palestinian people."

Barton nodded, both chastised and reassured.

So they now hoped to secure tickets to the Christmas Eve Mass at St. Catherine's, the Roman Catholic church in Bethlehem's Manger Square. They'd be spending the afternoon and evening in Bethlehem regardless, but attending the High Pontifical Midnight Mass at St. Catherine's would be the crowning event of their day, perhaps their entire trip—if they could get two of the very scarce, very much in demand tickets.

Barton, plastered against Zach's right side by an overweight Polish woman (so identified by her not so subtle grumbling), looked up at Zach and asked, "Any sign of land, Look-out?"

Zach put his hand to his forehead and peered across the room from one side to the other. "Nothing but a sea of people," he responded.

"Give word if there's any change," Barton said and returned his gaze to the fragrant tweed coat of the Englishman in front of him.

About a half-hour later, they finally made it to that morning's Promised Land—the ticket table with its smiling pasty-faced monk seated beyond. Zach let Barton take the lead in these delicate negotiations.

"Good morning, Brother—?"

"John," the monk replied.

"From Wales?" Barton guessed.

He nodded. "A student of accents, I see—from the United States, mid-Atlantic. Tidewater Virginia?"

Barton laughed richly. "North Carolina, actually, but with kin scattered up into eastern Virginia."

"So what can I do for you this morning, Mr.—?"

"Cosgrove. Barton Cosgrove. My friend, Mr. Sandstrom, and I were hoping to get tickets to tonight's midnight mass in Bethlehem."

"Ah," Friar John nodded, "You've come to the right place—you and everyone else in Israel, it seems."

Barton glanced over the crowd. "So it seems—popular man today."

John smiled. "Every year about this time." His face suddenly lost its smile and assumed the hardened stare of the put-upon gatekeeper he, at that moment anyway, was. "Are you with a tour group?"

Barton shook his head. "No."

"Are you Catholic persons?"

Barton didn't hesitate. "Yes."

The smile returned to Friar John's face. "If you'll give me your passports, I will fill out your tickets."

Outside the office in the bright sun and—finally!—open air, Zach glanced sideways at Barton. "Catholic?"

"What? I say so every time I profess the Creed—I believe in the holy catholic church."

Zach laughed. "Is that what you call a Jesuitical lie?"

"Call it what you like—I got the tickets, didn't I?"

To prove his point, he held them out before him. They seemed to glow in the Middle Eastern sun.

That sun held on for their return to the hotel for coats and cameras and additional currency from the safe at the front desk, and on through their two-and-a-half hour walk to Bethlehem. The first part of that walk took them through busy city streets with smoke-belching cars and trucks, and past ugly rows of government housing the Israelis had recently erected to house, and keep watch over, Palestinian refugees.

But soon they were outside the city limits and walking through the Judean countryside on the Hebron Road, which had a wide shoulder to keep walking pilgrims safe from the occasional roaring swirl of busses headed the same place they were. They passed the occasional low cinder-block hovel with dark openings—no glass in these open-air windows—punctuated by the faces of children stoically gazing at these oddly dressed walkers. Between these rare homesteads were vast open spaces of dry rocky soil and craggy hillsides marked by groves of olive trees and the periodic tilled field, brown in winter fallow. Zach snapped a picture of a farmer working one of those fields behind a wooden plow drawn by a mule. They also spotted a group of Palestinian children playing on a low hilltop along the road, the boys pointing their hands and making pop-pop gun noises with their mouths—innocent playtime activities back home but ominous in this setting.

Soon the security, which had been conspicuous at the airport yesterday but well-hidden since, again became overt. Beyond that group of boys playing on the hilltop Zach spotted a foot-patrol of a half-dozen soldiers in the distance. Open-topped jeeps passed along the highway headed toward Bethlehem, and they met pairs and individual soldiers—all young, many female—along the road, each carrying an Uzi and randomly checking passports and cameras. ("Take picture," the soldier would command. After the third such order, and two wasted exposures of the sky, Zach asked the soldier—a dark-haired, dark-eyed girl, beautiful despite her olive-green uniform—"You?" She had nodded without changing her stern expression or taking her finger from the machine-gun's trigger guard.)

The improbable mix of military personnel and civilians, tour busses and taxis, the desolate landscape and the well-paved road, and the ever present awareness that it was Christmas Eve and they were walking to Bethlehem—all conspired to create a surreal atmosphere around and within them. Yet the ground was still solid beneath their feet, the dirt (though Mary and Joseph may well have walked it, David certainly had—Barton picked up a couple small stones from the roadside and tucked them into the pocket of his shoulder bag) still dirt, and the sun was full and warm on their faces (they were pointed south). The tangible belied the surreal. There was a physicality to their waking dream. What's more, they had each other—wherever this dream took them, they were going together.

They passed through a roadblock outside Rachel's Tomb on the outskirts of Bethlehem. Zach had to empty his pockets onto a metal folding table, Barton the contents of his shoulder bag. A gray-haired, sallow-skinned soldier—the squad leader, based on the deference paid him by the other, much younger soldiers—picked up one of the rocks Barton had grabbed from along the roadway.

"A souvenir," Barton said nervously.

The gray-haired soldier tilted his head and fixed Barton in a hard stare.

"A keepsake," Barton tried again. "From the Judean wilderness."

"You Daa-veed," the commander said and smiled at Barton.

Now Barton was perplexed.

"Daa-veed," the soldier said again and swirled his right hand over his head several time before releasing an imaginary slingshot. "Kill giant."

Then Barton realized the universal, at least in Judeo-Christian cultures, reference. He nodded vigorously. "Yes, David slayed the giant, Goliath, with a rock. Quite right," he said, as if affirming a student's response to a tricky question.

"You Daa-veed," the commander said as he put the rock back on the table beside the rest of the bag's strewn contents. He waved his hand, dismissing Barton to repack his bag and continue his pilgrimage, Bible lesson over.

As they began to climb up hill on a narrow and winding road, needing to weave between parked cars whenever the busses passed, the buildings and the military presence increased until both were unbroken. By the time they reached the crest of the hill, they were funneled by a mix of wooden barricades and stern soldiers toward the entrance to Manger Square. There the crowd was separated into two lines by gender and waited to be individually searched in tarped cubicles by latex-gloved soldiers of matching sex.

Zach looked about the square at the two lines of milling passive civilians surrounded by armed soldiers, some with growling dogs on leashes, and whispered to Barton, "What about this scene doesn't remind you of concentration-camp footage?"

Barton glared at him and shook his head vehemently just once, confirming that he'd had exactly the same thought but was too frightened to express it.

They survived that ordeal and, twenty minutes later, emerged—Barton first, Zach thirty seconds behind out of a different search room—into the city-block sized Manger Square adorned not so much for American-style Christmas as for a third-world festival: extension-cord powered multi-colored lights hung haphazardly in all directions, peddlers of every description—some with carts, some with cardboard boxes, some with their wares draped over shoulders and neck, wrists and hands—hawking their goods, barefoot kids chasing emaciated dogs, dogs chasing kids, Arabic pop music blaring out of bugle-mouthed speakers mounted on the side of the nondescript city hall and police station. In those few strides from the search cubicle to the edge of the Square, they'd moved from the Israeli world to the Palestinian, from the first world's stringent control to the third world's chaos, from the twentieth century into the first (if one ignored the music and the lights).

Zach surveyed the scene, took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. "Home at last," he said after that sigh had fully departed his lungs and his muscles had completely relaxed.

Barton looked up at him as a smile slowly spread across his face. "You know, you might be right."

"No maybe about it," Zach said as he strode into the happy hubbub, Barton following close behind.

After not one but two reverential visits to the Grotto of the Nativity—a cave at the bottom of winding stone steps with tapestries covering the live rock, oil lamps hanging everywhere, and low altars at both the birth and manger sites—beneath the empty and cavernous Greek Orthodox Basilica of the Nativity, and a quick circuit around the perimeter of the square with its various shops and alluring if mysterious side streets, they finally paused from what was now more than five hours of non-stop walking and standing and got a table at the one decent sit-down restaurant in the square, labeled The Plaza in the English translation beneath its Arabic name.

They were warmly greeted by a handsome young Palestinian waiter. Though he was clearly extremely busy (on this their busiest day of the year), he took the time to ask after their well-being—their experience in Bethlehem thus far, their plans for the rest of the day and the rest of their trip. He offered several recommendations for local souvenir shops and warnings about two places to definitely avoid. They nodded thanks then ordered their late lunch, early dinner—lamb kabob for Barton, pork schnitzel for Zach. The waiter gave a deep bow and said, "I am honored to have you as my guests," before turning and heading off toward the kitchen at the back.

Barton gazed after their server, who looked rather like a young Omar Shariff—a black moustache beneath serene and steady dark eyes deep set in a weathered face that seemed older and wiser than its years. "They have such dignity despite their plight," he said once the waiter was beyond earshot.

"The Palestinians?"

Barton nodded. "Such warm and friendly natures despite every reason to be bitter and resentful—especially of Americans."

"Maybe just working the angles."

Barton chuckled. "Ever the skeptical New Englander!"

Zach shrugged. "Survival instinct."

"But you're no doubt right—they've had to learn to work the angles over the millennia, hapless pawns in power struggles not their own. But that history makes their grace and hospitality all the more extraordinary."

"Until they drop a grenade in your knapsack."

Barton shook his head. "I thought roving anxiety was my specialty."

Zach shrugged. "Survival instinct."

The waiter delivered their food and drinks along with cups of warm, sweet tea they'd not ordered but were perfect armor against the late-day weather that had turned cloudy and cool. "My welcome to you," he said after placing the cups of tea before them.

They offered their thanks in unison.

He again bowed before leaving them to their meals.

The food was surprisingly delicious—not only hot and filling but especially tasty. They ate voraciously—it seemed they hadn't eaten for a week—and said little as they watched the other diners—all tourists, mostly European, some of the loud and obnoxious sort—and let the rich mix of the day's experiences settle into their hearts and imaginations as the food and warm tea settled into their stomachs. They realized then something they'd both unconsciously known for some time now—they didn't have to speak to be fully engaged and secure in one another's presence. This was a surprising revelation for them (who were, each in his own manner, easy talkers and obsessive verbal explorers), and couldn't have come at a better time, early in this ten days of near unbroken proximity.

They capped their fine meal with servings of "Bethlehem birthday cake"—a thin yellow sheet cake with white frosting that was understated by American standards but a perfect complement to the rich and filling entrees. They lingered as long as they felt they reasonably could, reluctant to leave this sanctuary and return to the festivities in the Square.

But as the line waiting for their table lengthened and a group of drunk Swedes behind them grew ever louder, Barton caught the eye of their waiter from across the room.

He brought them their check along with a small scrap of paper. "My name is Mohammed," he said.

Barton and Zach introduced themselves.

He handed them the slip of paper. "This is my address and my brother's phone number. Or you can reach me here. I work every day except Friday. If I can help in any way during your trip, please contact me."

They thanked him for both his service and his hospitality.

"You are my honored guests. Welcome to my homeland."

He shook their hands, bowed, and left. Barton paid the bill in Israeli currency, leaving a very generous tip after first getting Zach's endorsement of the amount.

Darkness had descended while they were in the restaurant, and the Square was wet from a passing light shower. They made another circuit of the shops and booths and stands lining the square, and made forays down several of the side alleys and streets, seeking out Mohammed's recommendations and avoiding those places he'd warned against. They each bought a mix of souvenirs—olivewood carvings, kafias (the Arab head scarfs), metal worry beads—spreading their purchases among numerous vendors. At several shops they were invited to sit for small white cups of tea—the same aromatic and thickly sweetened tea Mohammed had brought them.

With both their stomachs and their arms laden, they retired to sit on a set of temporary bleachers erected on a low platform at the center of the Square, and wait for the chance to enter St. Catherine's Church for the Midnight Mass (they'd been told the church would open at ten). Local children (all boys) of various ages quickly gathered around them, laughing and chattering in Arabic and running up and down the bleachers. A few of the older boys addressed them directly in surprisingly clear English, asking where they were from, if Barton liked his kafia (he'd draped one of his purchases around his neck), if Zach played "bas-keet-ball." Barton engaged one older teen named Amin in a lengthy conversation that drifted into politics, with Amin showing open disgust for his Israeli occupiers—"If every Arab spit on Israel, we would drown all the Jews!"

Zach sat in silence to one side, absorbing the exotic life of the Square—its mix of locals and visitors, mix of lights and sounds and diverse traditions all coming together in something probably quite similar to the cosmopolitan Bethlehem of first-century Palestine. As he sat there, children gathered, some standing before him and gazing in silence with bottomless dark-eyed stares, other brushing against him, a few touching his blond hair. He had no idea what drew them to him, nor did he have any intention of speaking or moving, breaking the spell.

Though St. Catherine's didn't open until ten, people started lining up at the entry checkpoint around nine. By the time Zach and Barton left their bleacher seating and did one more slow circuit around the Square and headed toward the church, those few early arrivers had swelled to sprawling crowd a hundred feet deep and twice that far across. There seemed to be no order to this mass, no signs explaining procedures, no officials giving orders or trying to implement them—just a shapeless sea of pressing, pushing, impatient bodies. Zach and Barton staked their claim to a few square feet of stone turf at the edge of that sea and were quickly absorbed into it as hundreds of other would-be worshippers (many no doubt without tickets) filled in behind them. The crush of humanity gave rise to numerous arguments and angry words and a few scuffles broke out—all presided over by Israeli soldiers on the rooftops and balconies and around the perimeter of the crowd and the Square but making no attempt to intervene or establish order in this Palestinian cultural affair.

Though his head was in the clear air above the mass of bodies, Zach felt for the first (and only) time in his life the rippled panic of claustrophobia, knowing there was nothing he could do if the crush of the crowd increased to life-threatening levels. He looked down at Barton's thin-lipped pale profile and could only imagine what unspoken fears he wrestled with. At some point, when the shoulder-to-shoulder pressure tightened another incremental notch, he glanced up at Zach and whispered, "If I say the word, you'll throw me over your shoulder and get me out of here?" Zach gave a grim nod, knowing it was an impossible request that he would find a way to fulfill if called upon.

At quarter to ten the murmur of a collective sigh originated toward the front of the mass and made its slow way back over the crowd. Zach stood on his tiptoes and thought he saw signs of forward movement at the head of the sprawl. He communicated this tidbit of hope to Barton. Some minutes later, the forward shuffle of the crowd reached their quadrant and carried them along on this human sea.

They passed through three separate security checkpoints, all staffed by machine-gun toting soldiers in battle fatigues, their dispassionate stares immune to the tears and cries and muttered complaints of those in their charge. After making it through the first checkpoint (showing their tickets) and the second (opening every one of their numerous bags), they were instructed at the third—the third checkpoint!—that they couldn't bring in the cameras hanging from their necks. They could toss them in the metal trashcan steadily filling with discarded cameras of varying value and description (no doubt a windfall to some commander or official's waiting relatives) or they could go back beyond their starting point and check them at the courtesy desk of the neighboring hotel. After their pleas and desperate gestures (Zach took the camera out of its case, "took picture" for them to see it was harmless), they turned in the direction indicated, back past the long line waiting behind them.

As they dodged around soldiers and civilians, Zach said, "I can't take it anymore. Let's go have a drink at Mohammed's restaurant then catch the bus back to Jerusalem. God doesn't want us at his midnight mass."

Without pausing in his weave through the heavy human traffic, Barton looked over his shoulder with an encouraging grin. "We'll never have this chance again. We'll get in." He grabbed Zach's near hand and dragged him forward to the hotel desk.

Barton was right. They checked their cameras and all their other bags, got back in line, and, a little before eleven, made it into the massive pale-white sanctuary with its double row of square columns marching the length of the nave to the chancel and the distant gold-wrapped altar. All the seats had long since been taken or reserved, but they did manage to carve out standing room beside one of those columns along the roped off center aisle.

Zach leaned heavily against that column, trying to take a little of the weight off his sore legs. "I hope you don't have to pee," he said. Barton's prostate had been acting up lately.

"Not until you mentioned it," Barton responded but with an accompanying laugh. "But who cares? We're in Bethlehem at the Christmas Eve Mass!"

As if to prove that point, the sanctuary was suddenly bathed in brilliant floodlights for the TV cameras mounted and manned on platforms high on the side walls and in the back. The sanctuary continued to fill until there was no more room anywhere inside and the congregation spilled out into the narthex and the broad lobby beyond.

At 11:25 two bass notes rumbled over the sanctuary and through the loudspeakers from a pipe organ hidden somewhere in the sprawling facility, and the High Pontifical Midnight Mass commenced with a lengthy and slow procession down the center aisle—first officials and dignitaries in civilian clothes (all appearing to be Arabic, many wearing the black-checked kafias associated with the conspicuously absent Yassir Arafat), then numerous choirs robed in white surplices over black skirts, then a wooden manger with a recumbent doll in a gilded frame held aloft by four white-robed altar boys, then a cast of dozens of priests adorned in their white and gold Christmas finery, each no doubt bearing some mark of their rank in the clerical order, the last wearing the arrowhead-shaped white and gold bishop's miter.

"Monsignor Giacomo Giuseppe Beltritti," Barton whispered into Zach's ear after pulling his head close.

Zach nodded indulgently. This lengthy procession seemed more a secular parade than a liturgical procession—but then it was the Roman Catholics, it was Christmas Eve, it was Bethlehem. His eyes followed the gleaming gold back of Bishop Beltritti until he disappeared behind the obstructing stone column.

The two-hour mass unfolded in beautiful choral music and haunting chanted liturgy, all in a words he couldn't understand but a language he somehow knew—for the first time yet forever. His feet were sore, his legs weary, his stomach growling (their late afternoon meal a long, long time ago), his eyes crusted with fatigue, his sinuses and throat feeling the first swelling of an infecting virus. But through all those bodily impediments, past the blockage of the column and the distractions of the too hot too bright space, the aromatic bodies of his innumerable crammed in congregants, Zach found his way or was led to an old understanding he'd forgotten these past years, an understanding that would be the bedrock of his future, his eternal life—you are loved; you will always be loved.

He was shaken from his trance near the end of the proceedings by a murmur that wasn't so much a sound as a corporate longing, a shiver of need. He looked down the center aisle toward the church entrance, away from the altar. A communion team—a robed priest with a gold plate bearing wafers, an accompanying altar boy carrying a cross—was returning up the aisle toward the altar, having distributed communion on the far side, now offering the sacrament to those within reach on this side. They slowly approached, now past the previous column, the priest placing wafers in the open mouths, on the outstretched tongues of the faithful. They were past the midpoint of their sector, steadily coming this way.

Only then did Zach realize Barton was no longer beside him, a squat Palestinian woman in dark shawl and head scarf in his former place. Then Zach spotted him—a few places further down the line, closer the priest, in the front row leaning over the velvet rope railing. With the priest still a few worshippers away, Barton took a moment to look back toward Zach, his eyes aglow with expectation and hope, the only one in the room.

After

Thirty years later, in the wake of yet another Christmas spent together, Zach sat beside Barton's bed during one of his lucid spells between morphine pills.

Barton rolled his head on the pillow and fixed Zach in a surprisingly clear-eyed stare. "I was thinking of that blonde girl," he said, his voice, unlike his gaze, shallow and weak.

"Becca?"

Barton made a short nod. "Rebecca Coles."

Zach shook his head, amazed yet again by Barton's ability to summon names, places, events from the distant past despite years of potent and blurring pain medications. "What made you think of her?" Becca's face rose in his mind, crystal clear and still breath-taking despite all these decades of neglect in the back of his memory. A smile came across his face, directed at the blank spot on the wall beyond the headboard.

"I have no idea. What became of her?"

Zach again looked at his friend. "I don't know. I lost track of her after graduation."

Barton managed a smile, pointed squarely at Zach. "She certainly stole your heart."

Zach nodded slowly—no denying that.

Their conversation moved on to other topics.

Truth was Becca lived on in Zach, undiminished in his heart. But it would take a life-crushing loss for him to discover that fact.

Two days later, Zach stood by as the paramedics fought to restart Barton's balked heart—too late for him, almost too late for Zach.
