

The Gospel of Kimber Canavan

By Kerry Austin Garman

The Gospel of Kimber Canavan

Copyright © 2014 by Kerry Austin Garman

Smashwords Edition

This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
CHAPTER 1

It was a series of seemingly coincidental circumstances that brought Kimber Canavan to me for eleven months¬¬—his last eleven months. He came into my life with something beautiful and touching to show me, but I have to admit that what he did that day, the day he died, left me unable to say his name for years. It has been over 3 years since JimmytheKid's and Kimber's death, and only now am I able to write this story the way it should be written. I still feel somewhat responsible for the events on those rocks that day. It took me this long to put it into perspective well enough to account for the death of Kimber Canavan, whom I believe to be a prophet of God.

Only now, in the year 2013, do I think I understand enough about what and who Kimber was to speculate where he was in all of this. His friends, which were more like an army of followers than a crew of guys he drank with, asked me repeatedly if I would write his story. I balked. At the time, I didn't know how to write it, and because of the understanding I have come to through years of therapy and the Death Diaries Kimber left behind, I'm glad I never tried to write his story before now. I feared two possible disasters in trying to relay this tale—that you wouldn't believe that I loved theKid as much as I did, and that Kimber would sound like a religious fanatic. I hope I can convince you otherwise.

I truly loved that man, unlike any love I have ever experienced or will ever experience again. I knew that his friends and family deserved the answers only I could give them, but that was just it. I couldn't. At first, I was just angry. Later, that anger turned to something like self-pity, just before it turned once again into a miracle; prophesy. I was the only one that came back from Wyoming, from those godless rocks. TheKid and Kimber Canavan never did.

Morbid questions were asked of me, these coming from his closest friends and family, yet I remained silent. People actually wanted to know if he was a bloody mess when he landed on the rocks. He'd fallen more than 200 feet onto solid, jagged rocks. I didn't think that I had to describe the blood splatter and brain matter to his friends, but maybe I was being insensitive. Maybe I was supposed to come back and describe the most significant loss I'd ever experienced to his bloodthirsty friends, but I didn't. These images were still in my mind and always would be.

People strongly disliked my silence. It seemed that everyone that had known Kimber got suddenly distant with me, even before the preparations for Kimber's and theKid's service were finalized. I couldn't do much during those few days. I didn't know where Kimber's body was for most of that time, I just knew that he was gone. I had the images of his dead body to remind me of death's finality. I had the images of that running river of blood, draining from his face and head, down the rock, into the caverns below, to remind me that he was, in fact, forever gone. I sought to escape those images while everyone else seemed to want to have them for their own.

I said nothing of how he died, to anyone. Until now.
CHAPTER 2

Gina Dean wasn't a terrible person, she was just a little too fixated on finding love. People who dedicate their lives to causes often come across as aloof or inaccessible, but that's part of what gets them to their destination. For Gina, that end goal was to be married to an attractive, funny, well-bred man, and if he happened to be Jewish, that'd be great.

We'd walk into a bar just far enough for Gina to professionally scan the room. She'd eye the bar up, taking an inventory of men sitting there and dividing that number by the number of single women wandering about. If the odds were less than 3 to 1, we'd move on. We'd cover the downtown area in this fashion, from one bar to the next, Gina pulling me by the hand as we hustled down the street to the next outdoor patio. As soon as we found a bar that Gina deemed worth our while, she'd disappear on me, introducing herself around like a celebrity. When and if she found a man willing to go home with her, she'd look at me and shrug, her eyes crinkling into tiny slits as she asked me in her cutesy voice, "You can find a ride home, can't you, Lai?"

It wasn't just like this once or twice, it was usually like this. I was normally so excited to go home early and be off the hook that it didn't bother me to have to pay a forty-dollar cab fare to get there. I guess I was so alone at the time that I clung to her friendship, no matter how little she offered me in return. I embarrassed myself by letting Gina treat me poorly and by letting her talk to me with little or no respect. That's what bothers me now about my time as Gina's friend. Sometimes I recall things Gina did to me while we were friends, and I hate myself for not slapping her across the mouth.

Sometimes she'd ask horribly direct questions of absolute strangers, expecting them to answer her with absolute candor. It was almost always uncomfortable to be there when she'd start in on someone, usually someone she deemed beneath her on the totem pole of life accomplishments. This person usually took the shape of a hostess, valet, and sometimes even potential suitors. If Gina felt like she were above someone's station in life, she wasted little to no time on them. A good-looking, sweet-hearted construction worker that would love her unequivocally for the next fifty years wasn't ever going to be good enough for Gina Dean. Not only would he not be good enough for her, she'd tell him exactly that, without pulling punches. She made a mockery out of the search for love.

Gina pined over the idea of love but either because of or in spite of that, it never came for her, not while we were still friends. It dawned on me one day that my chances of meeting Mr. Right at one of the many singles events we attended together was greatly diminished simply by being there with her. Had I met the right man, Gina would have seen to it that I had no potential with him, not until she'd found hers. She pretended that she was excited for me occasionally, but that quickly morphed into the silent treatment and snide remarks about whomever I'd found. Any man I found for myself wasn't good enough for her, and Gina had no qualms about pointing that out to me.

Yet, despite her flaws, there was something exciting about going out with Gina, something dangerous and uncertain about a night on the town. She was boisterous, talkative, and generous while we were out. Some days I felt like her "energy" would kill me, while at other times I needed her to add something to my otherwise boring existence.

Of the two of us, I was the better looking. I don't say that to sound egotistical; it's just the way it was. I only say that now so you can understand the dynamics between Gina and me better. She didn't like to hang out with women she thought men found more attractive than her (myself being the only exception, but that had more to do with my passive personality than my stunning good looks). I know from years of doing dating events/singles events that most men considered me an eight while Gina usually ranked about a six. Yes, the singles scene is a place where you can find these sorts of things out about yourself, unlike anywhere else in the world where one would be left to speculate about such a hideous statistic. Just the fact that I know men see me as an eight has both hindered and propelled my desire to find a man. On one hand, it seems flattering to be among the upper echelon of available professional females, while on the other hand, I sometimes feel like taking 8/10 fingers, including my thumb, and jamming them into the parts of a man on which the sun doesn't shine.

As to why Gina Dean chose to take me along despite "outshining" her, well, that was actually the reason. She used me like a lure, someone she could toss out into a sea of available men before reeling me back in and bringing my catches with me. Then Gina would all but shoulder me out of her way while she wooed my catches. The funniest part was that I don't believe I ever met a single man at a dating event who really did it for me. Not a man who'd paid to be in the event anyway. Kimber Canavan was the exception, but he wasn't there to be part of the twenty-first-century dating scene.

It usually felt better to hide behind her than to stand out in front of her at these things; events so shallow and sometimes degrading that eventually I came to loathe them and the friend who always insisted I attend with her.

It has been said of me that I look like Olivia Munn, though I think most men would agree that Olivia Munn is a nine if not a solid ten. Therefore, whenever someone says, "Hey, you kind of look like Olivia Munn," I finish the sentence off in my head with, but not quite as hot. I assume that because I am half Asian and half Irish, leaving me with a slender frame and dark features, people just compare me to Olivia, who has similar though more refined features. I am and have been a runner (not competitively) for most of my life and because of my Asian decent, I'm not busty enough to carry an additional twenty pounds unnoticed. At five-nine, I fluctuate between 115 and 125 pounds. No one has ever called me fat. At least I have that going for me.

Gina and I have always differed on what we want out of a man. Whereas for Gina, his eligibility is related closely to his net worth, for me it was something more than that. I was waiting to feel something. That's the best way to describe my passivity at these events. I tried to imagine these events as fun, wine-drinking nights out that guaranteed at least conversational interaction with men my age, or close to it. I saw it as a socialization process even though somehow I always met the same style of man, no matter how hard I tried otherwise. I call him Joe Khaki because no matter what his hobby or station, he's always in khakis. He works with numbers, the most boring and mundane of materials for a man to work with in my humble opinion, and plays Xbox more than he reads classic literature. This is him, the man that inevitably asked me out, and though it embarrasses me to say, I would usually oblige.

I thought that these slightly chubby, well-groomed, B-type personalities had the ability to be molded into the kind of man I had always been looking for. I thought that if I were to really invest myself into completely renovating a man, I could add enough oomph to any potential match to make them interesting (the one thing they all seemed to lack).

The most important thing a man can have is the ability to entertain and get along with anyone. An intelligent conversationalist would suffice, despite his looks. I needed a man that I could be proud of, not necessarily in his looks ― that wasn't the most important thing for me, nor was his job or financial stability. But his ability to communicate effectively... that was paramount. I'd met and dated plenty of "good guys," clean-cut men with white collar jobs, German cars and Italian suits, but they'd all lacked the most sought after quality of all. They weren't "cool." I don't know what it is about that word, it sounds so petty in type, but whatever "cool" is, it's the hardest feature to find.

Gina, whose standards were all based on money and occupational success, never lasted more than a fourth or fifth date. She'd always be dismissive when we asked her what happened to her and so and so. Usually, she'd concoct some perversion or derangement, not because that was actually the case, but because she knew if she repulsed us enough with her reason, we'd leave the issue alone and spare her the "this always happens to you" comments that lurked in the back of all our minds.

Year after year, Gina Dean remained single. So did I, but my life wasn't a crusade to find the next Bill Gates. Every year Gina threw herself a birthday bash, sometimes costing her more than five grand for the elaborate, gratuitous party. She loved to pamper herself, but more than her desire for luxury was her desire to be loved and adored. At Gina's parties, she made multiple toasts to herself, more and more so as she downed glasses of champagne and wine. There was one toast however that she made every year. She'd wait until she was drunk enough to dismiss the embarrassment, but say it before the end of the night when she'd be too drunk to speak clearly. She'd clank a spoon against her wine glass, hold her glass in the air while she wobbled beneath it and say with earnestness, "Here's to him."

I doubt I was only one in attendance who asked themselves, year after year, "Which one of the hundred?"

The story that would become mine started in 2009 with a single Facebook post on my page. It was from Gina and it read, "London's, Thursday night, speed-dating! You and me, girl! We're in!" I wasn't nearly as excited about this as Gina. In fact, part of me wanted to kill myself at the very idea of attending. Yes, it was the premier speed-dating event in the south Metro area, located right in the Denver Tech Center where all the young, hot, eligible bachelors lived and worked, but in some ways that made it worse.

The worst part of these events isn't the people you meet, the awkwardness of a game like Charades, or, God forbid, karaoke night; it was that by being there you were admitting something. I've always felt that the worst part about being single is not wanting to be single. For people like Gina Dean, this was a hard reality. The only way to seriously look for love while feeling like you need it is to do it in a self-degrading way. We had to laugh at ourselves in order to show up at a place like London's for speed-dating. Even though there were a hundred people there for the same reason, it was still an admission of emptiness.

London's, an upscale fish eatery just off of I-25 and Dry Creek Road, was the Madison Square Garden of speed-dating events in the Denver Metro area. Why there? I have no idea. Anyone that has been submerged in the dating world knows that dating events are often weird, uncomfortable, and in strange locations. Why speed-dating was happening in a fish joint, I have no idea, yet there we were.

London's was known for having a decent bar, a large private dining room, and a friendly enough staff to keep the place busy all the time. It was the most coveted speed-dating event in the area because it offered one thing others didn't ― an unlimited supply of wine for the women, "free of charge." Of course, admission was forty bucks, a hefty sum. Yes, the gene pool was a little deeper and more promising than at other events, and beyond just that, London's was an invitation-only event. In order to be allowed inside, you had to do a prior interview with the organizers, which boiled down to nothing more than a typical "hot or not" screening. We'd done the interview over a year ago, and it had taken Gina this long to get us in. I believe that was because Gina had not been approved until she called in a favor with someone. On the other hand, I had been approved upon my interview. They told you immediately if you were a pass from all three screeners. If you were a split decision, or a fail, they promised to notify you by mail in four to six weeks.

When we'd come out of the interviewing process I didn't tell Gina that they'd passed me. I was glad I didn't when she said, "Well, I guess we'll know in a few weeks."

I'd smiled and looked uncertain, "Yeah. Guess so."

How or why she'd gotten us in to this event on this night, I didn't know. I guessed that she'd met one of the organizers of this event at another event and had asked for leniency. She'd never told me that she'd received a letter in the mail with her results from the panel of three screeners. She never said anything about it, not even asking me if I'd gotten mine. That's how it was for Gina. She'd not mentioned it to me because if she heard that I'd been approved and she'd been denied, that would have embarrassed her and tipped the delicate scales our relationship seemed to hang in, toward me. She had to remain the superior in our relationship; it was important to her that I need her. I wonder why she thought I needed her. I wonder if she thought she gave me something I couldn't get elsewhere, and I wonder what, in her mind, that thing might have been.

When we walked up to London's, the line was literally out the door. There were a hundred "invited guests" and ten standbys, in case some people didn't show. The event started at eight, but Gina had demanded we be there by seven fifteen. Once there and in line, close to the front, we watched as women primped themselves in tiny mirrors and men smoked cigarettes, anxiety and nervousness written across everyone's face. Gina was looking around at the men with a predatory smile on her face that I found creepy. I wondered if she'd slept with enough men that she could look them all over from the line and know who among them was going to be better in bed than others. It seemed to me that if anyone could speculate on the abilities of strangers, it would be Gina Dean. More and more people began to primp as people looked nervously and somewhat awkwardly at each other. It felt like primping was what we were supposed to do, so Gina pulled out her foundation and began to apply even more than she normally wore, making her look like an orange mannequin.

Somehow Gina and I began to discuss the $40 entry fee. To Gina, forty bucks was a joke. "To be invited to Denver's most exclusive dating scene," she noted, "I'd have paid five hundred."

I looked at her, feeling sorry for her. "It's a good thing there's free wine or you'd be here alone."

"I hardly think you have the sort of prospects to turn down Thursday night at London's." I must have struck a nerve, pointing out that only the sad and desperate would pay forty bucks to be auctioned off to the guy with the tightest T-shirt and jeans because after I said that, she got mad. "Lai, can you just try to have fun? I know how hard that is for you, okay? I get it. You're just no fun to hang out with anymore."

My face probably reddened the way it does when I get instantly and uncontrollably angry. "Maybe you should try asking me to do something other than these stupid events! Look around, Gina! They're the same people as anywhere else, the same boring losers we always meet up with but in tighter jeans, more hair gel, and cigarettes."

"Those things can be remedied," Gina said with a smile that forgave my insolence. I think she was afraid that I would leave if she got too short with me. Her tone was different now, joking and understanding. "Yeah, what's this about?" she asked, gesturing to the guy behind us with a Marlboro hanging out of his mouth.

The guy looked at Gina dismissively. "Whatever. We're still outside. You can always go to the back of the line."

She smiled her "you're pathetic" smile and said, "Cute. Real cute." Instantly, she turned her attention back to me. "Lai, please do this. Okay? I know this isn't really your thing, but please... I need you now."

"I'm still here aren't I?" I asked.

"Yeah. You sure are and I love you for it!" she exclaimed, patting me affectionately on the shoulder.

"Good. Now agree that they're still selling sex to men. Admit it. Rather than presenting us in chains and a loin cloth, they're charging forty bucks so we'll get wasted and go home with dudes. That's why London's is famous. It's not because the building is sacred or charming; it's because at this event we get drunk. The more drunk we get, the more men get laid. It's not so complicated, really. They're still selling sex to men."

"Amen to that," the smoker behind us said.

Gina smirked dismissively. "You're not getting laid here tonight, no matter what."

The man, without hesitation, countered, "They screened you and let you in? Wow. The standards have slipped around here." He looked at me. "Not you. You're definitely qualified."

Gina was speechless, and I was embarrassed for her. It was one of the few times I'd ever seen her so offended that she couldn't speak. Luckily, just then as if orchestrated by God himself, the line began to move and we filed into London's, one single at a time.

We moved into the restaurant that smelled, not surprisingly, like fish. At least, at first it did. The parade of singles, all heavily doused in perfume and Axe body spray, filed in through the main dining room, around the back corner, and down a hallway toward the other end of the restaurant where the private dining room was.

As we filed through, I almost felt guilty. I might have, had the embarrassment not been so overwhelming. There at each red-checkered tabletop were happy families, enjoying fish dinners and a pleasantly dark ambience. That is until we started filing through. Their eyes lingered on us, dressed to the nines, in heels and short skirts as they ate hush puppies and fried cod. Each family took us in the same way―the husbands eyeing us women as we marched by in short skirts and three story pumps, their wives watching us with the unmistakable look of disdain on their faces. It wasn't until then, filing through London's on a Thursday night, passing happy, natural families as they ate their natural, happy dinners, that my station in life hit home. These people hadn't done it this way. These people hadn't posted ads on match.com, photoshopping pictures of themselves and inventing hobbies that interested them. They'd met the way normal people meet, naturally and through common interests, not common websites. We embodied a life they'd once lived, back when they were young and confused, insecure and disillusioned about what the future held for them. Now, they looked back on those days with embarrassment. Now, from their secure relationships that had long since gone stale, they watched us walking by, attractive and seductively dressed and wondered how it was that we, this group of pre-screened-for-attractiveness singles, were still alone.

"If you're so beautiful and successful, why are you still alone? Why are you still paying to meet men?" No one asked me that directly, but they didn't have to. I could feel them thinking it.

We came to the private dining room that was ornately roped off with what looked like old fisherman's rope. The room was big enough for ten, six foot by four foot tables to be pushed together and lined up end to end down the center of the room. At both ends of the room were two small bars with enough stools for five at each one. I noticed immediately as I took in the room that at the bar closest to the side we were entering from, four men were hanging out drinking. Three of them seemed to be together; the other man, bearded and in corduroy pants, was apparently alone as the remaining unused stool sat between him and the threesome. The bar was no more than five feet from the end of the tables. I was thinking that I didn't want to be so close to the bar when Don, the event organizer, took me by the hand and led me to the very first seat, the one closest to the bar and the lone drinker.

I sat down and looked for Gina, who had been right behind me when we'd come into the bar. She was getting ready to sit down, three seats down from me. I tried to stop her, to tell her to move closer to me, but she was already setting her purse on the table, sliding her chair in. Next to me was a pretty girl named Alysha.

People were fidgeting and straightening their clothes as the men took their seats across from us on the opposite side of the tables. Quick hellos and brief introductions were made as I tried to signal to Gina that I was unhappy with her seating choice. I reached around Alysha, hoping to tap Gina on the shoulder and ask her why she'd abandoned me, but the distance was too great, and when I reached around Alysha's back, she looked at me as if I was getting ready to one-arm hug her.

I knew why Gina sat where she did. Gina was a gifted conversationalist and, hence, liar. She lied with ease, sometimes without even meaning to do so. The only thing that made her lying difficult for her was having someone like me, someone that knew the truth about her, to be next to her when she started her lies. Gina lies about stupid things like traveling the world when she was twenty-one, or her one week stint with John Cusack when she lived in Georgia. They were accessory lies—nothing provable or tangible, just things that she thought made her sound more desirable and worldly.

Don cleared his voice and made the announcement that we were about to begin. He explained the rules of the game, which boiled down to this:

The total time between couples was two minutes. For forty-five seconds, I could ask my potential match as many of the scripted questions from the menu before us as I could until time ran out. When my forty-five seconds were over, the gentleman I was interviewing would then ask me questions for forty-five seconds. The last thirty seconds was split into two fifteen second rounds, lamely called the "freestyle" round. For these fifteen seconds, I could ask my candidate anything I wanted and he could then ask me anything he wanted. When the final, long buzzer sounded, thirty seconds was allotted for making notes about the candidate I just met and refilling my wine glass before moving on to the next man. The women sat still, sipping the cheap wine, as the men rotated chairs. Simple enough, right?

The game kicked off and I made it through about ten average, uninteresting men before a man whose nametag read "Marky Mark" sat down across from me. As Marky Mark slipped into the chair across from me, I took him in. He looked like a pompous ass, even before he opened his mouth. Across his shirt were screen-printed skulls, demon wings, and obscure lettering that I couldn't interpret. He wore tight, deep-blue jeans that left little to the imagination. I didn't realize it until he stood up again to grab his beer that the back pocket of his jeans was ornately bedazzled with rhinestones and a diamond crusted button. I wanted to gag. His boots were black leather and motorcycle style with an obnoxious silver buckle across the top of them. He was thin, shorter than I like my men to be, and unshaven. Honestly, he was an attractive guy but far from what I considered to be my type.

When Marky Mark sat back down, he didn't bother smiling or saying hello as he looked me up and down. He wore this smug smile that suggested to me that he'd done me the favor of looking me over, but wasn't all that impressed with what he'd seen. His hair was impervious to the ceiling fan above us because of the half tube of hair glue he'd applied in order to cement it in place. He fidgeted with the timer on the table, refusing to even address me until the buzzer went off and our round began.

I started asking Marky Mark questions. He gave me one word answers between yawns that appeared to be fakes, designed to tell me how he felt about me. He yawned over and over again, leaning back in his chair and staring at the ceiling fan as I rattled off more questions from the menu. I thought the timer would never buzz. It seemed to me that I was trapped in a vacuum where time stood painfully still, and when the forty-five seconds finally ended, he wasted ten seconds of his time just getting from his reclined position back to upright. He picked up the menu and asked me number sixteen on the list, "What are your hobbies?"

I tried to answer him, but he wasn't listening to me. He wasn't even pretending to listen to me. Marky Mark, it appeared, hated me. When I was finished describing my hobbies, he looked at the timer and his face sunk with disappointment. He asked me the second question, reading it intentionally slowly to burn more and more seconds as he did so.

It was then that I noticed the man at the bar. He was turned around to face me now, sitting with a beer in his hand, his back to the bar, and his eyes locked on mine. He watched me as I struggled to answer Marky Mark's second question, without looking away or pretending otherwise. The man with the beard seemed completely unconcerned with the fact that he was staring at me. He just continued to watch me, even as I looked back and forth between him and Marky Mark.

Mark was looking at Alysha, as if he were more excited to get to her than me. I took that opportunity to look at the man at the bar more closely. I watched him with the same intensity with which he was watching me. The first thing I noticed were his eyes. They were a bright blue, as blue as I've ever seen before, and in them I found a sensitivity uncommon in a man his size. He looked more and more intelligent as I took him in. His wide shoulders suggested he was over two hundred pounds and taller than I'd originally gathered. He also looked younger than I'd first thought, maybe thirty, maybe not even that old. He wore brown corduroys and a T-shirt that took me a second to read. "The Features" was scrawled in white ink across a black shirt, a bird of some sort under the words. On his feet were brown sandals, worn in and tattered. His face was a tangle of hair. Between his unkempt beard and moustache, his long hair and his hemp necklace, I began to think he looked like he'd just escaped from Woodstock, not unscathed.

There was something about him that attracted me to him. I'm not too proud to admit that what might have attracted me to him was the intensity with which he was watching me. I'm normally the kind of girl that gets subtle looks from men on the other side of the bar. Generally, men don't send me drinks, nor do they casually wander over to me and introduce themselves. I draw a much more subtle man, lacking confidence, and usually along with it style. For this particular man to be watching me so closely, so intensely, was somewhat stirring. My eyes, despite my wanting otherwise, continued to return to him time and time again. I was as fascinated by his staring at me as he was by whatever he saw in me that was worth staring at. He looked like, just for a second, a man that was saying to himself, "Found you..."

Mark, paying me no attention whatsoever, had no idea what I was looking at. As far as he was concerned, he was all there was in the room. The bearded man smiled, a passive sort of private smile, and then stood. He turned to pay his bar tab as Mark made his attempt at entertaining me with another heartfelt question. "Where do you see yourself in ten years?" No sooner had he said the words than the buzzer sounded, announcing the "freestyle round."

The rules said that when the buzzer went off, I was to immediately switch gears, no matter where we were in the interview process. Since Mark barely managed to ask the question before the buzzer went off, I skipped answering his question and asked my own "freestyle" question. "If you were going to be trapped on an island for ten years, what three albums would you bring with you?"

"You didn't answer my question," he said flatly. It was the fastest he'd answered me all night.

"Once the buzzer goes off, we switch," I reminded him.

I thought he was joking with his scornful looks of annoyance, his widening eyes and his slack mouth. Apparently he wasn't. He was genuinely upset that I'd disregarded his question and in turn, he refused to answer any of mine. How mature. He sat back in his chair, once again searching the ceiling fan for a time machine that would transport him sixty-five seconds into the future, where Alysha awaited his majesty's presence. He was reclining, whistling even, waiting for my time to run out.

As soon as the buzzer sounded, he leaned forward, looked me in the eyes and asked me point blank, "So... how many guys have you done in the last six months?"

My heart exploded into furious beats of anger, like a war song. My face reddened; the white pushing down my cheeks, over my jaw, and below my neck as the blood forced it out. I was so suddenly angry that I remember feeling capable of murder. It wasn't Mark's stupid question that made me mad; it's that what he was asking me was exactly why I hated these events. It was demoralizing to be here, to be in a place where the lonely go to feel normal for their obsessive lives and fruitless yields. I thought that he'd probably asked every one of the girls he'd already interviewed the same exact question, and they'd probably laughed when he'd asked them that. They'd probably gotten submissive, the way men like Marky Mark like their women, and lied when they'd given their tallies. To them, to everyone else, that was part of this experience; that was the price of playing this stupid and pointless game. We'd all be asked worse, surely that wasn't as bad as it got with an unscripted forty-five seconds and half-drunk men.

I looked back at Marky Mark and seethed, "You're a pig. We're done." I went to stand, but I was so upset that my legs wouldn't hold me. Just as I started to fall back into my seat... I saw him coming and I knew.

The man from the bar was just behind Marky Mark, having taken the three steps that separated them, unbeknownst to Mark. The stranger's eyes, those clear-blue eyes, looked briefly at me before returning to Mark. The stranger was a giant. He was only six-three, but he was wide in the shoulders. That, combined with his attire that fit him so well, he looked like a former quarterback, perhaps done in by a knee injury, who kept working out with the same vigor in hopes of returning to the field of battle one day.

There was no delay in the events that followed. The whole episode lasted five seconds, but like anyone who's been through a car accident or a fight of his own, time morphs and changes when trauma is added into the mix. I was still in the gap between standing and seated when the stranger delivered the first blow to Mark's face.

With just one hand, the man who would later introduce himself to me as Kimber Canavan seized Mark by his neck, yanked him farther back in his chair, which put Mark beyond the tipping point and into a free-fall backward as his chair pivoted toward the plank-board floor. As Mark's head went by Kimber's waist, Kimber drove a straight jab directly into the T of Mark's nose and forehead. The blow hit Mark so hard and so fast, that Mark's head bounced off of the floor before his blood splattered across the table and onto my hands.

My ears were ringing as if there'd been a gun shot. Blood, some of it as fine as mist, other spots as big as a dime, were spread across the table, fanning wider as it spread in flight. I looked at it and then at my hands, now spotted with the blood of the man that had just offended me so. I was trying to process this, trying to assign characters to the players, things like good guy, bad guy... hero and enemy, but there was no sense in the chaos. I didn't understand my own thoughts, or my twisting smile as I looked at my hands and realized that for the first time in my life, someone had shed someone else's blood in order to defend me.

It's always at this part of the story that I confuse people. Countless times I recounted this tale while Kimber and I sat next to each other at a dinner table somewhere, fielding the inevitable, "So how did you two meet?" question that always came. When I try to tell people that I was turned on by the violence, I watch as their faces contort into an expression that shows they don't understand what I mean by that, or how I could possibly even say that. Then, people always smile politely and nod their heads, all without muttering a word, hoping that I'll just shut the hell up about it before they tell me how repulsed they are by my feelings toward violence.

In this particular case, however, I'm obliged to tell you the truth. I was wild with adrenaline, estrogen, and raw excitement. I wanted to wipe my hands across Mark's mangled face and smear his blood across my own like a warrior, a woman unafraid of blood and violence. I wanted the man who'd come out of nowhere to hit him again, to punish that bastard for being such a pig. Be careful what you wish for...

In the next instant, just as I was acknowledging the blood splatter across the table, Kimber hoisted Marky Mark up, gut punched him, and as the man sagged in agony, Kimber delivered another right hand punch, this time with more wind up. Three of Mark's teeth clinked as they landed on the table. The buzzer sounded in that exact same instant and the room exploded in laughter and conversation. Only a few of the attendees were aware of what was happening on the other end of the dining room. Mark slumped to the floor in a heap. Strands of blood and spit trailed from his lips to the fingers he'd used to inspect the damage to his face. He began to weep aloud as Kimber Canavan turned and walked out of London's.

I stood and watched Kimber leave. Alysha screamed and then laughed. She turned to me and said, "Wow! That was incredible! That guy was such an ass!" Gina rushed over, finally able to stand herself, and hugged me. She asked me repeatedly if I was okay. I held my hand up, showing her the blood that had splashed across the table. As she studied the blood on my hand, I smiled. I didn't mean to. I tried to stop it, but the damned thing just appeared out of nowhere. Gina looked at me in horror, and then disgust. "Are you smiling?" she asked incredulously.

"No," I lied, but doing so made me laugh, not just a chuckle, but an all-out, belly laugh that turned into hysterics. Tears streamed down my face as I laughed recklessly, even as Gina released and stepped back from me.

"You are one sick individual," Gina said with wrath. She wanted me to feel bad about my smile. I just didn't. I wanted Mark to writhe in pain. I wanted him to touch his mouth with those bloody fingers of his and feel the holes in his row of nicotine-stained teeth and know that what he'd said to me, a woman, any woman, had caused this pain. I was content to smile and watch as people came to Mark's aid. They got him on his feet, his eyes red and teary as he looked at me. It was as if he was asking himself, "Did she do that?" and I hoped that he was coming to yes as his conclusion. I hoped he was looking at me and was afraid. I hoped he feared me more with each throb of pain he endured. I hoped he bled out in the ambulance...

I turned to Gina, who was trying to assist the men that were helping Mark. She glanced at me, and then back to Mark. A second later, she followed Mark toward the main doors at the front of the restaurant. She made her decision.

People were touching me and asking me questions about whether or not I needed to go to the hospital or talk to a counselor, but when they saw my eerie smile, they fled. By the time two minutes had passed since Gina and Mark left, it was clear to me that I was alone. My only ally was the brute responsible for all of this, and suddenly he was all that mattered. He would understand. Maybe he'd even be able to tell me why what he'd done had struck me so poetically. I don't remember deciding to do so, but I walked to the front of the restaurant, pushed open the doors, and walked toward the parking lot. I saw him immediately.

Seeing him again, my stomach filled with butterflies. He sat very casually, smoking a joint on the trunk of his old Honda Civic. I knew it was a joint from that far away because of that smell, the skunky smoke that defines the smell of marijuana. He looked so casual in his corduroys and T-shirt, his smile pleasant and natural, his teeth sparkling white under his curly, brown beard.

I was walking toward him unaware of what I would say when I crossed the distance separating us. He was so calm and natural that as I neared him, his calm demeanor had a pacifying effect on me. By the time I was close enough to speak to him, I was relaxed. I'd never been this relaxed around a stranger before, but in many ways the fact that I was out there with him after what he'd done made us closer than had we slept together. My approach and my smiling face told Kimber Canavan that I was satisfied with his behavior, something he couldn't have been expecting. How many times could he punch a man in the face for a girl and have her come running to him five minutes later?

He nodded at me as I stopped just short of his car.

"Thank you," I said.

"You're welcome."

"Did you hear what he said to me?" I asked, wanting him to confirm that yes, his actions had been for my honor.

"Yeah, I heard him. The rest... well, sorry. Sometimes I get a little crazy." He smiled wide and looked at me. "I'm really a pretty peaceful man." He stopped speaking and watched as more people came out of London's doors, directly behind me. He looked at me again and said, "I don't get it. You don't seem like the kind of girl that comes to mockeries like this. There's just no way you need to do this to find dates. No way."

Looking at him in the sunlight was different from looking at him in the restaurant. Outside, he was more handsome, more at home, I guess. He looked relaxed as he sat there engaging me, not unnaturally so, just confidently cool. "Cool as ice" was the term people would later use when describing Kimber to those that didn't know him.

The curly hairs of his beard looked wild, as if there wasn't a leader among them, and the resulting chaos was that of absolute anarchy. His teeth were, again, absolutely perfect-white, and in contrast to the disorder of his facial hair, his teeth looked like well-disciplined soldiers in marching formation. His eyes sparkled with that vivid blueness reserved only for water surrounded by glacial ice. He smiled, not smoking his joint, but letting it burn, its smoky tendrils twisting and twirling like lengths of rope climbing skyward.

He looked at me, his head tilting almost imperceptibly to the side, his eyes kind and wide as he waited for me to answer him. I hadn't realized that he was expecting an answer, and the realization that he was waiting for me to say something was suddenly terrifying. I was trying to think of something to say that would correctly and truthfully put my reasons for being here into perspective, but just like with Mark's question, Kimber's question would be hard to answer with the truth because the truth was also the most likely lie.

"I came with a friend," is what I said, just as the pause in my reply was beginning to sound like time needed to fabricate an answer. "She takes it more seriously than I do, but... a girl's gotta do..." I smiled at him weakly, nervously, but then my eyes found the joint he was holding in his hand.

Kimber noticed me noticing his joint and thought that I was signaling my interest. I didn't want to take a pull on the joint. I hadn't smoked one since high school, and even then, I'd hated it. Honestly, I would have rather licked the trunk of his car than smoke his weed, but he was now offering it to me, sure that I wanted it. It was time to tell Kimber Canavan exactly who I was, letting him realize the mistake he'd made in his assessment of me. I was going to tell him that I believed in "hugs, not drugs," that I was one that "DAREd to resist" and all that, but before I could conjure up images of McGruff the crime dog, I was holding his joint to my lips and sucking in.

Why was I pretending to be a smoker? Who am I?

A moment passed as Kimber took the joint from my fingers, his hand touching mine for a long second. He smoked the joint and went to hand it back to me.

I slowly exhaled and said, "No thanks. I'm cool," hoping that I would sound as cool as I was assuring him I was.

"So you're here with someone?" he asked, his pupils pushed hard to the right where he was watching the crowd in front of London's without turning his head to do so.

"My girlfriend, Gina. She's a serial dater... I attend too many of these things with her."

"You are a good soul, a good friend," Kimber said with a laugh, "If attending that sex-sale was the only way to cure my mother of cancer, I'd buy her a nice casket."

I smiled weakly. "I want to thank you... for being a good guy," I said, sitting next to him and watching the crowd of gatherers outside the restaurant as Kimber did.

He looked at me with a sly smile. "I needed that."

"What? The fight or the thanks?" I asked.

"The fight."

"Is that... common for you?" I asked carefully.

He laughed aloud and looked at me. "Do I look like a brawler?"

It might have just been the high, but suddenly I was overwhelmed with the urge to touch him, to feel the heat of his skin. I reached out and touched his knee, my hand resting assuredly on the bones of his knee that I could feel under the thick corduroy pants. "No. I know why you did it. I knew it the minute I saw you coming for him."

"How did you feel?" he asked me and then added, "When you knew what I was going to do, how did you feel?"

My heart quickened at the question. It wasn't just what he was asking me, but why he was asking me. He knew that I'd appreciated it, that through his fists I'd released the rage that had boiled up in me. "I felt like you were swinging my arms... like I was hitting him, through you."

"You weren't scared?"

"I was. I was excited scared. Just before you hit him my heart had been pounding so hard that I thought it was gonna explode. I was so angry and insulted... I wanted to kill him." I looked at Kimber, deep into his eyes. I watched as his eyes turned upward, toward the front of London's and realized, even before he said her name, who was approaching.

"Uh oh... this must be your friend." He gestured with a tilt of his head and an amused smile.

Sure enough, Gina Dean was on her way across the parking lot wearing a look of mixed emotions on her reddening face. I knew the second I saw her approaching that she was upset with me... well, me or Kimber. She was striding purposefully, her gait aggressive and angry. This thing with this man sticking up for me, for all the drama being about me for the first, and potentially only, time in my life was killing her as she strode toward us. "What the hell are you doing? It started back up again," she said, her eyes locked only on me as if I were sitting on this car alone.

"Gina, this is..." I stopped, realizing I didn't yet know his name. It seemed as if I was too comfortable with this man to not know his name. Almost immediately, I had reacted to him like an intimate friend, like a bedfellow. It seemed preposterous that I didn't know him by name.

"Kimber Canavan," he said, stretching out his hand.

I knew what was going to happen, even before it did. Gina looked at Kimber's offered hand just long enough to blatantly ignore it. She smiled her curt, "Charmed, I'm sure," smile and turned back to me, giving Kimber the side of her head. "Come on, Lai. It's only a ten minute break! We're getting back in there!"

"I'm done, Gina," I said, trying to sound resolute.

Gina sneered at me, "No, you're not."

"Yeah, I am," I countered. "Seriously? You expect me to go back in there?" I asked.

Despite the smallness of the joint, the smell was big. She glared at his hand, where the tiniest of tiny roaches remained lit in his burnt fingers. The smoke was white and thick and hanging in the stillness of the dry, Denver night. "Were you smoking marijuana?" she asked me in a tone I recognized as my mother's.

"I... I..." I stuttered, suddenly caught in a very sticky place.

"Did you?" she demanded.

"I took a puff... yeah," I said, trying to sound like smoking pot was commonplace for me.

"What? You took a 'puff' from this guy's joint?" Gina used her pudgy fingers to make air quotes as she'd said the word 'puff.' She was still ignoring Kimber as if he weren't even there. Her eyes were locked on mine as she tried to figure out how this man had changed me into something and someone so unrecognizable to her so quickly. "There could be heroin in it for all you know! Look at this guy! You don't know him from Adam! He looks like a coal miner or something... You don't think he's got access to roofies?" She finally looked at Kimber, who looked back at her amused.

Kimber laughed aloud. "Roofies? Can you even smoke Roofies?" Kimber asked me.

"I don't know. I've never tried," I replied, smiling myself because of his contagious laughter.

"You wanna?" he asked me, lost in the privacy that comes from sharing a foe.

"She might be right!" I joked, pointing to Gina. "Charlie Manson wore corduroys."

"How would you possibly know that?" He laughed so hard at this point I thought he was going to fall over. The way he laughed was so hilarious and intense that it spread to me in a matter of seconds. Tears were streaming down Kimber's face as he clutched at his sides. The idea that he'd been accused of "roofy-ing" me was just that funny to him, I suppose. It didn't matter why he was laughing; what mattered was that Kimber and I were laughing together, drawing a line between Gina and us that Gina could feel. Our antics had the added benefit of annoying Gina, something that brought me immense pleasure, I must admit.

Kimber and I were making Gina Dean feel excluded, and in Gina's constitution, that was grounds for immediate disciplinary action. But she had to be careful here, she had to appeal to me just right; and Gina, as obsessed as she was about dating, never forgot her manipulative etiquette. She'd go easy on me, not wanting to push me to the point where I gave up and said I was done with her. She'd be more careful than that. First, she'd work to drive a wedge between me and Kimber, then, once divided and she had me alone, she'd tear into me.

Just as I'd anticipated, with a smile, Gina stepped closer to me. She asked me to meet her out front, by her car, where we normally talked over stuff like this. I knew that if I found myself on the other side of Gina's car with her, I'd be taking the ass-chewing of a lifetime. It seemed safer to keep her where she was, where she was outnumbered by me and this man, Kimber 'the coal miner.'

"I'm not going back in there, Gina," I said evenly. Intentionally. I didn't start rambling like a nervous idiot. I sat very still, taking her in for the long seconds she pondered my statement. She looked at me and then to Kimber, me and then Kimber, over and over again.

She stood there, watching us, her face reddening as she thought about what the next step would have to be. Begrudgingly, she took a huge gulp of air and breathed it out, pretending to be resigned to her fate. She nodded at Kimber with fake affection for a second, before she turned her loathing eyes back to me and my impudence. She began to nod very quickly, pretending to be agreeing with something that had been said thus far.

She turned to Kimber and asked, "The Lord knows it was a terrible T-shirt and his fauxhawk was ridiculous, I agree... but did you have to beat him up? Did you have to splatter his blood like a high school kid? Was that part necessary?" she asked Kimber.

"It seemed like it at the time."

"Well how does it seem now that his teeth are broken and he's on his way to the hospital?" Gina glared at Kimber.

He looked at me without much of an expression. Finally Kimber spoke, but when he did, he was talking to me, not Gina. "What do you think now that he's on his way to the hospital and has no teeth?"

I looked at Kimber and broke into that same stupid laugh again. I didn't want to, I really didn't, but looking at him as he waited so patiently for me to answer, I couldn't help myself. Yes, the marijuana was taking effect on me and surely that had something to do with how I was responding to Gina and Kimber, but for the first time in what felt like forever, the world was happening to me tonight, not to Gina. "I think he got what he deserved," I said flatly, the laughter finally gone from me.

Gina glared at me. "He went to the hospital, Lai! The hospital!"

That was apparently supposed to bring me to my senses, but Gina and I were on different planes now. She thought I was going to feel the way I usually did about myself, and maybe in my normal hum-drum world I would have felt terrible about the man's teeth being knocked out of his face, but in this world, the one with Kimber Canavan in corduroys beside me on the lid to his trunk, joint in his hand, I didn't. I honestly didn't care at all about the injured man. That may sound callous, and I've been called far worse over the years, but I'd actually taken solace in his misery. I'd felt redeemed, valued, maybe for the first time ever. I looked at her and thought how sad it was that she and I were so "close," yet on something like this, we'd never share the same understanding.

She was waiting for me to answer. When I did, it went like this, "Tell me he'll be missing teeth for the rest of his life. Tell me, Gina." Bewildered, she looked back at me with absolute blankness. I was losing her and I was thrilled to be doing so. I continued on my demented path. "Just because they found his teeth it doesn't mean they can reattach them, can they?" I looked at Gina, whose face looked vacant, and then back to Kimber, who seemed to understand my snide remarks. I lowered my eyes to Gina, making sure she heard me clearly and precisely. "That bastard deserved every ounce of pain he got, Gina. Believe that. He's a pig."

She managed to reply, but I saw my effects working on her. She was nervous. She was outnumbered and as deranged as she might have assumed I was because of my sudden blood lust. She seemed scared when she answered me. "Just because you say he's a pig doesn't mean he deserved to get his face beaten in."

"Maybe not just because, but he did deserve what he got. I feel nothing for him. You didn't hear what he said to me," I reminded Gina.

She looked at Kimber uncertainly. "Thank you for saving my friend from that man. Seriously, thank you. I wish I'd been there to hear what it was all about..." She was drifting unintentionally toward an insult; she pulled it back together for the save. "I uh... I should have been. Okay? Okay, Lai? Can we go back in now? I thanked the nice man for saving you." Her patronizing tone as apparent as it ever was.

"No! It's not okay, Gina! You're being a condescending bitch!"

Her temper was legendary. She liked to think that my Asian-Irish blood made me run hot, but it was her Jewish-estrogen issues that interfered most often between us. She was angry about this situation between Kimber and me for one reason. Sure, there would be a hundred excuses, but selfishness would be the sludge left behind when her lies were boiled down.

"Okay, Lai. You want to stay out here with..." She bit back the urge to make a coal miner comment, and said with much effort, "... Kimber... that's fine. I'm going back in. Remember, you drove me here. You better be here when I get back."

"Really? After all the times you've abandoned me over the years?" I asked. I didn't know if this was going to be a real fight or just a tiff, but suddenly I was in the mood to fight with her. I said later that it was the weed; Kimber argued fiercely otherwise. Whatever the reason, I was suddenly mad, really mad, and I wanted to hit. I was just done with being pushed around, done with being the wingman. This time, it was my affair and I was going to see to it that I got my chance. There was something electric in this man, a power, a fire... something that felt very awakening to me. He felt wise and kind and I already knew that he was dangerous and daring... He was what I'd been waiting for my whole life. I felt awake and alive for the first time in too long. Being in his presence made me realize that I was still among the living; I was still free and young...

Gina, who had turned to walk away, stopped. She turned around slowly to face me. "You are driving me home. Got it? I came here with you. I leave here with you," she said slowly and deliberately. "Either you come back in and finish the event, or sit right here until I do. I'm sure there's someone around here you two could punch in the face... or hey, there's probably a tire iron under your asses that y'all could use to bludgeon each other to death." She and Kimber both laughed at that. "Pop roofies, smoke doobies... whatever. Just be here when I get done."

Kimber leaned over to me. He spoke as if Gina wasn't standing right there, as if it were just the two of us alone in his bed, stripped of our clothes and close enough to whisper. "It's okay. You can go back in with your friend."

I was appalled. "No way! Are you kidding me?"

Kimber looked from me to Gina, who was ten paces away from me and waiting. "I think this ends with you going back in there," he said quietly.

"No..."

"Come on, Lai. He wants you to go back in." She looked at Kimber and nodded. "Right? Don't you want her to go back in and finish out her night?"

I looked at Kimber, wanting him to say no, that he wanted me to stay with him.

"I think that you guys will be happier if you go back in there together," he said without making eye contact with me.

"I don't want..." I started, but it was too late.

Gina was coming back to pull me inside. She grabbed my hand and dragged me toward the door. I couldn't believe that Kimber had given me up so easily, that he didn't fight to keep me out there with him. I was reeling from the rejection I was suddenly feeling. Five seconds ago, I'd felt more accepted and wanted than I had ever felt, and now, just two breaths later, I was back to being unwanted, back to being Gina's clay pigeon.

I didn't know him, yet I wanted with all my heart to stay right there with him on the back of his car. I remember thinking that Kimber was, for a potentially broke working stiff, a catch. His wide shoulders, long hair, easy nature, and scraggly beard seemed to contrast entirely with the men I worked with every day, men who wore Gucci suits and penny loafers. He wasn't like anyone I'd ever met before, yet I felt connected to him, like I'd known him all my life. I felt safe on the back of his car with him. He had already proven his loyalty.

I waited for Kimber to stop me, to intervene and demand that I stay out there with him, but he didn't. As I was dragged toward London's main doors, he just turned away. I could feel his disappointment, but I was a puppet. There I was, walking on my own accord back to London's while the man I wanted to be with faded to black. I let this beast of a friend drag me away like a broken Winnebago. Just before we went into London's, I looked back at him, wanting him to dismiss me with a nod of acknowledgement, but he didn't grant me one. Instead, he puffed on his joint and watched as people walked by him, people too shaken-up by the violence to continue any further with speed-dating.

The heavy wooden doors slammed closed behind Gina and me and the first thing I thought as I looked into the dining room, into the same families that were just there to eat their dinner, was that I would never meet another man like Kimber Canavan.

I was right about that.

When I got home, I tossed my keys onto the counter, already deciding I wasn't going to work the next morning. I thought about Kimber as I slipped into bed, imagining him slipping into bed beside me, shirtless and warm and strong. I imagined Kimber whispering to me, telling me that I was exactly what he'd been looking for all his life as his hot breath warmed the back of my neck and his words set me at ease.

It's hard to describe to nonbelievers how love begins. My love for Kimber Canavan started because he came to my aid, because when no one else was listening, he was. No one had ever paid me enough attention to defend me before, nor had I ever been so close to a man that was being beaten so brutally. The results were profound. I found myself fantasizing about Kimber throwing that first unexpected punch, the one that had landed with a crunch on that obnoxious and pompous man's nose. I felt special in that I'd heard his nose breaking under the force of the blow, that I'd been splashed by a man's blood. No, that wasn't at all like me, but long ago I stopped caring how awful that makes me sound. Later, when Kimber and I had reunited and were together, he'd beg me not to tell the story when people asked us how we'd met, but I always did. I'd dated wimps and sissies for years prior to Kimber. I'd dated men that when they heard someone making an Asian comment about me, usually in reference to Korean massage parlors or the like, they'd distance themselves from me, as if afraid that being close to me put them in the proximity of the dangerous name callers. Kimber was opposite everything I'd ever known about men.

Something broke in me that night. Everything I knew about myself fell away from me like a shell, exposing a very passionate and determined young woman. I crawled into my bed angry, not at Kimber or Mark for their tussle at London's, not at Gina for being the same selfish friend she'd always been, but at myself for accepting less than this. I was mad that I'd been kicked around by dogs like Mark for the last decade while my friends and boyfriends had done nothing to defend me.

I didn't know Kimber Canavan, but I knew before I fell asleep that night that I was going to find him. No matter what happened in the future, I was going to find him or spend the rest of my life looking for him. Losing him seemed unthinkable, even before I really knew the man that lurked inside of him. He seemed like a beacon of excitement in my too-dull life, and I wanted more. I would wake up the next morning and start my search for the man with the beard, the joint, and the balled up fists that may or may not still be dripping blood, precious blood. I was going to find him, or a man like him. If I didn't, I was prepared to remain chaste for the rest of my life, a concept I didn't find ridiculous, even back then.

I was in love with him before he'd ever heard my name for the first time.
CHAPTER 3

I was not shocked by Kimber's death, but by the nature of it. He spent the entirety of our time together preparing me, and everyone else around him, for his death. I met Kimber not long after he'd had this premonition or dream... whatever it was... and watched as he changed from a man struggling with a notion into a man faced with acknowledging his own demise. I watched as the lines grew deeper across his brow, his hair began to turn gray and his passion, though never extinguishable, became something we just got to see glimpses of.

Kimber predicted his death would take place within a year, this in late September of 2009, and by mid-August 2010, he was gone. Kimber died in the allotted time and just as brutally as he had assumed he would perish.

Kimber had worked vigorously on what he called his Death Diaries. I think that when he started them, it was just going to be one composition notebook, but I suppose "knowing" you're going to die within a year gives you plenty of things to write about. He wrote with more and more vigor as he got closer to the year mark, working away in his study, playing Pretty Lights as loud as his speakers would push the heavy bass and complicated electronic songs. Plumes of pot smoke would come out through the crack he'd leave in his door. There'd be sounds of footsteps on the floor above the kitchen and I'd know he was dancing up there, high as a kite and sad beyond his ability to express himself.

As he got closer to his destiny, I think he just felt an overwhelming desire to record his thoughts for those of us left behind. He wrote in each one of those composition books until every inch of paper had been used up, and then he'd start a new page. There were poems, songs, stories, letters, diary entries and general advice or thoughts he wanted to pass along. Each page looked like it'd been taken off a serial killer's bedroom wall. Drawings and red lines connecting things, rambling nothings for pages at a time and then more craziness as he got back into focus. Some of it was profound and enlightening, some of it was just dripping with sadness.

Kimber completed five of those books before he died, but only four of them were for me. By the time he completed the first three, he was spending more than a quarter of his day upstairs writing. He had an immense amount of knowledge in his head and when I finally did read the Death Diaries years after his death, I was amazed at how he captured so much of the essence of himself.

I was there when they died. I was the only one there, stuck in Wyoming after they were gone. I have both strange, vague memories and crisp, detailed memories of that afternoon. My emotions came to me in waves, sometimes manageable and at other times they were towering pillars crashing down onto me. They didn't kill me, but I longed for death. Day and night, for months, these emotions hounded me, crashing into me from out of nowhere while I tried to busy myself with the deeds of the living. They battered me in the wee hours with terribly wonderful memories of Kimber and theKid. I longed for their touch, for their faces in the early morning sunshine that would flood our home together.

I knew that eventually I'd have to read Kimber's last words. They were right there in those books, waiting for me to find the strength and the right time to take them into my head, but as time started to pass and I felt like I was growing strong again, the last thing I wanted to do was take ten steps backward, back into the world of Kimber and the world without him.

But after Poppy demanded I do so, I rented a cabin in Bailey, Colorado by the river, stocked up on wine, weed, and Xanax and took a four-day weekend to myself. I settled into the rental cabin on a late Thursday night and prepared myself as best I could to dive into Kimber's books the next morning. Nothing could have prepared me for the information that I found in those books. Nothing could have readied me to hear him speaking again, this time through words scribbled on a page rather than from his mouth, but it made no difference to my brain. I heard Kimber speaking to me as clearly as he ever had when I started to read those books. The cabin was quaint and cute, pacifying in some strange regard, but the wine, weed, and Xanax I'd brought with me and the cuteness of that isolated place weren't enough to combat the eerie feelings that haunted me as I read the last words of my dead husband. By the time I left that little cabin beside the river, it was haunted. I exorcised demons there, but it was worth it.

I finally found what I was least expecting—answers.

Reading a dead man's thoughts on death is profound. Maybe that's because almost three years later, I really wasn't any closer to dealing with Kimber's death than I was at the time of it. I'd used ignorance and a busy schedule to distance myself from the healing, choosing to move on rather than really settling up with my emotions. I ran from Kimber's death rather than facing it head on. What Kimber had written in reference to me and the struggles I would face in dealing with the mess was spot on. Kimber wrote extensively about what my life would be like as I tried to absorb the breathtaking blow. He gave me more credit than I deserved. He assumed I was stronger than I really was, or maybe it was just that I loved him more than he understood...
CHAPTER 4

September 2009

Kittridge is a tiny little town just up Morrison Road from Red Rocks Amphitheater. Where I grew up in New York, we would have called Kittridge a hamlet, but the State of Colorado considers it a town. It's so tiny, in fact, that there's really nothing there. Today, you could get in your car and drive up the hill from Morrison, ending up in Evergreen, without ever having noticed the two towns in between them. That wasn't always the case. There was one thing in Kittridge with draw, one thing that people thought of when they thought of that town, one tiny little structure about half the size of a one-car garage that seemed worthy of the fifteen minute, winding and twisting, drive.

Having lived in Littleton since I moved to Colorado in 1999, I didn't know anything about Kittridge. It'd been a week since I'd met Kimber at London's, and I'd already faced the fact that I was never going to see him again. Of course, the woman in me wanted to believe in the power of love and all that, but the hard reality of my never-changing life was simple—expect little. I'd met him, but he hadn't even gotten my name that night at London's. I had his name, and yes, I did a Google search of it the same night I met him, but it yielded nothing other than a reference to a coffee shop somewhere named Kanavan Coffee, but the spelling was wrong. Other than that, there was no trace of him — no Facebook page, no LinkedIn account....nothing. So, I clung to the notion that my Prince Charming was going to have to track me down.

By the time a week had passed, I began to get a grip on my emotions. It was, after all, ridiculous for a woman like me to spend my days agonizing over a man I didn't even know. Even in my own mind I thought I was being ridiculous. In my heartbreak and disappointment over the relationship we hadn't even initiated, I stopped talking to Gina about him entirely. Each time I brought up his name, she'd sigh and give me some rhetoric about my abilities to do better, to find a man with money and a future... So instead, I did my Google searches in private and kept my thoughts about him to myself. I spoke little of him to anyone, internalizing my feelings. Even when a week had come and gone, I remained optimistic that he'd resurface in my life; something that had never and has never happened to me again. I just believed that I would find him, or him me.

I checked all the regular dating sites, match.com, eHarmony and even Craigslist's "missed connections" pages, only to find absolutely nothing. He was nowhere to be found, just as I'd somehow known, would be the case. I couldn't understand why I felt so compelled by him. It was completely irrational to think that I'd bump into him again, yet somehow I knew I would. I knew that if I set a course in my life, I could follow it.

Kimber was different from me, so much so that I figured I had to change the way I lived to ever find him. I drove a different route to work, started going to different Starbucks in the morning and even changed my hair from long to shorter. If I wanted to find this strange man that I'd never bumped into before, I had to start being more unpredictable. I truly believed that. I felt like he'd been sent to me, not just stumbled blindly into me. God didn't exist to me then, but still, the feeling that Kimber's entrance into my life was by design felt overwhelming. It couldn't have been happenstance, it just couldn't have. I didn't know how to explain it, but I couldn't help but feel it.

Trying to find a man you don't know leads a woman to strange places. In my determination to find Kimber, I decided to look for clues, not necessarily ones that would lead me to him, but clues that would lead me in his direction. I saw a billboard for a new CrossFit gym opening in Englewood. Glancing at it, I noticed the hard bodies of the people pictured and thought to myself, Kimber could be into that. He looked like he worked out...

The next day I decided I was going to sign up. Of course, Kimber wouldn't be at my gym, but he might be at a gym somewhere... If I wanted to meet people like Kimber, people that were as different from me as he was, I needed to mix up my routine. I was thirty-four, I'd been doing the same Beach Body workouts for the last five years, getting coffee at the same Starbucks, going to the same movie theater, and driving the same roads to and from my job at E.E. Errand and Sons. How could I expect to meet someone different if what I did every day was exactly the same thing as what I had done the day before? I needed to experience new things, things otherwise outside of my periphery. If that meant joining a Cross Fit gym, so be it. It was a start. In my sheltered world, I'd not bumped into Kimber. If I ever intended to, I needed to ditch Gina and this ridiculous dating obsession of hers and involve myself in things I thought might appeal to the sort of man I was now searching for.

Ten days after meeting Kimber, I found a pair of adjustable barbells for sale on Craigslist. I had decided that before I embarrassed myself in a CrossFit environment, I needed to do some weight lifting. I just wanted to beef up a little. I was in good shape; I've been blessed with a good, thin frame my whole life, but I needed to add a little muscle. Much to my chagrin, the Craigslist Killer lived in Kittridge, a town I was unfamiliar with. The seller told me over the phone that if I wanted the barbells, I better bring him full price and be at his house before he had to leave for his shift as the security guard at the Bowles Wal-Mart at nine A.M.

I decided to make a day of it and called E.E. Errand and Sons to take the following day off. I didn't remember where Kittridge was initially, though I knew I'd heard the name. When I Googled it, I realized it was only ten miles or so from Red Rocks, so I set my alarm for six the next morning and went to bed. I woke up a half an hour before my alarm went off, a habit of mine, and got dressed. I tossed the hundred bucks into my back pocket, stopped at Starbucks, and loaded up on a venti coffee, add two shots of espresso, a cheese Danish, and an egg sandwich. By seven A.M., I was headed down 285 toward Morrison. Traffic in Denver is always a nightmare, but much to my surprise, 285 was wide open the whole way and by eight o'clock, I was driving my Tahoe up the winding road from Morrison, toward Kittridge.

I wasn't planning on going into the Craigslist Killer's house, but was prepared to have him bring the barbells outside where I could look at them safely, without being bound and gagged. As I came up through Morrison, into Kittridge, I thought how beautiful a place this was. It's not a route that most people take to and from Denver, as the road winds through a canyon slowly and steeply. I-70 basically runs parallel farther north, making that the easier commute for residents of the upscale Evergreen area. This road was "the back way" for Evergreen residents with nice BMWs and Mercedes, people with the time and money to be slow and observant. The only cars that should be on this road at all, I thought, were people who lived in Kittridge. Why else would anyone take this way, where a rock could come careening down off one of the many steep ledges that overhung the road and crush a man to death while he sings Meatloaf songs at the top of his lungs?

Kittridge feels like a small mountain town. It feels like it could exist in Alaska or northern Montana as it's surrounded on every side by mountains that seem impressively large, even if really they're just tall and severe. Kittridge is only four miles or so from Morrison as the crow flies, but the winding and narrow road that warns repeatedly to "Watch for Falling Rocks," makes it feel much longer.

As I drove, I remembered for the first time in a long time how beautiful the mountains were, and how in a different lifetime I might be able to deal with something like that. It's one thing to gawk at the mountains that stick up out of the ground like a rock wall while looking out my window from Denver; it's quite another to live in them. Living in the mountains, as peaceful and tranquil as it might sound, is not the place for single chicks to meet the men of their dreams. I assumed it was a prerequisite to be married to the perfect mountain man before moving to a small community socked in by winter-like conditions, nearly year round.

I came around a hard right turn, which seemed like I'd gone 360 degrees, when I spotted a little shack off to my left. I slowed. I didn't even know why I'd slowed until my brain recognized what my eyes had spotted. When I saw the lettering above that little shack, my heart kicked into third gear. "Kanavan Coffee" was written in deep red lettering, surrounded on all sides by hand-painted sunflowers that looked real from my Tahoe, just a hundred feet away.

The building itself looked like the shacks and sheds they sell in Home Depot parking lots. This one was about half the size of a one-car garage, with a shingled roof and a large drive-up window, front and center. The sheer number of cars lined up, waiting for their cup of coffee, was staggering. I wondered if some sort of local celebrity owned it, or maybe if the people of Kittridge were just more loyal than people elsewhere, because the wait looked like it had to be twenty minutes long at best, and surely there couldn't be more than one person making coffee in that little building. It even crossed my mind that if I were to pull up to a Starbucks and saw a line that long, despite Starbucks keeping an army of college dropouts on staff at all times, I would leave, refusing to wait that long for anyone's coffee. Why these people were waiting, I wasn't sure, but between the name Kanavan and the lengthy line, I was convinced that I needed to get a cup of coffee from this place. Okay... I thought, If there are this many people waiting for a cup of Joe, it must be good.

I swung my Tahoe around, across the oncoming traffic's lane, and stopped fast. I immediately threw it into reverse, trying to complete my three point turn before someone came around the blind curve just above me and sent me to Kingdom Come. I finished my turn and pulled as far off the road as I could, but the line was long enough that I couldn't even get into the parking area. I was still sticking halfway into the lane with my flashers on as I waited for the line to move. Little by little, we pulled forward, closer to the window. I told myself not to get excited, that there was no way my Kimber worked in there... I told myself to just be happy with the signs... You're on the right path, Grasshopper.

I got a little frustrated with how slowly the line was moving, to tell you the truth. Each person that pulled their car up to the window turned their engine off, maybe to better chat with the barista, maybe because of some no idling policy. Mountain people are weird anyway...

I watched with excruciating effort as the person inside the little shack handed out drinks, but I never saw more than a white man's arm. As soon as it was handed off, the car's tail lights/brake lights would come on, and then off they'd go. The next car would pull up and the driver would turn off his ignition immediately. It went on like this for a long time. Finally, when I was behind the car being waited on, I turned off my ignition too. I needed to hear the voice inside the shed. I had to know. I knew better than to dream or hope, but there I was, sweating with nervousness as if I were sure this was my Kimber.

The Suburban in front of me finally pulled away. The woman in the car was still talking to the barista as she motored slowly forward. When I pulled up to the window, I thought I was going to vomit. Nerves, hope, fear, sadness, and loneliness all played their parts in the symphony of anxiety that was suddenly gripping. I stopped my car, intentionally not letting myself look in the window until I was completely stopped and my engine was off.

There, in a red V-neck, corduroys, and a black ball cap, was Kimber Canavan.

"Kimber Canavan?" I asked, almost wanting him to tell me I was mistaken.

It took him a fraction of a second to go from looking at me, to recognizing me. "Speed Dater?" he asked with that same smile. It was the same one I'd imagined for ten days in a row. "Are you stalking me?" he asked, stopping whatever he was doing with that stainless steel machine and walking to the window. He looked as... no, more shocked than me.

"I'm... Craigslist Killer..." I managed, my stomach lurching and twisting.

"You're him, huh? Funny, I always thought he'd be bigger, more menacing looking." Kimber laughed.

It took me a second to even understand what he was talking about, but when I did, I laughed. Before I stopped laughing though, honesty came spewing out of my mouth like bats from a tunnel. "I've been thinking about you every minute of every day since that night," I said, and then recoiled as I heard my own words.

"You never even told me your name, Speed Dater. I would have looked you up." He smiled.

"Lai Sarah," I said fast.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Lai," he said, and then added, "Shit, I thought growing up with the name Kimber was tough... I should buy this cup of coffee for you."

"I was conceived in Hawaii," I said lamely. "My mother was sentimental like that."

"Was?" he asked.

"Yeah. She passed from cancer five years ago," I said. As soon as I said it, I regretted it. Now I'd forced him into saying something cliché about my loss...

Kimber thought for a long second and said with emotion, "I'm sure she loved you dearly. I'm sure she wanted to sip wine with you in your later years on an enclosed porch somewhere... I'm sure she lived every day of her life trying to be a good mother and friend to you, and I'm sure she hasn't taken her eyes off you for a second in the span of time since."

I turned away from his face as he began to speak of my mother. I'd turned my face to look straight out of my always-cracked windshield, not wanting Mr. Perfect to say the wrong thing. In the five years since my mother's demise, something we were all grateful for at the end, no one had ever spoken of my mother's wanting before she died. Everything was "She loved you," or "You know she's still with you," things that were so cliché I couldn't ever respond to them. I don't know how he knew it. I don't care how he knew it. I have my theories about whom and what Kimber was, but those aren't things I wish to share with you yet. You'll hear my story and decide for yourself whom and what Kimber was... For now, I'll just say that he was on the money.

"She started a diary when she was diagnosed. They told her six months... She only lived three. She did, however, write me something in that time, before she got too weak and disconnected to do so..."

"A death diary?" he asked.

My eyes hardened, my anger shooting up from nowhere. "A what?"

He recoiled, physically stepping back a step from the window to prove a nonthreatening posture. "They call them death diaries. When a person gets into a hospice program, which I assume your mother did, hospice workers are trained to suggest they begin a death diary. It's sort of like a long form version of a person's last words."

I breathed. I relaxed. My mother was in hospice and yes, that was when she started her diary, but I had always assumed she'd done that for me on her own. "Oh. I always thought she'd just decided to do that for me."

Kimber looked contrite. "Of course she did it for you! They merely suggest the idea. It's a way of empowering the walking dead—" He cut himself off. "Sorry."

I reeled from his reference. The walking dead? Are you kidding me? This is my mother we're talking about! Suddenly I was angry at him for speaking of my mother like that. I stared again at the cracks running every which way through my windshield, trying to think of what to do now. Was Mr. Perfect really a brutish bully? "She wasn't a zombie," I said softly, trying to pretend he hadn't just been so insensitive, especially after previously making such a profoundly true assessment of my mom.

"To some degree, Lai, we're all the walking dead. I meant you no disrespect, but I wonder if you ever considered how your mother felt about being diagnosed with a having a severe case of the 'impending deaths.' Believe me, after the doctors gave your mom a time limit, even if she kept it from you, time for her began to work very differently than it did for you. She stopped what she was doing, what she was focusing on, and all alone, probably in the wee hours, she came to terms with the idea of time. People diagnosed with something fatal, soon-to-be-fatal, live in a different world than you do. Time isn't the same for every man. It's all a matter of perspective, and once your mother knew she was going to die, her life changed. The problem is, as a selfless mother, she probably just didn't want you to worry so much, so she said nothing to you about it."

The way Kimber spoke from that ridiculously small building touched on something I'd never once understood before him—half of intelligence is perspective and understanding. In truth, my mother had died a very quiet death. What I mean is that I didn't ask the sort of penetrating questions I wanted to ask her now, now that I'd had time to process her death. I'd never asked her how she was doing, really doing. I never asked her if she thought about it. I never asked her if she was counting down the days. I asked her all the things a dutiful daughter, somewhat inconvenienced by her mother's dying, would ask.... If she was okay, if it hurt, if she needed anything before I left... Even when it got closer, when my mom stopped talking because it hurt too much and tired her out too fast... even then, I was too scared to ask her. I remember looking into her eyes toward the end, when she'd just lay there and watch the ceiling, sometimes for long enough that it looked like she'd silently and without much fanfare died, before suddenly inhaling in a sudden jerk. Suddenly she was back, still too weak to talk, but not too weak to give me a pair of hauntingly terrified eyes... I'd hold her arm, telling her it's okay, that she was just dreaming, but I'm not sure that was true. It was like she was walking to the edge of the cliff that separated the living from the dead, stepping off into the abyss but somehow landing right back on the edge again.

I wasn't there when she finally stepped from the ledge. I'd intentionally not been there. I'd gotten a call at two in the morning telling me it was time, it was coming. The rest of my family all went immediately to the house where her hospice worker Melodie was steely calm, God knows how, and serving coffee.

At the exact second my mother died, I was sitting in front of the house, smoking a cigarette. I'd been sitting there for ten minutes, unable to enter and go upstairs as the dutiful daughter. I just couldn't be there, not for that part... It occurred to me later that my mother's spirit had passed directly over my head, probably seeing me down there hiding with a cigarette. I've always wondered what she thought about me as she ascended. Kimber would later make me feel like she didn't even notice me. He'd say in his always-honest words, "By then she was free of this earth. By then she didn't care about the world or anyone in it."

"I wasn't there when she died. I was supposed to be. I was at the house, but I didn't go in. I went around through the garage and sat at a small table my mom used to sit at and watch the birds. I smoked a cigarette. I hid there, not wanting to see her die. I thought I could... Who knows? I guess I thought I could avoid dealing with the idea of her dying better if I didn't see it."

"How did that affect you?"

"I've been imagining it for five years. My uncle told me what it looked like, how it happened. It was peaceful, I guess. She took deep breaths, a couple of them, coughed, took another one and then... nothing." I looked at Kimber who was resting on his elbows on the windowsill between us. In this case, anything he might say would be the wrong thing... I hated leaving people in this place, yet I always seemed to drop the ball right where they feel like they have to say something, when all I really want is for them to say nothing.

And then Kimber did something completely unexpected. "You here to bring me down, or you gonna buy a cup of my three-dollar coffee?"

I laughed out loud, a strand of spit flipping over my lip and landing on my chin like someone throwing a rope over a tree branch in order to hang a tire swing. I laughed, wiping my mouth while tears, mixing from the happy and the sad places that tears come from, formed in my eyes. Lost in the euphoria of having rediscovered this man, I believed them to be happy tears. I've never been much the religious type. I didn't grow up that way, so I guess I just "lucked out" as my father always put it. "Three bucks? Jumpin' Pete on a bicycle seat, even Starbucks is cheaper than that!" I joked. Kimber laughed; he had no choice but to. Unfortunately, as he did, he scanned the cars behind me quickly. It was like catching your friend checking his watch while you're telling him something important to you... "I'm so sorry," I said automatically, "I should let these people get their drinks..."

"I can't make you a cup of three dollar coffee while you wait in your car. You'll have to come in here." He smiled. "The three dollar version takes a little longer."

I didn't speak. I just pulled forward, muttering, "I'm not leaving here without you."
CHAPTER 5

There was no possibility for an open casket. The guy I spoke with at the morgue in Cheyenne, some sort of tech or assistant, told me not to even bother asking. He said, as if he were talking about curing cheese, "With this sort of impact... Morticians are miracle workers and all, but they ain't the good Lord hisself. Most'a this big feller's face is smashed clean off. And that little'n... well, most folks don't like seeing them taken so young, no ways."

Yes, I saw the blood and brokenness. It's much worse than just that, but we'll get there. When a man falls from a couple hundred feet and lands on cold, solid rock... well, it's a mess. I saw the mangled remains of Kimber's beautifully unkempt face. I touched him, faceless and limp and oozing fluids. I touched theKid too, but he was still there for... well... not long. I stood there, sweating and frantic, my own breakfast splattered across my clothes, in the middle of nowhere with two warm corpses, unable to scream for help, unable to cry... I just observed the awfulness from paralyzed shock until one of the nearby hikers happened upon me. He was just a kid himself, young and free and trying to enjoy a warm Wyoming summer afternoon when he stumbled into the area where Kimber and theKid had landed.

Kimber and JimmytheKid died on a Saturday and by Monday morning, they'd both been cremated together. That's how long it takes the world to rid itself of our presence—two days. Kimber and JimmytheKid were passed around from person to person as if playing a polite, adult version of keep-away. The only reason I knew where their bodies were for those few days between their death and their memorial service were the polite messages left on our answering machine, the one that featured me, theKid, and Kimber singing "One" by U2 in our semi-harmonious trio while trying not to laugh at how awful we sounded in unison.

"Miss Sarah, this is Tyler Merrimer of Merrimer and Sons calling to let you know that we have possession of Kimber and James' bodies and we expect that by tomorrow they'll be in transport to..." For three days this was all I had, phone messages telling me that so and so had the Canavan boys as if maybe they'd been resurrected and were on their way back to me.

Kimber's sister Kasey, his only living relative, and her mundane boyfriend came out to Denver from Myrtle Beach and stayed with me at The Berkshire, the home Kimber and I'd purchased together just a few months prior. Bless her heart, Kasey tried to help but she'd never really known her brother. She didn't understand why we spent so much time planning the memorial service because she was unaware of Kimber's Death Diaries. At some point while I was deep in the well, Kasey read volume one of Kimber's books and, from what I heard from Poppy, she came to understand that there was more to her strange brother than she'd ever thought. Kasey never came to understand or respect Kimber the way we did, but by the time she left Kittridge three weeks after Kimber and theKid died, she knew that she'd missed out on an important person. She felt a little embarrassed for their lack of relationship but more so for not knowing Kimber's profound effect on people.

Poppy, who'd read the entire series of Kimber's books, became Kimber's spokesman for what the service should "feel like." Poppy was one of five long distance phone calls I made from Vedauwoo that day, from that poor hiker's cell phone. I remember that guy like it was yesterday; the way his eyes just kept going back to Kimber's missing face. I wish I could take it back from him; I wish I could save him what he saw that day because I know for certain that those images don't just go away on their own. Oh no, they morph and change and make sleep impossible. They never go away, ever. All that changes over time is that those images get scarier and more surreal until you just burn yourself out on reacting to them. Poor guy. I never got his number, address, or the chance to say thank you. When the coroner showed up at Vedauwoo, he was pushed aside and I never saw him again.

Upon telling Poppy about Kimber and theKid's fall, Poppy sprang into action. He hung up with me and went straight to The Berkshire in order to retrieve Kimber's Death Diaries. By the time Joe Frank and I pulled up our long driveway, Poppy had read the first two books already and was working on the third. Joe didn't go to the door with me. He saw Poppy up there and knew that I'd need time with him, or maybe that Poppy would need time with me, and just let me go. "I'll call ya," Joe said as I got out.

I didn't reply.

Anyway, Poppy became like the set-director at the Kimber Show... in town for two nights only. He referenced Kimber's books with the exactness of a Baptist minister to his Bible. Sticky notes with comments, dog-eared pages, and highlighted passages... Poppy had those books worked out in twenty-four hours and didn't shy away from taking charge of Kimber's final vision. Of course, everyone was strangely quiet about Kimber's death. Everyone knew that the guy hadn't planned on living another year, but for him to have accidentally died so violently shocked them. As predicted by Kimber himself, his death gave him credibility.

I was standing with Kasey and her boyfriend at the beginning of Kimber and theKid's service, shaking hands and receiving people's wet hugs, when Denver's most famous quarterback embraced me. His hug was strong and wide, full and real. There were no cameras watching him, no one for Mr. Elway to perform for. He squeezed me, almost too hard, and whispered into my left ear. "Lai... How are you, Lai?"

I wept unabashed into John Elway's suit jacket. It was the first time I really let some of the demons out and as I did so, John was the perfect gentleman. "It's okay, honey," he said repeatedly while I wailed into his four-thousand-dollar suit. Finally, he gestured for me to follow him out the side door of the church. We sat under a willow tree while he looked for the words. "I'm not going to lie and tell you that there are plenty of fish like him in the sea," John said. "I'm just going to tell you that time eases pain... It's the furthest thing from you right now, but it's out there, Lai... and you're going to survive this."

I didn't think he was right. I shook my head no, somewhere between wanting to die and wanting him to think I wanted to die so he'd hold me longer, so maybe he could hug some of the pain away.

"You remember the night I met Kimber?" he asked with a laugh. "Damn, I've never heard anything like the show he put on that night."

I nodded, recalling it.

John Elway kept talking, trying to distract me away from the realization that my husband was dead and gone, forever. "I remember Hick asking me if I wanted to join him and his buddy at that bar in Morrison... I was coming back from a charity golf game and I'd had a few drinks... That's probably the only reason I went to the Morrison Inn, because I'd already been drinking. I might not have met Kimber if not for those drinks." He laughed a humorless laugh. "I remember seeing him pull that guitar out of that old beaten box and thinking that was the saddest looking guitar I'd ever seen. Remember that thing?" he asked me.

I nodded.

"I bought it," Elway said with earnestness and gravity. "Kimber gave it to Frank about a week after that show. Remember? He got that Ovation? Frank offered Kimber a thousand bucks for that guitar; but naturally, Kimber refused. A week later it was boxed and wrapped with a red bow on it, sitting on Frank's desk at work. Frank let me read the card Kimber left with the guitar. That's when I knew Kimber was special, I mean really special. I don't remember all of what he wrote, but I do remember one part of it. Kimber wrote beaten and bruised, the best of us come used. I don't know, I always thought that was a very potent line from one man to another."

I nodded at him, thankful that he'd recognized Kimber for what he was—unusual and sincere.

"But damnit, Lai, when he started to play that thing... I had goose bumps. How a piece of shit guitar like that could sound so good... I still don't understand. I saw Kimber play three times while I knew him, and each time I saw him I thought, why isn't this guy a millionaire?" He looked at me and smiled. "Of course, he was." The giant man looked away for a second before pinching a chunk of well-manicured grass and tossed it on the breeze. "I've met a lot of people, but never anyone like..." His voice faded away before he spoke my lover's name.

I realized then that I wasn't the only one carrying the weight of Kimber Canavan. It had been distributed amongst us all, each of us struggling to carry what little weight God put on our shoulders. I never saw Mr. Elway again, but I saw Frank Nooney about a year ago. He looked older, a lot older. We didn't speak long and what little we did say was awkward. We never mentioned Kimber's name in our brief, thirty second reunion. He did tell me, however, that he was over at Elway's home not too long ago and that "the old guitar" was framed and mounted on the wall of his office. Underneath the glass frame, Frank said the words "The best of us come used" had been scrawled in "his own handwriting." His, being Kimber's, I suppose.
CHAPTER 6

September, 2009

Kanavan Coffee wasn't exactly a coffee shop, not the way you'd imagine it anyway. Yes, the main thing Kimber sold out of his coffee shop was coffee, but no one goes to a coffee shop for the coffee, not really. There is always something else driving people to a particular coffee shop, maybe the people that work there... or the people that frequent the place... something. Kanavan's was on the way down the hill for these people, but it wasn't nearly efficient enough, nor was the coffee any better than anywhere else, not enough so to be the sole reason that people visited. I certainly would have waited for him to serve me, but why would they?

Let me tell you about Kanavan Coffee so you can understand what I mean. Imagine you were a youth in the year 1990. Imagine that you grew up in Seattle, listening closely to alternative/grunge music, wearing your torn cargo pants, black leather military jungle boots and dad's old flannels every day. Imagine you grew up in the city known for two things—Pearl Jam and Starbucks... That's where Kimber was from, not just from, but FROM. He told me once that he remembered going to the flagship Starbucks long before anyone had ever heard the name, and he wasn't impressed. "Back then, it was still pretty grassroots... but still, it felt like someone with a lot of money was backing the place. You could almost feel it expanding across the country while you waited in line for your Caramel Macchiato. I wanted to sell coffee from the first time I stepped into a coffee shop, but not the way they were selling it."

I promised Poppy a short story about Kimber, but I'd be remiss if I didn't include these little details about Kanavan Coffee because the difference between Kimber and everyone else you have ever known is a matter of what he didn't know rather than what he did. Let me explain.

Stepping into the coffee shop from outside, I was amazed foremost by the organization and cleanliness of his little shack. It was immaculate, absolutely immaculate. As a professional woman who makes a good living, there are few things more appalling to me than filth. As I matured, I too had to get a grip on my own cleaning habits, finding a pattern for cleaning and organizing that would keep me from ending up on "Hoarders." I too pride myself on my ability to organize and clean, but in comparison to Kanavan Coffee, my spaces were a disaster. This little coffee shop that he was always playing off as some sort of humble little gig was far more than that. It was an artist's studio.

There was a piece of white plywood, eight by four, screwed to the wall. KANAVAN was painted in the same font across it as the sign on the roof, but the board it was painted on was a little different. There were a hundred hooks screwed neatly into it, each one numbered 1-100. Every hook had a travel mug hanging from it, each cup labeled with a hand painted number and sunflower behind it. I didn't know what they were at first, but as I watched him working over the course of an hour, I saw exactly what it was for. I'd never seen, or even thought of, an idea as clever. As customers pulled into his window, the first thing they'd do was kill their engine before handing him a travel mug from their car. Kimber would take their mug, set it in the dishwasher, and then walk to the hook board, grabbing the exact same number from the hook, fill it with their drink, and hand it off to them. The mug they'd given him would be washed and dried before being re-hung on the hook for tomorrow. Not only did every customer have a personal travel mug, they had two. This way they always had a clean one. They never had to wash a cup or even take it out of their car for that matter; they just drank their cup of coffee and returned the next day. I'd never seen anything so clever. It gave these people ownership of his coffee stand. It made people want to bring their friends to Kanavan's with them just so the newcomers could see how intricately intelligent and warm this place was.

The other thing I noticed right away was that no one paid for coffee. Kimber would make their coffee and hand it off to them after chatting them up for a minute or two. Off they'd go without even tipping the guy! At first, I thought that this went against every ounce of business training I'd ever had, but what I later found out was that for the hundred people that hung their cups at Kanavan, a monthly fee of sixty bucks was withdrawn from their account automatically, and for that sixty bucks, they could come to Kanavan Coffee as often as they wanted. Think about that... those hundred customers made him six thousand bucks a month on a coffee shop that I later found out was only open from 4:30-10:00 A.M., Monday through Friday.

People just ate that place up. Once a week, he'd make breakfast sandwiches on a hot plate just inside the window, giving the ham, egg, and cheese on a Kaiser bun to everyone that came by, regardless if they asked for one or not. Occasionally, he'd have a plate of what he called "medical cookies," which were made from a recipe supposedly passed to Kimber from his gypsy grandmother, but with Kimber's own blend of hash oil mixed in. I never found any proof that he was telling the truth about his grandmother being a gypsy or even giving him a recipe, and honestly, I think he told that story to make the pot cookies seem more benign. The bottom line was that certain people liked the pot cookies, others didn't. He didn't care. He offered them to everyone that came by, including the one Jefferson County Sheriff's Deputy who hung his mug at Kanavan's. I ate one of those cookies one time... Holy Saint Peter they were strong and left me in a somewhat stoned state for two days. Did Kimber care that marijuana was still illegal in the state of Colorado in 2009? Absolutely not. His community was as tight knit as a pair of Levi's jeans, and there was just no way that he was going to get in trouble for giving his weed away, well... at least as far as he was concerned.

Here's another thing. When I was pulling in that morning, I said I saw a lot of cars in line. Well, what I didn't see until I was actually standing there beside the entrance door, waiting for Kimber to let me in, was that on the back side of the coffee shop was what I could only describe as a sort of screened in porch, upon which were two beautiful leather sofas, a table with three pots of brewing coffee, creamer, and sugars of all sort. For the people that didn't have the time to wait in line, this area was available to walk up and pour your own cup of coffee, no matter how big, and leave without having to pay. There was a jar that said "Suggested donation, One Dolla," but other than that, there was nothing to keep people from pouring and leaving.

Kimber used the "honor policy" to represent himself. He wanted people to know that his business was different, more communal than other places. I still thought he needed the money back then, and I was immediately concerned that he was getting ripped off. His idealism dwarfed me and everything about business I'd ever learned. For Kimber, it was either this way or no way. He refused to do business in "traditional" ways. Part of the fun of pouring your own coffee at Kimber's was writing funny things or song lyrics... anything you wanted, onto a cup sleeve and then pinning it to the walls, the floor, the ceiling... anywhere you wanted. There were thousands of them, some of which quoted the Grateful Dead, Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, the Bible, and, of course, more than a few dead presidents. It wasn't like anything I'd ever seen. As Kimber let me into the shop and I got to take all this in for the first time, I was in love I tell you. You don't believe... No one did. That's okay.

When I stepped into the shop, Kimber was busy helping a chubby, overly made-up woman with jet black hair and sunglasses large enough to cover a skylight. She sat above the window in her new, black Escalade, watching Kimber with the tenaciousness of a teenage girl in the boys' varsity locker room. Her car was turned off and as I watched her from the darkness of the interior of the shack, I noticed that her smile was fixed, perpetual, not in a way that implied pretending, but genuinely happy to be sitting right there.

Some people even pulled in, got their coffee, and then headed back up the hill, back the way they came from. Like I said, there was only one thing in Kittridge worth visiting in 2009—a little innovative coffee shop run by an outside-the-box-thinker named Kimber Canavan.

Upon seeing Kimber Canavan for the second time, I thought he felt as genuine and pleasant as he had the first time, more so even. Without the barroom brawler persona, Kimber felt like the most compassionate, caring man I'd ever met. I was turned on by the contrast between mean machine and gentle friend... between what I'd seen of him the first time vs. the second. Kimber was a complex man, no doubt, but this was among the greatest ranges of personality a man can offer. A woman wants to feel safe with her man. She wants to feel like if the shit hits the fan, her man will step up to protect her. She also wants to feel like if and when that happens, it won't be because her man was out looking to prove something. There's a fine line between juvenile reactions and the selfless defense of a woman. That's important. No one wants to be the woman who's afraid that her boyfriend/husband will get drunk and pick a fight with the helpless, nor does she want to feel vulnerable to the wishes of other men while out with hers.

There wasn't a woman in the world, certainly not in the town of Kittridge anyway, that was immune to his enigmatic ways. Kimber perfected the art of entertaining without trying, of speaking only genuinely and somewhat poetically despite his use of bad language. He was a renaissance man if ever I'd met one. Watching him work the machines and equipment in that shack was like watching Bob Ross make happy mountains and trees out of a few quick strokes of his brush. All the while, I had the advantage of having seen this gentle giant when he was anything but, a memory that still stirred something deep in my loins each time I thought about it.

The big woman in the giant SUV asked Kimber, "Who's that? Someone special?" while nodding her head my way. I feared this would prove difficult for Kimber to answer appropriately. If he downplayed our meeting, I would have been heartbroken. If he made too much out of it, I would think he was needy. This was another one of those questions that was hard to answer correctly, and I worried that Kimber's reply was going to hurt me one way or the other. I feared his reply, though I must remind you, this was at the beginning when I didn't yet know that for Kimber, conversation was an art, something he'd practiced. Most of the art of conversation revolves around people's egos, and their ability to either be or not be confident and cool while engaged in conversation. Nervousness and/or self-doubt are undoubtedly the catalysts of awkward banter.

Kimber said very easily, and with a smile on his face that warmed me, "This is Lai, my girlfriend."

"Reeeeeeeally? You have a girlfriend? And we've never heard of her?" The woman's eyes went to mine for the first time. Before that, I was just a presence in the room; now I had an identity and... if I'm not mistaken, her respect, just for owning the title of "Kimber's girlfriend." People gave me the advantage of assuming I was nearly as awesome as he was, simply because I'd somehow won his heart. "You lucky bitch," the woman said with a half-serious smile. "You know that everyone in this town will want you dead, right?" she asked me.

Now I was the one without anything to say. What was I supposed to say to that? I didn't know, so I laughed nervously and said, "I can certainly see why everyone likes him."

Now the woman's eyes hardened. She instantly looked like I'd just spit a phlegm wad into her face. "Everyone likes him? Oh, honey... you have no idea. No one likes Kimber. Everyone loves him!" She retracted a little, the redness that had crept into her chubby face relented a bit as she breathed, "Listen to me okay, hun? I'm gonna be..." She stopped and looked at Kimber before continuing cautiously, "forty-three this year. If Kimber gave me the word, I'd leave my husband and kids to run away with him. Now, I hope that doesn't upset you, but I'm telling you this because obviously you're new to Kanavan Coffee, even if maybe not so new to Kimber, but everyone in this town is waiting for Kimber to propose to them. It ain't just me."

Kimber broke the awkwardness by handing her travel mug #19. "Thank you, Liz. I'll see you guys tonight. Remember, the show starts at seven, but I'm last to play."

"We'll be there by six, and if you don't come have a drink with Frank first, we're canceling our automatic withdrawal." Liz Nooney smiled at him.

"Of course I will! Frank already reminded me that I'd better have time for him tonight." Kimber laughed.

"Well..." Liz said, letting her word linger, "Last time you were talking to that recording guy and didn't have time for us. I thought Frank was going to cry. Remember? He brought those people from his office..."

Kimber nodded somberly. "I felt so bad. That guy was an ass, too. The whole time I just wanted to be on the patio with you guys."

Liz smiled at Kimber after pulling her giant sunglasses down off her nose, "Kimber, do great. Know that we all support you. You know how good you are. You certainly don't need me and Frank to tell ya. I swear though, that man says at least once a week, 'That Kimber's gonna be a huge star one day!' He believes in you, Kimber. He really does. We all do! I'll see you tonight," Liz said, looking long and hard in her rear view mirror. "I better go. That's Debbie Donovan behind me, isn't it?"

Kimber looked behind her giant SUV to the aerodynamic Corvette barely visible behind Liz's Escalade. Kimber waved to Debbie before signaling to Liz that yes, it was indeed Mrs. Donovan. "Yep, sure is."

Liz smiled, shifted into drive, and said to me before she left, "Kimber won't, so I'll ask you. Will you please tell Debbie to wear a bra! My god! I can see her old wrinkly nipples from my rear view mirror!" Liz let out a cackle of a laugh and pulled out before I could reply.

There I sat, while one by one people pulled up, turned off their engines, and talked to their favorite man in the world for their allotment of five minutes. Cups exchanged hands, smiles and flirting took the place of meaningful conversation, and then that customer would leave, all of them promising to see Kimber that night at the Morrison Inn where he'd be playing his broken, beaten, two-strings-missing guitar for a crowd of over a hundred and fifty, all of which were patrons of Kanavan Coffee, or friends of patrons.

Every woman that pulled in that morning was obviously disappointed by seeing me. I saw it register on their faces the second I appeared in the window, which I did more and more as the hours passed by. The men that frequented Kanavan Coffee were as in love with Kimber as the women, in their strange but potent man-love ways. They wanted to take him golfing or out to dinner, or they wanted him to fill that vacant sales job at their office... He was as close to being a rock star as a man could ever hope to be without selling his soul to the gods of modern music distribution. These men were all older, fifties or sixties, yet Kimber's charm had as much of an effect on them as it did on their wives, who'd be swinging by later when they could have Kimber to themselves. Even if only for five minutes, he truly lit these people up. There was something about him that's hard to fit into combinations of vowels and consonants, something from inside of him that radiated into everyone that came across him.

I often refer to this day, the day I worked in the coffee shop with him, as our first date. It wasn't a date; it was a meeting of sorts, but the profound effect of seeing that man in his own environment was absolutely breathtaking. To be honest, our first date lasted three days, yet we called this part of it our "first date." Every woman that came through Kanavan Coffee either congratulated me on my relationship with Kimber or hated me for it. Maybe I fell for him right then and there because of the steep competition. Certainly jealousy has a place in those initial feelings. Maybe it was because of the concept of his coffee shop, the organization and creativity that went into what he did... I really don't know. All I know was that at 10:00 when the OPEN sign had been turned around to read CLOSED and I had him to myself, the very first thing I did was kiss him.

He was spraying Windex on the stainless steel appliances in that little shack, laughing and talking to me as if we'd been best friends for the last twenty years, when I walked over to him, grabbed his right hand that was holding a microfiber cloth, and pulled him to me. When he leaned in to kiss me, it felt like time was standing still. His lips, red and dry, touched mine as an electrical shock shot through my body, starting at my head and ending in my toes. He kissed me long and hard, his hands slipping into my hair, against my scalp as he pulled me tighter to his face. His beard, scraggly and unkempt, tickled my face in a million places at once, but I relished the sensation that each one brought to me. It was for a time the most memorable thing anyone had ever done. The way he held me, embraced me... It was just perfect.

By eleven that morning we were ready to leave his shop for the day, but before we did, I noticed that there was a guitar case sitting beside the cooler door. "Is that your guitar?" I asked. Before he could answer, I fired a second question. "So... do you play the guitar or sing... or what?"

He looked hesitant, like maybe he didn't want to talk about it, but later I'd discover that was just him being humble. "Yeah. I do a little of both. I like the process of writing songs. It's a lot like writing stories, I guess, in that if someone were to walk in and hear me trying to work the song out, I'd be embarrassed. A song, like a book, is only the finished product. You spend hours alone, you now? You write and strum and write some more, all the while hoping that the end result will be as rewarding as you want it to be, but you're never really sure until you hand it over to someone, play it for someone. Only then do you know if what you've created is worth the pain it put you through, and hell, a lot of times, you don't even know then. Sometimes you never know. I create songs because I don't like a lot of the stuff I hear on the radio, not because I'm trying to get famous or rich."

I watched him speaking. He didn't realize how closely I was watching him, but he knew I was at least listening. I noticed that as he spoke about his "process," his words came fast and easy. It was as if he'd rehearsed this speech before, or maybe he'd just had this talk so many times that as long as he played with the same metaphors, he could adlib on the fly. I didn't know Kimber then. I didn't know that what I was hearing was genuine or that his talent was beyond what I might have even been able to imagine on that morning, but the passion with which he spoke was a sign that there was certainly something inside of him; even if not raw musical talent, he definitely had something.

"The problem I have with music and my ability to play it, to even get it out there, is that I only play my own stuff. Sometimes I'll cover a song that someone I know wrote, but I don't do covers. I do covers of friends' songs because in the local music scene, that's considered complimentary. I don't do radio songs and I don't take requests. It's made me a better musician, but that philosophy hasn't made me a rock star. I do draw quite a crowd here in Morrison and Kittridge, but I'm just a big fish in a small pond. You'll see."

"So, can I come?" I asked.

"Of course! You have to come. You might even be impressed." Kimber leaned into me and kissed me again.

I'd been to the Morrison Inn a few times, usually before shows at Red Rocks or on lazy Sunday afternoons. The place was pretty well known for its casualness and margaritas. I didn't have any preexisting feelings about the place, not from back then, but when I showed up with Kimber in his old Honda, it was as if I'd never set foot in that old restaurant before.

There were people everywhere. For the most part, they were older, well-to-do, and wore the same brand of warm, unyielding smile as Kimber approached. I was kissed and hugged as if I'd been part of this fraternity for years, but I was obviously just a casualty of Kimber's effect on these people. They embraced me, introduced themselves to me as if I were worth remembering, something that contrasted drastically with the way I'd been regarded in the past. I watched Kimber as he engaged in this affectionate ritual. I noticed immediately that he was accustomed to this sort of attention, that to him, this was business as usual. He didn't look entirely comfortable however. After about every third or fourth hug he'd accept, he'd make eye contact with me, just for a second, just to be sure I was okay. His eyes would linger on me briefly before he'd let his face and smile drift back to the people eager to welcome him, people eager for Kimber to see and acknowledge them next. I remember thinking that this wasn't a good sign, that for the first time in recent history, I was mixing myself up with a man that was both real and talented... a man that was going to be hard to contain with my feminine wiles. I became insecure and unsure of myself, both regrettable feelings and both equally as unattractive. I tried to relax, but I suddenly felt out of my league. I chided myself for even recognizing such a feeling, I told myself to stop analyzing and start participating but it was too late, the blues were creeping into my perfect day.

They might have actually ruined that night for me. They could have spun out of control and carried me out the door, back to my car and then back to my apartment. I could have ended up back at home with a glass of wine in my hand, my big toe in the water spout of my bathtub as I wept over my embarrassing reaction to feeling so... what? Insignificant? I might have fled the place, run right out the door, but unexpectedly, a man that I'd seen before but couldn't place spoke to me. It was John Elway.

"Lai Sarah," he said, sticking out his hand. "Pleasure to meet you. John Elway."

I took him in for a second, struck by the way he looked in person, up close. I remember thinking he looked older than I thought he was, but what did I know? Everyone from television looks better on television than they do when you're standing right beside them. Without the soft light cast from those umbrella things that photographers always use, without the caked-on makeup or scripted lines, people seem... well, like people, not plastic caricatures. I thought I could see the years in him, the aches and pains that surely come from being professionally pummeled for as long as John had. Maybe I was giving him the benefit of the doubt, but looking at him, so human and alive, I wondered if maybe his reputation for being so... whatever, was due to the fact that the man surely lived with pain. It seemed reasonable to conclude. Anyone with aging grandparents knows that grandpa's grumpiness stems from his aching hip, his still sensitive war injuries, etc... Pain wears us down, makes us focus more on ourselves and our own agony than the people around us, hence the reputation. Finally, I spoke, "It's a pleasure to meet you, sir."

He smiled politely, but I thought I saw a wince. "Please, just John. Not as a courtesy, but as a non-courtesy." I didn't know what that meant for a second, but then he elaborated. "You see, when I'm out with friends like John here," he nodded at John Hickenlooper, "I sometimes feel a bit inflated... John's a wonderful politician and certainly more deserving of attention than me." He smiled, waiting for John Hickenlooper to counter that flattering comment, but Hickenlooper was too busy shaking hands with the countless, awestruck Morrisonians lined up to meet him. "Do me the honor of sitting with me tonight, Lai? As I understand it, you haven't heard this Kimber fella play before either, right?"

So, I did as I was asked and sat right between the two most powerful Johns in Colorado. Of course, it was the most privileged spot in the place, maybe the state, and while we waited for Kimber to make his rounds, the Johns and I made small talk. Hickenlooper, a slight man beside Elway, was pleasant and articulate as he spoke of observations he was making on the fan base there to see Kimber. We were all a little shocked to notice that the clientele at the Morrison Inn that night was mostly an older crowd, fifties and sixties but with the occasional twenty-something mingling about.

John Elway and I were laughing and talking as the shots started to arrive at our table, shots we didn't order but seemed to be coming faster than any human being would be able to knock them down. John Elway doesn't pay for drinks in Colorado, as hard as he tries otherwise. I asked him why he didn't send the drinks back to the bar, and his reply was as funny as it was true, "If I did, you'd have to buy your own." He laughed genially and added, "It's impolite to refuse them. Trust me, for twenty years I've been trying to figure out how to do it without hurting people's feelings. It's best to just smile, nod, and drink them."

"If we drink all these, you'll have to wheel me out of here on a gurney," I said, already feeling the shots of Jagermeister stirring in my head.

"Well, as long as they come from the bartender, it's probably just booze. Wanna know what twenty years of trying to navigate these waters safely has taught me?" he asked, his eyes smiling but his mouth stiff and straight. I nodded. "Never drink anything delivered by anyone other than the bartender. No cocktail waitresses, no smiling fans... only the bartender."

I smiled, not sure if he was joking, or how he came to that piece of advice. "Sounds like solid advice."

"It is. Learned the hard way. Believe that," he said before taking a sip of his beer.

Kimber was hilarious. First of all, it was obvious to me that he didn't know John Elway from Barack Obama. Kimber sort of lingered around our table for a minute, as if deciding whether or not he was going to sit beside us, but before he could sit down, new people would spot him, yell his name, and run to him for a hug. Kimber was baked out of his face, his eyes as red as a sunrise at sea, his smile unyielding as minutes turned into an hour. Only here, in Morrison, could Kimber Canavan outshine the mighty John Elway, and I watched him, fully aware that he was doing exactly that. John too was watching Kimber. He leaned over to me and said, "They sure love him here, huh?"

"I guess," I said, feeling the pangs of jealousy deep within me.

"He always like this?" Elway asked turning in his chair to watch Kimber hugging another couple walking into the dining room.

"You know..." I said trailing off as I watched Kimber, "I think he might be." It seemed like after each hug there were three more people getting in line to receive him. He was Mr. Morrison-and-the-surrounding–hills. Watching a man that you hardly know, while he is embraced and re-embraced over and over again by people passionate to touch him, to hold him, and know him, was a wonderful bird's eye perspective on Kimber. I would have been a fool not to love him. I would have been the only one of the hundred and fifty people or so who came out to see Kimber, not to love him.

I was never that original.

There were a few performers before Kimber, guys that Kimber had invited to open for him. They were okay, nothing to write home about. Well... one guy could have written home to tell his dad that at thirty-something years old he'd started wearing eye-liner or, as Kimber called it, guyliner, but other than that, they were exactly what we were expecting. Average, talented, but not connecting... This is the plight of the singer-songwriter, and I'd seen enough of them over the years to know the good from the average. The act that followed the first was a guy/girl duo, wishing they were the Civil Wars, but not. The girl was dressed in her bohemian best. The guy wore corduroys and a Pearl Jam T-shirt, something I had to give him credit for even if his facial hair and accessories were all a little much. They played five songs, or there about, but unfortunately no one was listening; well, with the exception of Kimber Canavan who watched them playing as if this was Joan Baez and Bob Dillan.

Everyone else, the Johns and I included, were laughing and talking while we took the relentless shots that kept coming our way. Hickenlooper and I split our shots, half for him and half for me, while we made Elway take his whole. We all agreed that when Kimber started to play, we'd stop drinking, but we never really stopped drinking as Elway's drinks never stopped coming. When the Idyllic Cadillac's were done with their last song, the woman went into a weepy thank you to Kimber, telling everyone who wasn't already aware how great a guy he was and how he'd been so supportive of them and had gotten them "Into the studio despite their resistance to commercialism" –whatever that meant. Elway looked at me and smiled, the alcohol making him a little more boisterous.

"Resistance to commercialism? What the hell is that?"

I laughed. "Fame is unkind, apparently."

He laughed again, louder this time as if he were surprised by my comment. "Yeah, poor bastards."

Finally, Kimber stood from the table he was at, which was right beside me but different from the table me and the Johns sat at. He hoisted an old, black and stickered guitar case and walked gingerly to the stage while the Idyllic Cadillac's slowly stowed their equipment. Unlike the people before him, Kimber didn't do any pretentious warming up exercises. He didn't tune his guitar or walk around like he was the main event. He just was the main event.

I often watch bands. In my dating situation, it seems I'm often invited by some guy I met at last week's event to come see his friend so and so play at club so and so... I find myself in the seats before the stage, watching as the new band comes out to set up while the old band is tearing down. I watch these musicians closely, trying to know things about them before they play a single note. One of the things I can tell easily is how comfortable the singer is in front of a crowd by how he prepares himself for the show. Singers are always pompous. Haven't they been since the beginning of time? Bottom line—the less you see of a singer before he starts to sing, the better. Keep that ego in check until we see if you got it or not.

When Kimber was on the stage and all the amps and microphones except for one had been removed, it seemed empty. Kimber looked comfortable up there, but not showy. I wondered if he was going to be good, or average. It's so easy to be average, and by that I mean that average is good enough to play out, often. Average will get you invited back next month, which blurs the lines for us, the audience. We are never sure if someone is going to be "good" simply by the venue they were invited to play. In today's folk-songwriter genre, "good" doesn't even seem to be people's ambition. Independent labels want a look, not so much a sound, but at the Morrison Inn, these older people didn't want to see men with eye liner. This was a crowd that wanted what they wanted, what they'd seen before... They wanted Kimber Canavan to blow the doors off the place and feeling them wanting that, I got nervous for Kimber.

Before Kimber spoke, he pulled his guitar from the case. I have to admit here that I don't know if I was expecting his guitar to shoot flames—or have naked female midgets dancing topless under a thick, glossy finish—but I do remember seeing that guitar and feeling a little embarrassed for him. The guitar, an ancient Taylor, looked like it'd been left out in the sun and rain for a year and a half. Two of its six strings were missing altogether. Under the circular hole in the center of the acoustic body, it looked like the wood had been scratched, one stroke at a time, all the way though. The wood was grainy and flat, not shiny and lacquered. The neck was long and fretless, with stickers and patches glued somehow to the back of the neck.

Right in the center of the body of the guitar was a picture of Kimber playing that guitar. Someone had obviously taken a picture of him playing and sent him the picture, which he then glued to his guitar. I thought it was funny. I looked at the Johns, who both seemed a little concerned about the condition of his guitar as well. The fact that it was obviously missing strings worried me.

"You think he knows that thing's missin' a few strings?" Elway asked, pointing with his index finger secretively.

"I don't know. I was just thinking the same thing," I said, before I tried to get Kimber's attention.

When Kimber finally saw me trying to hail him, he smiled. "What's up?"

"You're uh... well, you're missing a few strings," I said gingerly.

Kimber looked at his guitar. "Strings?"

"Yeah. Aren't there supposed to be six?" I asked with an alcohol smile.

Kimber looked at me again, his eyes kind and patient. "It's perfect, Lai. Trust me, okay?"

John Elway looked at me uncertainly. "Hmm, guess he did know."

"Apparently," I said, now definitely nervous for Kimber.

One of the most important lessons I've learned when dealing with creative types is that you never know who's "got it" and who doesn't. Writers, painters, directors, producers, musicians, actors... they all appear as if they are the same as the ones before them, until you see them at their work. Showy things like new guitars, tweed jackets, mustaches, and clever hats do not make the musician. Music makes the musician, not the crap they adorn themselves with. Kimber, standing all alone on that stage while the sound guy did various checks and tweaks, looked to be a few steps down from the performers before him. He seemed humbled by the crowd, by the love that his friends were showing him. His guitar aside, he too wore corduroys and a T-shirt, but his was The Features, not Pearl Jam. His hair was combed into an old-fashioned looking part, sort of the way pictures taken of Civil War soldiers looked. Like the animal was trying to look presentable for a photograph. His beard was bushy, his armpits were sweating, and his foot was tapping. Kimber, I was convinced, was about to get shown up by the people he'd invited to open for him.

Just then, there was a hand on my shoulder, and I saw it was an older woman in her late fifties, one that I might have met that morning, but I wasn't sure. She squeezed my shoulders and leaned into my ear. "Don't let his guitar fool you. You're about to hear something you've never heard before."

I looked at her for a second and asked, "What's that?"

"The sound of the perfect performer. Trust me, 'kay?"

I nodded reassuringly. When she left John leaned over and said, "Well, even if he's terrible, his crowd seems secure."

I smiled, nervously. "I'm terrified."

"Don't be. Hick's known the Nooneys for a long time. They say this guy's great, I gotta believe them."

When the sound guy was done, the lights dimmed again. Kimber was as calm as a professional, but at the same time more concerned with being cordial and gentle with people. To put it bluntly, I thought he was too concerned about us, the people watching him, to be any good. I can laugh about that now, the way I can laugh about a lot of the things he said and did, but in the wake of Kimber, these were the things that kept me perpetually hanging on. When he was done adjusting things, he just smiled and looked out at the crowd. "Thank you all for coming out. I'm blessed to see a hundred and fifty or so faces out there and know each one of you. You honor me."

With that, Kimber Canavan stepped into a song that changed my life.
CHAPTER 7

The Tuesday after Kimber and JimmytheKid died, a service was held for them in Morrison. The actual service was held at The Little Church in Morrison (it's actual name) but the reception was put on by, and held at, the Morrison Inn. I never made it to the reception. News of Kimber's death spread quickly, like an outbreak of cholera. To say that people were touched by his death doesn't begin to explain the pandemonium that took place in Morrison, Kittridge, and Idledale in the days and weeks after his death. The Morrison Inn, where Kimber had been counted as family, stretched a banner across the street that read, "Goodbye, Sweet Friend. Kimber Canavan, 1981-2010." The wait staff there wore black armbands in memory of Kimber until his birthday in October, a couple of months later.

The owner of the Morrison Inn, who'd loved Kimber as much as he loved his own son, was adamant that they be allowed to host and cover the reception. He remained adamant, even after news of Kimber's secret wealth had gotten out (the first of two major scandals surrounding his death). It should go without saying that I was a wreck after his death, and to make it worse, soon thereafter I was outcast by the populous in Morrison, but even I heard people's grumbling about Kimber's secret money. I didn't understand then, nor do I now, why people felt so betrayed by Kimber's wealth. I guess he presented himself as immaterial, he pretended that money didn't matter to him, maybe to hide the fact that he had so much of it, but he never lied to anyone about it. No one thought to ask him if secretly he was a millionaire, but had they, I'm sure Kimber would have spoken the truth. I heard comments made by people that loved Kimber, people Kimber loved as well, and I was appalled at how harsh they were being about the fact that he had money after all. They called him a liar. They said that he'd been intentionally deceptive, that he was not who they thought he was; but about a year after he died, people began to understand that Kimber's money didn't change Kimber. If anything, the fact that he had money made him iconic somehow. His legend was again secure. Mine didn't recuperate quite so quickly.

The patrons of Kanavan Coffee were the most tolerant and understanding of his financial situation. Frank Nooney explained to me one day that everyone wanted to care for Kimber, to take him under their wing and provide what he couldn't afford, for him. Everyone saw him as this immensely talented musician who had everything he needed for fame and glory, except the ambition of eager men. This was why people invested in him according to Frank. "Lai, everyone thought Kimber was a diamond in the rough; no one realized that he wasn't in the rough at all.... That's where feelings got hurt." Of course, to some degree, he was right. Kimber could have bought himself the fame that everyone wanted for him, the fame everyone wanted except for Kimber. He could have spent a million dollars advertising his brand. His talent was great enough to take him the rest of the way had he pushed his name onto people.

Kimber died on a Saturday. I made five phone calls from Vedauwoo that afternoon, the first of which was to Kimber's best friend, Joe. I asked him through uncontrollable sobs and probably unintelligible pleading to come and get me at Vedauwoo, three hours away. He didn't object. Of course, Joe had been to Vedauwoo with Kimber a number of times, so he knew where to go. He didn't hesitate, he didn't hem and haw while I waited on the other end of the phone, he just said yes. He didn't break down on the phone with me. I think part of that was due to the way he felt about me. I assumed he didn't think I was deserving of hearing him weep. Joe had felt, had always felt, like I was encroaching on his very special relationship with Kimber. In that conversation, as brief as it was, I recall thinking that Joe sounded resigned. Not surprised in the least, just resigned to the fact that his friend was really gone.

Even without him saying so, I knew that as soon as I hung up the phone Joe was going to come apart at the seams. When he arrived just over three hours later, he looked as if he'd been beaten with a newspaper. His eyes were red and swollen, his face pale and hollow, yet he didn't cry; well, not until later when we were on our way back, together. We cried like two strangers, facing the same harsh reality but without the commonality of a shared loss. Joe lost his friend, I lost my lover. We both lost theKid. To his credit, Joe was gracious and endearing if not a little distant.

I know that I was standing beside Kimber and theKid's broken bodies when I made that phone call to Joe. I remember the blood running down the rocks like a tireless river and pooling in the gaps between the giant boulders that now cradled my dead family. I remember being amazed at the thickness of blood, how it was almost black on the outside edges of the flow where it had begun to dry into a sticky paste. I remember watching it coagulate on the rocks and being surprised over and over again how it seemed to keep flowing even after Kimber had died. I remember looking at Kimber's body, his face smashed into an unrecognizable pulp, as I spoke to Joe, but as far as the conversation itself went, I have little to no recollection.

By the time Joe got to Vedauwoo, Kimber had been taken away. I remember thinking on my way back to the Denver area that poor Joe, driving through his slow, stoic tears and vast disbelief would never get to see Kimber again, ever. All there was for Joe to hang onto was the last time the two of them had seen each other and the lifetime of adventures they had together when they were young and free. I remember debating in my head whether or not I was better off than Joe. At the time I felt like I had the advantage over Joe in that I'd at least seen Kimber. I'd been there when it happened, maybe even helped it happen somehow. That was, of course, just a fleeting thought.

It had seemed like an advantage when I was with Joe, but three days later when I finally fell asleep for the first time, I realized that what I'd seen with my eyes that morning at Vedauwoo would play relentlessly over and over again, every night, every time I closed my eyes for the next twelve months. Joe had photographs of him and Kimber on Colorado fourteeners, both men fit and handsome, smiling and young with the world still ahead of them. Joe had the book that Kimber had written for him just before Joe moved to Reno for a year back in the early 2000's. Joe had the songs Kimber had written about him. He had the stories of Kimber in his head, the memories stored in his long-term hard-drive where when he wanted to, he could sit down and open them up.

Me, I had images of death and unspeakable gore in my brain. I had images of theKid, blue-eyed and fragile, dying slowly as he stared skyward and the certain uselessness of knowing that there was nothing I could do to fix him. I watched that boy die, and each time he blinked his eyes in that slow-motion way, I prayed that if there were a God, if Kimber's God did exist, I hoped He was satisfied.

When Joe arrived at Vedauwoo, the first thing he asked me was where Kimber was. He looked desperate to see him, and for some reason, I found myself afraid to tell him that Kimber was gone. At the time, I thought my relationship with Joe was as strained as it was ever going to be, but that hardly turned out to be the case. I was afraid to tell him that the coroner had taken Kimber and theKid to Laramie, and that from there he'd be transported to Cheyenne where the Denver mortician that Kimber had hired almost 12 months ago to cremate him would be able to pick up his remains, and of course, that of theKid's as well.

I knew that Kimber had prepaid for the transport, cremation, and service, but what I didn't know was that the mortician had been scheduled in advance to expect Kimber's remains to be in Wyoming. Of course, not even the mortician had expected theKid to be among the dead, and when I finally met the man tasked with turning my dead lover into nothing but ash, he hugged me. I'll never forget his words to me; they stuck out among the millions of words paid to me by Kimber's mourning friends. "I will be insulted if you ask to pay me for preparing the youngster. I was a friend of Kimber Canavan's, and I'd rather go broke than collect one red cent for the boy."

Ironically, as Joe and I drove back to Kittridge in near silence, I remember thinking that I should have loved Joe; that I should have, at a minimum, allied myself better with him. I should have known that it was all very real, that Kimber's predictions were real. I should have known, as should Joe have known, that Kimber wasn't like other people, that he wasn't someone who was predicting his own demise in order to gain people's attention or sympathy... Kimber's revelations about his life had been prolific, though not exact. His death was... well, it fulfilled his prophesy I suppose, but it was more complicated than that. I realized as we drove through the bright afternoon sun toward home that Joe looked at me very little. It seems to me now that he might have been the first person to suspect I pushed Kimber, if not both of them, from that ledge, but he never said that. I knew that he wouldn't say that even if he believed it; well, not to me anyway. Maybe it was out of respect for Kimber that he didn't accuse me of murder, but within twenty-four hours from the moment Kimber died those very accusations would be made against me. They started as a whisper, as gossip, but quickly grew to be what people considered factual, based on the people who were saying such things.

People close to me, close to us, were suddenly wondering if and why I would kill the man I loved. This became the second scandal surrounding Kimber's death and as its momentum began to grow, the griping about Kimber's wealth seemed to recede. Thirty days after Kimber's death there was still talk about his hidden wealth, but the real grit was all about me and my plan to get my hands on his money.

I came to the conclusion that Joe was behind the gossip for a simple reason. He was one of three people that knew about the horrific fight Kimber and I had gotten into just days before his death. Joe knew how hurt I was by the fight that Kimber and I had that night. To Joe it would have sounded irreparable, but that's exactly what he didn't understand. Nothing between Kimber and I was irreparable because neither Kimber nor I ever intentionally hurt the other person. We hadn't had that sort of relationship because Kimber wasn't petty or trite. If I fault Joe for the rumors I believe he started, it's not for the logic he used to get from the truth to his fantastical murder mystery, it's for his failure to account accurately for who his friend was. Joe knew Kimber better than I did. That is the truth, even though it makes me a little jealous, even now, to say so. For Joe to believe that Kimber hurt me in a way that I wouldn't be able to forgive him was, in a sense, a slam on Kimber's character.

Yes, Kimber did hurt me, but within twenty-four hours of the argument in question, I realized unequivocally that it hadn't been Kimber's intention to hurt me. We should expect people we love to hurt us from time to time. We are, after all, just animals. The difference between forgivable pain and unforgiveable pain is intent. Kimber's intentions were ALWAYS pure. That's what made Kimber so unique, that's what made him stand apart from every other man I have ever met. In my opinion, Joe should have known his friend better than to assume that whatever had happened between me and Kimber was the sort of thing that would never again work itself out.

I came to believe that Joe was the catalyst behind the untrue rumors for a second reason too. Whoever circulated that theory had an understanding, not just of the massive rock walls at Vedauwoo, but of how Kimber and JimmytheKid summited them. You see, theKid was only five when he died, making him unable to summit those somewhat difficult ledges and routes without Kimber's constant help. Kimber strategically lifted theKid, almost on every move, with precision and unwavering attention to detail.

When they were on the rocks together, they were both aware of the consequences that a mistake would bring. The two of them worked like two bodies attached to the same mind. They didn't make small talk while they were in what Kimber and theKid called "hot zones," (meaning that they were severely exposed) but rather worked like a team, anticipating each other's thoughts and movements.

Kimber moved below theKid as the boy climbed upward to ensure two things. One, that theKid was making the right moves to solid rocks, not loose or breaking rocks and two, so that if theKid fell, Kimber could catch him, even if that happened as they both plummeted to the ground. There was no way, not a chance that theKid would go down without Kimber being with him. The whole task of hiking for the two of them was about teamwork and unity. It was Kimber's way of connecting with his son, making sure that theKid knew without a shadow of a doubt that they were in this together, and the heaviness of that affected theKid as well, even at five years old. TheKid wasn't just climbing and risking his own life, he was insured by Kimber's life, and you'll have to trust me when I tell you that even at five years old theKid believed with all of his heart that his father would go with him if they were to fall. With Kimber and theKid, love was matured and cultivated by that act, by that special place in Wyoming where they worked like two bodies operated by the same shared mind and JimmytheKid loved climbing with his father beyond all things.

Looking back on the events that followed that horrific day, I wish I'd done things a little differently. That statement doesn't come easily to me, and had I attempted to write this story immediately after Kimber's death, I wouldn't have been able to say that. I was the victim of circumstance, accused of murder, greed, and covering up the truth. I was shunned by the people that had pretended to love me, leaving me completely alone to pick up the pieces. People like Joe and Kimber's sister Kasey absorbed plenty of sympathy from Kimber's friends, while I faced the reality of what I'd seen and been through all alone.

The events of that day led immediately into the days after where I was outcast, suspect, and dismissed. Now, with the truth about to come out for the first time, I can finally say that there was more I could have done but didn't. That's not how I saw things at the time. At the time, I was pissed. I was shattered, literally walking around in an impenetrable fog of sadness that felt more like hands around my throat than the blues. I was isolated and punished for something that hurt me more than any other person, so not only was I the most affected by what took place at Vedauwoo that day, but I was also taxed more than anyone else in the aftermath. To say that the whole thing was unfair is an understatement, but there was more I could have done... I should have cried at the Canavan's service. I should have "performed" at Kimber's service, wailing and falling down like an infant in tantrum. I should have accepted the hugs offered me and told everyone the gruesome details of how they died, rather than leaving them with questions that would become cancerous and eventually decay into rumors and gossip... My lack of visible emotion was due to being absolutely incapable of crying one more tear. Every available tear had already been squeezed out of me, leaving me with the same overwhelming sadness but no proof. Apparently, proof is what the multitudes needed to see in me. My dry face might have been the only one in the crowd the day of the service for my lost family and that didn't exactly bode well with the bereaved. I should have sat in the front of the church with Kasey and Joe and the Nooneys, who for some reason saw themselves as closer to Kimber than the others, but instead I sat in the back. Like I said, looking back on it now, that was probably a mistake, but at the time I think I expected people to understand my logic. I was foolish enough to believe that people would understand my choices, my despair, and my inability to communicate how I felt. That was another giant mistake. Instead, I added fuel to the fire, giving people all the visible proof they needed to ostracize and paint me a murderer.

I expected that eventually people would find inconsistencies in my story, but I didn't expect Joe to be the one to find and reveal them. I wanted people to believe that everything that transpired out there was accidental. I wanted to relieve the memory of Kimber of the doubts that came in time, especially in reference to his prophesies. I was cognizant enough to protect Kimber, even to the extent that I fell under suspicion in order to do so. That, I told myself over and over again, was the real evidence of my love for him. I paid for Kimber's memory with my excommunication. Their blind love for him made his actions and words perfect. They refused to see in him any fault whatsoever, the way people often do about the dead. It was far easier for them to distrust me than to admit that Kimber might have shared some of the responsibility for the unanswered questions they were left with.

To top off my odd behavior, I refused to answer questions asked of me pertaining to the way the Canavans died. "So they just slipped off the ledge?" people would ask, hoping that by stating my official story with neither suspicion nor agreement, I'd bite and answer. I didn't. David Bender, a local cop in Morrison and a friend of Kimber's later said, quite famously I might add, "Murderers murder again and again. We'll get her ass." That was enough to swing popular opinion about my involvement and lead people to believe that the police also suspected I was guilty of something, even if not murder. That wasn't the case. The police in Wyoming, the ones that had actually investigated the deaths of JimmytheKid and Kimber and spent three hours interviewing hikers and campers that were there, cleared me without so much as even batting an eye. In fact, were you to ask those cops who might be guilty in the events that transpired there that day, they would have mentioned another woman altogether, a woman closer to the place it happened than I was, but of course, the $20,000 a year cops in Morrison, who make their money on writing speeding tickets and doing police fundraisers, were big-timing the locals with their unofficial suspicion of yours truly. It was pathetic, the comment Bender made and the reaction people had to what he'd said. I took the liberty of telling Bender exactly that, a few months later, through a summons to appear in court to face charges for slander and defamation of character. He was fired, fined, and sentenced to 100 hours of community service when I was done with him. He never recanted his statement and claimed right up until he finally moved back to Denver that he stood by his assessment. His final words to me when he left the courtroom that afternoon were, "Congratulations. You've just officially lost the benefit of public opinion." I told him politely to "Go to hell."

When I first manufactured the tale I thought I would tell about the events of that day, I considered saying that JimmytheKid slipped and took Kimber with him, but the harness the two of them wore when in the "hot zone" made that story harder to swallow. Their bodies weren't close enough together to make anyone believe that they'd followed the same trajectory to the rocks below. So I kept it simple, knowing that I'd be asked over and over again what happened, and if my story waivered, even a little, I'd be looked at as potentially involved.

There was the issue of Kimber's money in the back of my head, reminding and calling to me that all motives essentially start and end with money. Seven million dollars was certainly enough money to make people believe that I was involved in foul play, so my story had to be tight. I recognized that immediately, almost before Kimber was dead, and it persuaded me to stick closer to the truth than I was comfortable with.

Everything I said and did, or didn't say and do, right from start to finish was done in order to protect Kimber and the reputation he'd earned over the years. I just couldn't let the man I came to respect and admire be thought of as less than he was, simply because people wouldn't understand what really happened. Kimber Canavan would never be called a false prophet if I had anything to say about it, and if you really want to know why I did what I did and said what I said, it was for that reason. So rather than getting creative, I simply decided that they slipped at the same time, from the same place. The Wyoming State police knew the truth because of the extensive interviews they'd conducted with other hikers that had seen us that day and therefore had no trouble digesting my account of the events; yet the small-town traffic cops in Morrison made it very clear that they suspected me of murder... Honestly, I can't blame them. Their pain was real and yes, I did inherit a lot of money.

My story, as well crafted and simplistic as it was, gave Joe Frank all the ammo he needed to suspect me. He'd been there before. He'd seen Kimber and theKid climb. He knew the routine, the care Kimber took to never ever take his hands off theKid while in a hot zone. I knew before Joe even began to suspect me that eventually he'd come to question the story I told to the few people I spoke briefly to about the incident. I planned on telling Joe the truth in the car on the way home, but neither of us spoke much that day. I realized that my window for being open and honest was closing as we got closer and closer to Denver, yet still I couldn't face the truth. I must have thought that eventually the opportunity to contain Joe would present itself, but it never came, nor did his believing in me.

I should have said that Kimber carried his son into the afterlife; that they'd ridden their last fatal free fall together. I should have said that Kimber was unafraid, that I'd seen him as he fell and the look on his face was that of a man at peace with his mortality. If I'd said Kimber was perfect as he carried JimmytheKid to his death, no one would have ever suspected a thing. Everyone thought the guy was incapable of mistakes, of accidental falls and certain death.

No matter what really happened, I need Kimber to know that I loved him. I loved him all the way to the ground, unlike anything else I have ever loved.
CHAPTER 8

September 2009

The Johns left the Morrison Inn at about eleven that night, and everyone else shortly thereafter. Kimber and I stuck around for an hour after that, not leaving ourselves till after one A.M. When we did leave, we walked to his car where Kimber stowed his guitar in the trunk. Then we walked back to Vinnie's Bar and sat outside on the rooftop deck. Kimber was cute, adorable even. He didn't talk about his performance, not a single word about it as if he understood how perplexed I was at his amazing talent. He acted like he hadn't even performed and I, still in shock by how good he was, played along with his humility. I didn't know how to address it. There was no way for me to articulate how impressed I was or how moved I was by his lyrical content.

Kimber was a modern day Shakespeare, dressed in corduroys and his favorite band's T-shirt. He was unassuming and I think intentionally anonymous. He didn't do what other musicians did after a good set. He didn't walk around shaking hands and accepting compliments. Instead, he pretended to the best of his ability that he was the same as everyone else in the bar or, maybe, less than them. The closest I came to telling Kimber what I thought about his performance was a squeeze of his hand when he came down off the stage and directly to me. He sat down beside me, stroking my hair and asking if I needed anything. All I wanted, I said, was the rest of my life to be with him and I meant every single word of it.

I wish I had told him. I wish that I'd stumbled through my impression of him on that stage; as sloppy as it would have been, at least I would have tried. For the lies I told after his death, I can explain myself. For not telling him how blown away I was, how inhuman he was when he played, I cannot forgive myself. Maybe if, like Kimber, I could have found the words to explain exactly how I felt about his performance without muddying it all up and failing, I would have. But the chances are I was too small and insignificant to explain such complex emotions. I was jealous of his talent and his nonchalance about it. I was worried, even then, that a man like this would never be able to love me the way I loved him. I feared that forever we would be emotionally lopsided, always leaning his way. I had no talent to speak of, nor did I have an army of people ready to defend me to the death, so yeah, I was intimidated and feeling sort of sorry for myself. How could I ever hold this man's attention?

Truthfully, Kimber wasn't just a singer-songwriter; he was like a young Dave Matthews, well Dave back in the old days, the stadium venue days before the droves of stay-at-home moms toned his sound down. Kimber played that hideous guitar like it was part of his body, like his voice and hands had learned to play in a disconnected stereo and without ever having to acknowledge each other the way the nose and mouth take turns breathing.

He breathed his own music in as he played with heart, that raspy, angry and hurt smoothness that only the masters of performing ever come to understand. Kimber was so good at what he did that no one felt as if they didn't know the song. His melodies fell into a rhythmic pulsing immediately. One didn't have to know Kimber or his music to feel like it was applicable to their lives. Somehow, the act of watching him, actually being there to see him play, was as good as having heard his songs a thousand times. His lyrics were meaningful, even to a populous that was usually unaffected or even uninterested in lyrics. Granted, a lot of Kimber's lyrics revolved around similar issues like death, drugs, and sex but these three things seemed more important when Kimber sang about them than they do in day-to-day conversation. Kimber was not just professional level but better than that. He was the cream of the crop and as I'd taken him in from my seat between the Johns, all I could wonder was why anyone would agree to be the opening act for him.

I'd like to say that as a student of great performers, and also from my place as Gina's permanent wingwoman, I'd know the difference between good and bad. More importantly, I can tell the difference between good and great, and then above great is elite... Think old Dave Matthews, Eddie Vedder, Pretty Lights, Michael Stipe, Joe Purdy, James Taylor and even that new girl I've been listening to lately, Jasmine Thompson. Great when you hear it is always great, even if the genre isn't exactly what you're naturally into.

Kimber had commanded this sort of respect, not only from his devout following but from the Johns and myself, people who weren't there because we'd known Kimber well. We certainly didn't have to think him great, we just did. He kept his eyes open when he sang, which in my opinion is the difference between the great and the good. He looked at his audience, even when reaching for higher notes. He wasn't talkative. He didn't announce each song, nor did he give us his two cents on politics, foreign policy, or religion between songs. He didn't tell us why he wrote this song or that. He didn't tell us the process of writing songs... He played them. Kimber was more mysterious to me after he started to play than he had been when I'd found him by happenstance that morning, or as I've often asked myself since, Was that happenstance? Getting to know Kimber and his profound faith in God, I was unsure that meeting him at Kanavan that morning was chance. Actually, I'd dare say that it wasn't just chance, that somehow, just by being in the proximity of Kimber, God's will had involved me, sort of like a Godly hand grenade, I suppose.

I noticed immediately, as did John Elway, that as soon as Kimber started to play, people stopped what they were doing to watch him. It was uncanny to me, witnessing how the pool games and small chatter seemed to evaporate into a vibration of attention, focused solely on Kimber Canavan and his hideous guitar. He seemed to be six inches taller on that stage and more so as the room quieted in a matter of thirty seconds. Kimber sang loud as he beat that old guitar with his pick. His eyes watered as he sang of losses and victories, of right and wrong, and finally, on his last song, of death. He was like a spaceship that took us all out of that room for an hour and a half and as long as his vocals matched his harmonious guitar work, no one cared how far he took us or if we ever came back.

I spent a good portion of the time I spent listening to Kimber that night looking around at the other people in the audience, the people watching him with slack jaws and enduring disbelief. John Elway was a little more difficult to read than most, but I figured that John, unlike the rest of us at the Morrison Inn, had practiced the art of realizing that people are watching you without letting them realize he knew. Honestly, I didn't know what John was thinking as Kimber played, but I saw in the faces of the rest of the people in attendance exactly what I knew had to be written across my own face. Yes, Kimber was that good and I was a little intimidated at realizing it.

Sitting with him at Vinnie's later, we found ourselves alone. In the back of my head, I wanted this to be an all-nighter. I wanted to sleep at Kimber's house just to be sure I was at Kanavan's with him in the morning so I could hear for myself how people tried to explain what they'd heard, to him. I wanted to hear the inept trying to find adjectives to describe what transpired at the MI twelve hours earlier. I wanted to hear Liz Nooney say something like, "Wow, Kimber, that was really great," or something equally as disappointing. People cannot seem to find the words to describe performed music, much the way most people cannot properly do art justice when it's hung on a wall before them. At least for singer-songwriters there are lyrics to point the audience in the right direction of a song's meaning.

It turned out that I didn't have to wait until the morning to hear the homages paid Mr. Canavan. It started with a pretty, busty young cocktail waitress who came out onto the upper deck for the sole purpose of pressing her tits into the side of Kimber's head. She cooed compliments and patchouli onto him as she hugged his head from the side. "Oh my God! You were so great, Kimber!" she squealed in that Varsity Blues sort of way that makes me want to grow claws.

Kimber looked immediately at me and smiled at my less than personable reaction to "Breasty Bessy" hugging the side of his face with her big, dangly, mom boobs. Somewhere, I was certain there were kids in a trailer, screaming out for a mother that would not hear them... He smiled at my unemotional face, highlighted by my raised eyebrows and valley girl "Oh no you didn't" expression.

He looked at Breasty and said with a sly smile, "Thanks, Vanessa. I appreciate that."

"What? The compliment or the hug?" Vanessa asked, still seemingly unaware that I was sitting right there beside them.

I laughed out loud, though admittedly not a nice laugh. I laughed at her in that way that we women can do: a short, blunt, one-syllable laugh. Normally such a laugh goes unnoticed by men, like dog whistles go unnoticed by human ears, but Kimber caught my drift and immediately intervened before things got any more uncomfortable. "The compliment," he said quickly as he rocked back from her direction and added, "Vanessa, have you met my girlfriend Lai Sarah?" Kimber directed Breasty's gaze to me with a simple hand gesture.

Vanessa, that clever bitch, acted like she'd just then realized I was sitting there, mostly to appease Kimber, I'm sure. She looked at me, and bless her little heart buried under those ridiculous boobs, she did her best to look suddenly surprised with happiness to understand that Kimber Canavan had a new girlfriend. "Oh, hey! Well, aren't you the luckiest thing in town?"

"So I see," I said. I looked at Kimber, just a flash of the eyes. Moving forward with Kimber was going to be difficult. I realized that rarely did I ever go out with someone who was openly wanted by others. Yeah, I suppose a few of my exes had potential to find someone else, maybe even a few of them could have done better than me, but for the most part, being with a man that would hold Breasty Bessy's attention was new territory. She was just the sort of sexpot men were always ogling, the kind of woman every man wants a weekend with. Not a lifetime, just a weekend.

The other thing was obviously that Kimber had just referred to me as his girlfriend. That could have meant two things for me at that point. Either he was being direct and a little forward, cueing me in on his more long-term desires for me, or he was just being witty and I was some sort of inside joke between him and Breasty. Somehow I knew it wasn't for Vanessa. I refocused on my objective, which was to make enough small talk with Breasty that she'd leave me alone with Kimber and go back to doing whatever it was that cocktail waitresses in their early thirties did... keg stands or whatever... "I am definitely a lucky girl," I added.

"Yeah you are, honey!" Breasty said, automatically straightening the salt and pepper shakers. "Wait till people hear that you scooped Mr. Eligible up! Oooooh weeee... There's gonna be riots in the street!" Breasty exploded with a shrieking laughter. "Y'all sure are out late. You gotta open Kanavan in the morning, Kimber?"

Kimber didn't even look at Vanessa this time. He said politely, but signaling that he was done talking to Vanessa, "Nah. Poppy's opening for me."

"Oh, Poppy! He's such a good guy, ain't he? I swear though, I think he might be a little gay, Kimber. You think so?"

Kimber looked at Vanessa again with no discernible expression on his face. "Yeah, I think you might be onto something there."

Vanessa, not getting the hint to leave, looked back to me. "You gotta work tomorrow morning, doll?"

"I'm supposed to, but I'm reconsidering going in."

"Ah," Vanessa said with a nod. She apparently understood my plans to go home with Kimber and spend the night there. "I see. You got a job at the mall or something?"

Kimber laughed loudly, abruptly. He looked at me and then to Vanessa. "You think you could grab us a few shots of Tuaca?"

"Sure. Be right back," Vanessa said and then hurried away. I almost felt bad for her... almost.

I knew that Vinnie's was just a half an hour from closing when we'd gotten there and now we'd spent at least ten minutes awkwardly engaged with Breasty. I asked Kimber, "Old girlfriend of yours?"

He smiled slyly. "Nah, just one hot weekend in Steamboat Springs. She's a real giver, that one."

I looked at him with pretend malevolence in my eyes. "I bet she is."

Kimber looked more seriously at me. "Lai, God created her the exact same way he created you and me. She's here to fulfill her purpose the same as any of us. She's a nice girl, just been kicked around a bit. Not everyone had a good, solid life or even a good, solid foundation to stand on. She's a sweet girl. She's just been trained to use her body as a wedge. It's not her fault."

"As long as the wedge stays away from ending up between you and me, I can live with that." I smiled, though I wasn't sure I wanted to. He'd just mentioned God to me... not exactly the sort of foreplay I was looking forward to.

Just a second after Kimber's God comment, a different girl in black pants and a white button down showed up with our shots. She set two shot glasses on the table and set a bottle of Tuaca between them. She looked at me and nodded politely before she said to Kimber, "Really, that was an extraordinary set tonight, Kimber."

"Thanks, Marcy. This is Lai Sarah, my new... friend. I think you'll be seeing more of her in the future."

Marcy looked at me kindly and offered me her hand. I shook it, feeling like Marcy must be a prominent figure in the small town of Morrison. There was something motherly and kind about her. I liked her immediately. "Pleasure to meet you, Lai."

"The pleasure is all mine," I said, smiling warmly.

"Well, we'll be out of here in a few minutes, but you kids can hang out as long as you want. Kimber knows how to close up. Anything else I can get ya before I get ready to go home?"

I looked at Kimber who said to Marcy, "Just take Vanessa with ya, huh?" He laughed.

"Now, Kimber, you know that's your fault. The way you used to flirt with that girl was criminal!"

We all laughed before Marcy made her way back to the bar. When she was gone, Kimber said, "Yeah, I may have flirted with her a bit, but you know... look at the girl!"

"I have no opinion of that. I am, after all, just a mall employee." I smiled at him and accepted the first shot of Tuaca he offered me.

"Here's to you, Lai Sarah." He held his glass up to clink with mine.

"No. This is to you, Mr. Canavan. You ever see Groundhog Day with Bill Murray?"

"Yes," he said as if he'd heard this line before.

"Well, you have to admit, you are sort of the good version of Bill Murray in that movie here in this little town. Everyone loves you."

"I have been blessed by God. Of that, I am sure. More so now that I've met you."

For as late as it was, there were still a lot of people at Vinnie's, and it seemed to me that everyone had to come over and say hello to Kimber before they went home. He was congratulated over and over again for his set, which I was told that they'd heard because when Kimber played directly across the street, Vinnie's turned off their own music and listened to the sounds drifting across the way from the Morrison Inn.

A group of four came over to see us. In that group were two men and two women, all of them visibly drunk by the way they were walking. They came over and sat down, introducing themselves to me one by one, all slurring a little but with jovial smiles painted across their faces. The leader of the group, a guy named Chip, pulled a Marlboro Red box from his breast pocket and oohed as he pulled a fat joint from the pack. "Got time to smoke a doob with some local fans, Kimber?"

"Is it laced up with the Orient?" Kimber laughed as he slid his chair out and hugged Chip affectionately.

"You know I wouldn't even approach you if it wasn't."

"Laced up with the what?" I asked, the two shots of Tuaca hitting my brain simultaneously.

"The Orient," one of the other girls said. "That's what Kimber calls Opium."

"Rock-star set, bro!" the other guy said while he waited for Kimber to light the laced joint.

"Thanks, Bando. You guys hear the set or are you just saying that?"

One of the girls answered before Bando could swallow the next shot Kimber had poured for me. "Yeah, we heard it! That's why we came out tonight!"

"Well you could have come over to the MI..." Kimber said to her as he inhaled the first puff of the large, yellowish joint.

"And sit in the back behind all your groupies? Nah. We knew you'd roll over here afterward."

"Come on... you know it's just Liz and Frank and all those guys..." Kimber tried to argue.

"Yeah, 'all those guys,'" Chip said in air quotes. "Like John Elway and John Hickenlooper!"

"No shit? Was Elway there? Did you get his autograph?" Bando asked.

"No, I didn't. Yes, he was there."

"Wait, John Elway was there and you didn't even ask the man for his autograph?" one of the girls asked, sliding into the seat beside me.

"No. I'm not much of a football fan. I was honored that he came. The last thing on earth I wanted to do was put him out. You know how he feels about autographs..."

"Who cares how he feels normally? He was there to see you play, man! I think he would have given you an autograph."

"I don't doubt he would have, but I certainly wasn't going to ask him for it."

"Give that guy two years and he'll be asking Kimber for his autograph! We gotta get you up there, Can!" Chip said, pointing up the hill behind Vinnie's where Red Rocks Amphitheater was just a mile away.

"You know what the difference between the Morrison Inn and Red Rocks is?" Kimber asked one of the girls as he passed her the joint.

"Tell me," the girl said smartly.

"The margaritas. They're stronger, cheaper, and bigger down here." He laughed.

The girl looked disappointed. "Come on, Kimber, you know... even the shit shows they put on up there still sell out. All it would take is for you to go up there and do three songs, barefoot and..." She gestured to him, "Just like you are. That'd be it! You'd be an international rock star, instantly!"

"Yeah, bro, you'd be an instant millionaire. Just think what you could do with all that money!"

Kimber smiled a sly smile and said, "Yeah, that'd really be something, huh?"

"I don't understand. Why don't you try? Are you really against being famous for your gift?" one of the girls asked.

"I am famous," was all Kimber said in reply. A second passed where no one spoke, so Kimber continued, "What does it profit a man to gain the world but lose his own soul?"

Becky, the other girl who hadn't said much so far replied "A better car?" She gestured with a shoulder shrug to Kimber's old Honda parked on the street beneath a street light.

Kimber nodded slowly with a wide smile on his face. "Yeah... that's one thing I suppose."

By the time Chip and company left us, the bar had been closed for a half an hour. Kimber and I were alone for the first real time all night; that is until the manager Larry showed up at our table carrying a big ring of keys, a light jacket, and a Styrofoam to-go box. Kimber poured Larry a shot into his own glass and watched Larry as he downed it. Larry let out an "ahh" after swallowing the liquor and pulled out the seat next to me. He sat and introduced himself before turning his attention back to Kimber. "You know Becky's right? She wasn't always a fan of yours, Kimber, one of the few that didn't always like you... Tonight, she was the one that turned down the music over here so we could all hear you over there. Yeah, man, it's that good. Do something with it; if not for yourself, then to not offend the rest of us. If any of these people had your talent, they'd do more with it. Think about it." Larry stood and nodded politely, as if tipping his hat. "Well, goodnight. You know the drill. The doors will lock behind you, so don't forget your weed."

Kimber smiled. "Thanks, Larry. Goodnight."

When Larry was gone, Kimber and I moved from our table to the Adirondack chairs on the edge of the patio. I looked down onto the still and quiet town of Morrison with something like gratitude in the back of my mind. I'd been to Morrison a few times before this, but it had never felt so... well, homey. The actual town, the old part, looked much like I'd imagine it did a hundred years ago. Small shops and bars lined the street that was no more than a half a mile long, nestled into the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. It is truly as far west as one can go without ascending into the rugged mountains. Sometimes I imagine myself a pioneer headed west into unexplored territory, the adventure already having taken lives, and at the sight of these mountains, I fear I too would have lost my nerve to continue west. If I were to stop and settle, Morrison seemed like the perfect place to do so.

Kimber and I sat in absolute silence for a minute, listening to the Bear Creek as it made its way down the incline behind us to the plains of Denver and the surrounding suburbs. Crickets chirped in harmonious communications, all of them reaching a crescendo and abruptly stopping at exactly the same moment, just before they would chirp into that pitch-perfect shrill again. Kimber broke the comfortable silence between us when he tapped his wooden joint box on the table, slowly urging another joint from it. I looked at him working the homemade box, and to show me just how familiar he was with this device and its contents, he flipped the joint from table level to his mouth, catching it between his lips and lit the wide end. I smiled at him, reflecting his own self-satisfied smile. "Wow... Look at you," I said with a sarcastic roll of the eyes.

"Are you impressed?" he asked.

"With what?"

"With that joint toss! That's world class!"

I watched his face glow in the amber light of his flame, the smoke effortlessly coming out through his nose as he huffed and puffed the get the cherry of the joint perfectly hot. "I'm impressed... with pretty much everything," I admitted.

"I have a theory. Want to hear it?" he asked, ignoring my comment.

"Sure."

I waited while he puffed his joint a few more times. He held his breath for long bouts between hits and exhaled an impressive plume of smoke without coughing. Finally he looked at me and held the joint out to me. "Want a puff first? My theories are pretty heavy. The Orient in this Jay will help you understand me better."

"I was gonna remind you of the puff, puff, give rule, but I didn't know if that lingo still exists in the stoner community. That was the rule when I was in high school."

Kimber smiled. "That's the first rule of joint smoking. Always will be."

"What does the Opium do?" I asked, a little unsure of its effects.

"It just chills you out."

"I thought that's what the weed did?" I asked, taking the joint from him and looking at it suspiciously.

"Yeah, it does... sorta. Actually, weed doesn't really chill you out. It increases your heart rate rather severely. If you have peaceful thoughts, weed will make you at peace. If you have anxious thoughts though, it amplifies them as well. The Opium makes sure that the weed takes you to a good place. Think of it as an Oriental tour guide, making sure you stay on the right side of town without accidentally stepping into the dangerous places."

"Good enough." I put the joint to my mouth and inhaled. It tasted like it was laced with mint leaves. I inhaled the smoke and held it, not as long as Kimber, but long enough that I grew concerned that I was going to get too high and have a bad episode. When I exhaled, my head pounded for a second, like a headache but without the pain, just the pressure. I handed it back to Kimber while I awaited the damage I'd surely just done to myself. "I hope this doesn't kill me."

"Kill you? It can't! That's what the tour guide is for! Now, do you want to hear my deep thoughts? Are you ready?" He smiled. His smile was so warm, so likeable.

"Alright, let's have Kimber Canavan's deep thoughts," I said with a satisfied smile. I added, "But if this starts out with 'I love you, bro,' I'm out of here."

Kimber pretended to be hurt by my comment. He looked at the table, really putting it on thick and said, "Ooookay... we'll go with plan B." He laughed out loud which made me laugh. The guy was infectious. Before he even began his philosophical thoughts, I was reaching out for the joint a second time, satisfied that I hadn't overdone it with the first pull. Kimber handed it to me again with arched eyebrows. "You might want to wait a few minutes to see how you're doing. Generally ten minutes is how long it takes to feel the real effects."

"Oh, stop being my dad. I'm fine," I countered.

"Okay," he said. "But don't say I didn't warn you."

"Are you gonna give me your deep thoughts or what?" I asked, taking another puff, but this time inhaling and exhaling quickly. Surely Kimber was right about the effects gaining strength for ten minutes. The guy seemed as if he genuinely understood his weed.

"I think happy people like sad music and sad people like happy music. What do you think?"

"That's interesting," I said. "You know what? I agree. I really do."

"Really? You don't need more time to process my deep thoughts?" He laughed loudly, genuinely again.

"To consider that? No. It makes perfect sense. Music is an escape. Why bother escaping into what you already feel? The point is, it's supposed to make you feel more than what you normally do, so it seems logical that happy people want to feel sad and more importantly, that sad people want to feel happy. Why? Do people usually not get that?"

"I don't know. I've never told anyone that before. I just expected more resistance."

"Well rest assured, Mr. Canavan, it makes perfect sense to me."

"Really?" he asked. "Damn. I guess I thought it was gonna be harder to convince you."

"Oh, I see. You thought you were a real Socrates!" I laughed loudly, spraying spittle as I did so.

Kimber laughed too and then pretended to be wiping my spit from his face. This made me laugh harder, and a moment later, I was crying from laughing so hard. It went on this way, me laughing uncontrollably and clutching my stomach that ached from my strenuous laughter and Kimber encouraging me further with his funny facial gestures as he pretended he had my spit in his eyes. We would wind down, and then he'd do something else that would send me right back to where I was a moment before. When I finally got myself under control he asked me more seriously, "Why were you at that speed dating thing, Lai? I mean, you don't seem like the sort that hangs out at events like that."

"I'm not, but I do. Gina is literally obsessed with dating. She says she's looking for Mr. Right, but I almost think she's addicted to looking for him. She's met plenty of great guys and they never work out. Somehow, she always ends up back on the market, back on the hunt, and I am her perpetual wingwoman."

"How do you feel when you leave an event like that?" he asked.

"I suppose it depends on whether or not I meet someone. When I do meet someone, I get sidetracked from how pathetic it is because I'm distracted. When I don't meet someone, I want to cry myself to sleep. It embarrasses me the way you'd expect, but I've learned to cut myself some slack. I think what's hardest for me is that for Gina, this is her thing. I rarely feel like I want to be there, which makes me hate myself more on the nights I don't meet someone. It reminds me that I'm just her follower."

"Do you get more dates than her?"

"Yeah, I do better than she does; a point that drives her crazy to no end."

"I can imagine," Kimber said with a wise nod of the head. "How often do you meet someone at one of these events?"

I thought longer about that than I should have. "Usually," I finally said.

He nodded. "So... why are you still alone?"

"I don't know. Why are you still alone?" I meant to control my tone, but there was retaliation in my words.

"Okay." He nodded cautiously. "Let's talk about something else."

"Like what?"

He smiled that sly smile again. "Like... my theory about music. You're an educated woman. What do you think? Is the world so unhappy?"

"I think people are as unhappy as we've ever been. I'd guess it has something to do with the internet, with technology that feels like 'social' media, but really, it's anti-social media. I have a thousand friends on my Facebook page, but I eat ice cream alone in my apartment every night. Ironic? Maybe not, but it sometimes feels that way."

"Yeah. I had a Facebook page once. I thought I had to have one. I was actually told that I had to if I intended on keeping Kanavan 'competitive.' I tried it and hated it, so I decided to cancel it. Then I learned that you can't cancel it. You can delete stuff, but you can't cancel it. I went through and deleted or 'unfriended' everyone, but one by one, they started trying to 'refriend' me. What a pain. Finally I wrote a scathing post telling everyone who wouldn't go away that I disliked them and that I'd post inappropriate things on their pages if they didn't let me go. After that, I just changed my Facebook name to John Jones and never opened it again."

"Crazy, right?" I asked. "Once they have you, they keep you. The one thing they can't do though is make you sign in."

"It's the beginning of the end," Kimber said. "Biblically, I think it's the beginning of the end."

"I don't know about that..."

"I don't know either, but it feels unholy to me. Millions of people snooping through millions of other people's pictures and comments... It's unhealthy. It's made robots and performers of all of us. I think that if people would look to God as closely as they look to Facebook or whatever... we'd be a better society. Now-a-days, when someone knocks on our doors we get all freaked out. When my phone rings and I don't know the number, I get apprehensive. Remember when we were kids and the phone rang? It was something exciting, something we wanted to answer. Now we want to browse people's lives without ever being in their proximity. Divide and conquer, Lai. That's the way to the end. Now we're divided and being conquered all the while feeling like we're 'socially connected.' We've built machines to worship."

An alarm triggered in the back of my head somewhere. I was concerned for a second that Kimber was going to be another bible-thumping hypocrite, too sacred and religious to get his hands dirty in the world. Yet at the same time, he didn't strike me as the sort of guy that would be involved with youth ministries or anything as awful sounding as that. He was an artist, a drinker, and a pot smoker... So why had he said that about God? "So... are you... like... religious?"

Kimber Canavan leaned back in his chair and puffed the Opium laced joint. He watched the shape-shifting clouds of white smoke coming from his mouth before he turned his eyes back to me and said with a very serious expression on his face, "Lai, if you'd bow your head with me right now..." But then he stopped speaking and smiled. "I'm kidding. Yes, I am 'religious,' whatever the hell that means. It's hard not to say what Pastor Bob used to say when someone accused him of being religious. He'd say, 'Even Satan is religious,' but I'll spare you that cliché. I will say, however, that I believe in one God. I believe in the Bible, not in its divinity, but in its aspirations. Most Christians will tell you that the Bible is divine, perfect in every way... untouched by human hands, but then again, most Christians have never read it, let alone studied the history of it. It's a beautiful book in every way, and the stories about Jesus' life thrill me, but they are parables. They are representations of what God wants of us, not exact guidelines. For instance, in Genesis, the Bible says that the world was made in 7 days... Six really, the last was a day of rest. Do you think God needed rest after making the earth, Lai?"

"If... He made the world you mean?"

"Okay... I'll go along with that." Kimber smiled.

"Well, I suppose if He made the world, He was probably tired..."

"Bullshit. He's God, Lai! He didn't have to dig ditches. He spoke, and it happened. He wasn't out there with a five-gallon pail filling the oceans with water. God is infinite, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I hardly think he needed a day to drink Gatorade and take Vicodin for his aching back, yet if you were to ask the congregation of The Little Church in Morrison..." He pointed behind him to where the church was encased in darkness in the middle of the night. "What do you think they'd say?"

I could see that this was something Kimber was passionate about, so I played along. "Uh... what the Bible says?"

"Exactly! They're blinded, literally dumb sheep waiting for the shepherd to guide them! They haven't read the Bible! They choose the Bible over science, and will gladly tell you so, but they haven't studied either. I grew up with a kid whose mother told him that dinosaurs were a man-made myth to persuade us from the teachings of God. That's just crazy. God didn't expect us to be so stupid. He gives us logic and the ability to analyze but rather than using that, we believe things like dinosaurs are a conspiracy of the Devil? Second Peter 3:8 says that a day to God is like 10,000 years to us. If it took God six days to make the earth, how old is it? Couldn't it be that we're still in the seventh day and that this is God at rest? Christians... the only part of Christ I don't like. Sex, power, and money... that's what happened to the perfectness of the Bible we were assured of. The book has been here on earth through dictatorships, revolutions, and the changing desires of men for fifteen hundred years, and people think it's remained untouched? It might have been pure when it was written, but it's been passed down from dictators and tyrants for over a thousand years, each of whom used it to their advantage. And what was that advantage? The same three things over and over again—sex, power, and money. No, I believe in God, not the clowns that sell Him for their collection plates."

"I see," I said, seeing exactly how passionate Kimber was about this topic. Was it concerning to see Mr. Wonderful turning into a religious lunatic? A little. Part of that was surely because I was simultaneously watching him smoke an Opium laced joint and drop four-letter words into the conversation, both things I needed to see him doing in order to believe he wasn't one of the crazy people on the 16th Street Mall passing out Bible tracts.

Kimber was passionate about God during that conversation, but of course I had yet to learn that his relationship with God went well beyond that of those lunatics handing out scraps of paper with Bible verses on them... Unbeknownst to me at this time, Kimber was even crazier than that. He'd been "spoken to" by God Himself, which, had he told me so, would have made me afraid, very afraid. Not knowing how to respond to his rhetoric about faith and the faithless I said, "Well, you certainly are passionate about it, I'll give you that." I didn't want to talk about God. I didn't know or understand God and, really, I didn't want to. I liked the mystery surrounding religion. I liked the chanting and drinking of blood because of the ritual, not the meaning. I liked that I could occasionally go to church feeling guilty and come home feeling better about myself. I didn't want to know how or why the machine worked the way it did. I just wanted it to be dependably ceremonial and somewhat magical. I wanted to know as little about God as I could, making me as uninformed as I could possibly be, because if the day came that I really did have to stand before God and answer for myself, ignorance would be my excuse.

"Long story short, Lai, I am a Christian, though shunned by most believers. I am loathed at The Little Church in Morrison. Not so much by the Pastor, but certainly by the congregation. I have been openly defiant of their 'religious' beliefs because religious beliefs without applicable dedication is just fraudulent. They all believe that when the rabbit is pulled from the hat, it's magic. Magic is pagan, and so are unlearned followers. Jesus begs his followers to study his words, to understand the meanings; that's why he spoke in parable. Parables are the way Christ taught idiots very complex ideas. They were meant to drive a point, not make exact predictions or rules. People look at me smoking weed and point their fingers at me. They look at homosexuals and point their fingers at them... They point their fingers this way and that, literally every direction except at themselves. Did you know that there is a homosexual population of every species of animal in existence? Yet the 'church,' whatever the hell that is, wants to convince us that it's an ideological choice! What a bunch of 'tards. Wine is and has been wine for thousands of years, yet most 'Christians' believe they shouldn't drink. Where do they get that idea? From man, not from God. 'Don't get wasted on wine' says the Bible. Why would God say that? Simple, because being wasted on booze of any sort leads us to immoral places, not because drinking is a sin! 'The body is a temple,' says another verse. So... why are there morbidly obese people in the congregation pointing their fat fingers at smokers? I say leave the semantics to the Pharisees and let people be people. Help each other, love each other, forgive each other... These are the things we were supposed to learn through Christ's teachings, not finger pointing. Serve God first and all things after. Be good, love, and be happy. This was what Jesus wanted us to learn. This is why he had to die for his beliefs; to show that there are mortal consequences for our lives. The Church makes a mockery of God. It's a place where unprofessional actors go to perform. They put on their best suits and dresses, drop a five spot into the plate, and walk out as if they're walking on water. They've got something holy to say about everything and love to talk consequence..." Kimber looked at me. "Okay, that's enough of that. Sorry. I get pissed when I think about it, when I think about Jesus' perfect intentions being distorted by politicians and Papal authority. It's a twisted mess and I, high on Opium and marijuana, think I understand God better than the soberest Lutheran or Methodist."

"And obviously you found something in the Bible about smoking weed?" I asked with a smile.

Kimber really smiled at this. It seemed to me by the way he answered me that he'd been waiting to see if I would call him out on an obvious contradiction. "Who says smoking pot is a sin?"

"I don't know. You're the expert. God?"

Kimber laughed and stood up. He looked at the sky and said in his big voice, "God? If smoking pot is a sin, send lightning bolts down right now. I'm ready to answer for my sins. Show me, I beg you, show me my sins with fire from the sky!" He stood looking up at the cloudless night with his arms spread wide and his head tilted back before he dropped his arms to his sides as if defeated. "Lai, sins are not what you think they are. They're not what people tell you they are. They're deliberate. You cannot accidentally sin. Accidental sin is called an accident, a mistake. Sins are deliberate and intended to be defiant. God understands us. God told Adam and Eve to not eat the fruit of the tree and they ate. That was a sin—a deliberate, intentional defiance of God. Why do people smoke pot? To feel better? Why do people pay ten grand to have their nose reshaped or get breast implants? Why do people pay a hundred thousand dollars for a car made in Germany, rather than a twenty-thousand-dollar domestic vehicle? For the same reasons. Hypocrisy comes easy to the unfaithful. They think sticking a flag in the ground at their church to represent abortion is acceptable. I think it's tasteless. When did God say to them that they were so pure that they could mock people's decisions? He didn't. He didn't because we are all made of the same dirt and are all accountable to the same God. They say that they believe God's plan works out to His glory, but they chastise people for making decisions they disagree with. They're liars because of their own voices. They condemn as if they were empowered by God to do so... We look at a maximum security prison and see convicts. We don't know why they're there; we just know that they 'deserve' to be. We look at them as if they are all the same, without concern for the individual crimes they committed. That's exactly how the Bible says God sees us. Sin is sin; there's no hierarchal order to sin. To God, abortion is the same as rumors and gossip. To God, we are all prisoners in that prison, all of us guilty of something or another. Yet, you don't see prisoners pointing at other prisoners and saying, 'I'm better than you because I only killed three people and you killed four.' The Church... I wish Christ would come back and walk into church on Sunday morning and set us straight. I wish he would set me straight if I need it. I pray that if what I am doing is wrong, God would point it out to me. That has been my prayer for years, 'If I need to jump through all these denominational hoops to get into Heaven, make me aware of it. If I have to believe in people's bullshit to get to God, change me.' I've grown stronger in my faith as I am, without the disillusion of patriarchal guessing."

I looked at him. I was too stoned to say anything pertinent and my instinct was to nod my head in understanding, but I didn't. I didn't because the truth is, I didn't understand what Kimber meant just then.

"Come on," he said with the wave of a hand.

"You're not going to slaughter me on a pre-built altar, are you?" I asked with a serious expression on my face.

"Well, you remember the story of Abraham and the sacrifice he was asked to make?"

"No," I said flatly, fearing that this was never going to stop.

"Nevermind. We'll save that for another night. Let's go to my place."

"Perfect," I said and stood beside him, wrapping my arm through his and heading down the stairs of Vinnie's Bar.

We left Vinnie's at about two thirty, plenty stoned and slightly drunk. I wasn't blitzed and slurring, but that opium/weed joint had destabilized me to a degree I hadn't been counting on. "I hope you're driving," I said, trying my best to walk toward his rusty, red Civic parked directly under one of maybe five street lights along Morrison Road.

"Of course I'm driving," he said and paused for a second. "That's a high performance machine right there... Not just anyone can handle that sort of horsepower."

Before I could stop myself, I said something that made me remember my mother. "Are you okay to drive?"

"By that do you mean... legally sober?"

"No!" I laughed, trying to recover the cool points I'd just tossed in the garbage can. "There's no way you're legal. I'm just asking if you think you can get us from point A to point B without wrapping your Maserati around a telephone pole."

Kimber laughed and held up one finger. "Oh, then I've got good news! There aren't any telephone poles. There are, however, a lot of very hard, very old rocks that we could crash into; but rest easy, it will not be a telephone pole that takes your life tonight."

"What about cops?" I asked.

"Local stardom has its privileges. That, you don't have to worry about."

Kimber was right. There were no power or telephone poles between Vinnie's Bar and Kimber's place, but there couldn't be. The road was built in a canyon that followed the Bear Creek, so it winded and twisted its way through Idledale and then Kittridge before it would eventually empty out into Evergreen. The Bear Creek lay at the base of the canyon, just a hundred feet or so farther below us. The rock walls that lined the road to our right were hundreds of feet high and at times no more than a foot away from my passenger side door. The shoulder of the road was just dirt, loose gravel, and fallen rocks.

As I stretched my seatbelt across myself and heard it click, Kimber looked at me with the shake of a head. "Nah, you aren't gonna need that. I drive this road every day of my life. Trust me, I got ya."

The proximity of the rock wall to our car and the drop on the other side, the driver's side, made it impossible for linemen to run telephone poles along the path. In their place, and more ominous than the potential to make contact with the power poles, were signs that read WATCH FOR FALLING ROCKS. I thought they were sort of funny really, as in the dark I couldn't see more than twenty feet up the rocks, making the task the signs were assigning us impossible. If there were a falling rock up there somewhere, I wouldn't know until it came through Kimber's duct-taped sunroof and smashed me to kingdom come. It was as dark of a night as I'd ever seen, the sort of darkness that mountain people take solace from and scares the hell out of city folk like me.

Kimber drove fast, maybe to prove to me that he knew the road, maybe because he was too drunk and stoned to realize his speed, yet he didn't scare me. It was obvious to me that he did know the road well. He knew when to slow down and when he could punch it; that little engine making a rattling sound when he pressed the pedal to the floor, yet I wasn't scared at all... that is until it happened.

As we careened up the hill in our inebriated state, we made small talk. Kimber let the sermon go, falling back into his role as Mr. Wonderful. He talked about his life and told me stories about people who lived in some of the houses we passed, houses that Kimber assured me were up there in the darkness but remained invisible to me from our little car in the scary-dark canyon. Just before it happened, Kimber asked me if I wanted to go swimming when we got back to his place. "Yeah, the Bear Creek widens in my yard, partially because I built an illegal dam, but you gotta see the rope swing I built! It's the best rope swing in the free world! I call it a rope swing, but really it's a zip line that goes from a spot on the cliffs out over the water. It's awesome! In the dark, it's even better!"

"Uh, isn't the water like thirty degrees?"

"Yeah, about that. It's invigorating! You in?" he asked with a squeeze of my thigh.

I looked out the window feeling my buzz weakening. "If you go first, I'll follow you."

"Perfect."

Just then, out of nowhere, there was a horrific noise that came from just outside my door. It was a terrible screeching and clacking that lasted for just a second before the car began to swerve and skid on the soft shoulder. The headlights shone onto the rock wall for just a split second before Kimber jerked the wheel and pulled his emergency brake. This led to another screeching sound, the sound of tires squealing across blacktop as the car spun out of control. I braced for impact as I felt the car jumping and bouncing over the rocks and dirt. Mentally, I prepared myself to die. The road seemed so unforgiving between the rocks on one side and the cliff on the other. It seemed to me that I was going to either make head contact with the rock wall or drown in the freezing cold Bear Creek; that is, if I survived the hundred foot header into the water from our place on the road above. I wasn't entirely convinced that the seatbelts in Kimber's car even worked, though unlike most other levers and knobs, there wasn't duct-tape on my belt, which I found somewhat reassuring.

The car came to rest on the shoulder, facing back toward Morrison and no more than a foot from the wall. Kimber, in typical cool fashion, looked out his window at the rocks and said with a wipe of the forehead, "Woowee. That was a little close." He smiled and touched me again on the knee. "You okay?"

"If by okay you mean mentally prepared to die, then yes."

"Good. Sorry about that. I think we hit something."

"What?"

"I have no idea. Let's go check it out. It sounded like a scratching sound to me, but I guess it could have been a falling rock. What do you think?"

"No. It wasn't that. It was something else. It sounded like something ran into us, not us into it," I declared.

"What matters is that you're okay. Tell me you're okay," he said, squeezing my hand.

"I'm okay."

"Alright, let's go see what it was."

Kimber opened his car door. The weak overhead light came on and flickered between weak and off, making the darkness surrounding us seem even more like an impenetrable veil of black. A second later he stepped out of the car and disappeared into the blackness of Morrison Road. I didn't want to be alone in the car, so when Kimber came around my side and opened the door for me, I was relieved. I got out and stood with shaky knees and a thumping heart. Kimber opened the trunk and began searching through bags he'd stored in it. The trunk light didn't work so it took him a minute to find what he was looking for. When he had it in his hand he smiled and said, "Gotcha!"

There was a quiet click, and then the tiny flashlight came on, producing a weak, yellow beam of light that I thought wouldn't shine ten feet in front of us, but in the absolute darkness of Morrison or Kittridge... wherever we were, it was sufficient for seeing. I knew that Kimber was intent on investigating the road, but honestly I just wanted to go back to his house and relax. Walking around in the dark in the mountains seemed like a dangerous way to spend an hour, but no matter what, where Kimber went, I was going.

In the movies, whenever the man gets out of the car to go "check things out" he usually gets hacked apart with a machete or an axe, but the worst part was that after he was dead, the assailant always came back to get the girl who'd been waiting in terror in the car. Her death didn't come as readily as his. She gets taken back to someplace called the "funhouse" or the "playpen," something innocent sounding but with sexual innuendo built into the name. The point is, if there was an axe wielding madman out there in the dark, I was going to find him with Kimber, not after.

"That's it? That's what we're arming ourselves with?" I asked with a laugh. "I thought you were looking for a pistol or something."

"If it were a giant metal Maglite, would you approve?" he asked, suppressing laughter.

"No. Yes... well, it's just that if this were a movie, you'd be about to get hacked apart by an axe wielding psycho or maybe torn apart by a wild, rabid animal, and if that happens, I'm completely screwed." I pointed to his flashlight.

"I think it was a deer. Maybe smaller, but now that I think about it, it sounded like antlers."

I agreed. That is what it had sounded like between the clunking and clacking and scraping sounds; it sounded reasonable to suspect a deer. "Alright, fine. Let's do this," I said, assuming the role of a much braver soul.

Kimber held my hand sort of behind his back as I followed him through the darkness. In addition to the scuffling of Kimber's feet, I could hear the creek bubbling down below us and the wind whipping through the night sky somewhere far above. It was peaceful in a terrifying sort of way. The night seemed more amiable once we were out in the darkness, not nearly as foreboding and daunting as it had felt when we were still in the car. Kimber kept talking to me in a hushed voice, comforting me and telling me to step up over rocks as he discovered them from his place a few steps in front of me. We walked about two hundred feet like this, Kimber gently talking to me, his hand securely in mine while the night breeze blew and the cold creek bubbled and gurgled somewhere down below. Suddenly there were noises—breathing and frantic scratching in the gravel. Something was just in front of us, laying in the dirt and frantically trying to escape us. I stopped and stood still until Kimber's hand slipped from mine. He stopped and looked at me, pointing the light onto his own face so I could see him. "It's an animal. I think it's a deer. You wanna wait here?"

"What part of I'm coming with you did you not understand?" I asked.

"Okay, come on. Slowly. We don't want to spook him."

When we were a few steps closer, Kimber's light had the strength to illuminate the timid creature. In the dirt, lying on its side, was a full-size, male deer. As we came upon him, the animal tried with all its might to stand, but its legs were visibly broken. Blood and other fluids leaked from the spot just above his knee where the bones were protruding. He let out a painful grunt as he collapsed back into the dirt and rocks, surrendering to whatever we were about to do to him. He didn't have the strength to walk or the will to survive on the steep cliffs. He lay back down and stared at us, terror in his big, black, bulging eyes as he looked us over. I tried to imagine what we looked like to a dying deer, and realized that he couldn't see us. All he could see was that little, flimsy flashlight, so I told Kimber to shine the light on his face so the deer could see him. Kimber did what I asked of him before he shone the light onto my face as well. The deer looked at me, the haunting and painful look of a living creature resigning to the inevitable.

Kimber approached the deer tentatively and crouched down beside him. Slowly and carefully, Kimber reached his hand out and touched the deer on his chest, patting him gently. The deer stirred at Kimber's touch, but then calmed himself back down. We guessed that the deer had come up from the Bear Creek side and tried to cross the road. When he ran into the impenetrable wall, he'd turned around and started back across the road to the creek side, only to run into the side of our car. Had we been one second earlier, the deer would have come through the windshield and probably caused us to swerve into the wall, killing us both without question. Funny, in the time before I knew of Kimber's death prophesy, I believed that maybe I'd been spared as a side-effect of God's love for Kimber.

I leaned against the rock wall feeling terrible for the deer. It reminded me of my mother, of the way she'd finally given into the unstoppable. I'd seen her resign herself to the idea of her death, just as this deer was doing now. Once my mother had surrendered to her death, her demeanor changed. She went from fight mode to acceptance and surrender, which in her case gave me some sort of control over my feelings about what was happening to her. I remember when my mother told me that she was ready to go, that she'd released her feelings for people and things here on earth, the way a small girl releases a helium balloon on the wind. I remember the gripping isolation of helplessness. I remember wanting it to be me, not her, but to what effect? It was her; the cancer had found her like a stray bullet ricocheting off a wall. As I looked at the deer, I could feel its desire to live slipping away. I'd seen it before and hadn't recognized it at the time, but that's the sort of thing you only have to see once. You never forget the look of letting go, the same way you never forget a lesson taught to you by death itself.

Kimber touched the animal, squeezing its legs and neck softly the way a doctor searches a patient for more wounds than the obvious. He rubbed and petted the dying creature who no longer felt alarmed by Kimber's touch. The deer lay back, taking more weight off its legs that were lying limply before him like a kickstand as he shifted more of his weight onto his back. I'd never seen anything like it. The animal trusted Kimber or... more than that, the animal was comforted by Kimber's gentle touch. I held the light for Kimber while he finished his search and realized that his hands were now covered in hot, sticky blood. Kimber lay down beside the deer, looking directly into its eyes and began to whisper to it.

I was undoubtedly in love with a man for maybe the first time in my life.

"It's over for him," Kimber finally admitted. "He's bleeding out slowly, but it will take him hours, maybe days, to actually die."

"So... should we call the police and have them come put him down?" I asked softly, as if the deer could understand me.

"They won't. They're not allowed to fire their guns in city limits; well, unless it's a life and death thing."

"It is a life and death thing!" My voice cracked as tears welled up in my eyes.

"Not to them," Kimber said gravely.

Kimber stood, wiping the blood from his hands in the loose gravel and stone before taking the flashlight out of my hand and shining it around, looking for something—a tool. I saw the pathetic, yellow, singular beam of light settle on a rock that looked just big enough that a man Kimber's size could barely get it above his head. Once I saw what he was thinking, I was aghast.

"I need you to hold the light. I have to get this right," Kimber said, handing the flashlight back to me.

"No! Kimber, you are not about to hit that poor deer over the head with that rock! No!" To prove how serious I was, I turned off the light.

"Lai?" he asked me softly in the dark, though by now I could see enough in the darkness to see his silhouette. "He's in pain, serious pain, and beyond that, I'm pretty sure the shock will kill him. It could take hours, days even. If we leave him, he'll still be shivering and shaking when the sun comes up and starts to bake him alive."

I too wanted this deer out of his misery, but I didn't know how to do that short of bashing him over the head with a hundred-pound, jagged stone. I would have wanted better than that... I would have wanted more peace and less blunt-force trauma. "Not so brutal, Kimber, please. Not the boulder to the head thing, please... anything but that."

I turned the light back on and pointed it against the rocks, allowing me to see Kimber's face. "Okay, Lai. There's another way." I nodded my appreciation to Kimber before he turned back to the deer. He placed his hand on the deer's shoulder while he spoke to me in a sing-song, calm sort of way. "I need you to turn the light off and walk back to the car." He added, "I don't want you to see this."

"No!" I demanded. "You're not going to..."

"I know, Lai," he said very patiently, very doctorly. "It'll be peaceful; I promise."

"What are you going to do?" I asked him, nervously hoping for a policeman to show up and just shoot the damn thing.

"Just turn off the light. Every second we make him wait is another..."

I turned off the light. "Do it."

"Okay," Kimber said in a hushed, sort of somber tone. This will just take a second. Walk back to the car now. This will just take a second. You shouldn't see this."

"I'm waiting right here," I said with authority, partially afraid that if I walked back to the car he'd use the blunt-force trauma method.

"Okay. But keep the light off please, not just for you, but for him." I heard Kimber get down in the rocks with the deer again, the loose gravel making that scratching noise as his feet slid in it, trying to get himself into some sort of position on the ground with the deer. Soon, Kimber's feet stopped sliding around so much, and as I struggled to see him on the ground, I thought it looked like he was on top of the deer, lying on top of the poor thing.

I couldn't resist the urge; I turned the light back on and saw Kimber getting into a position that looked like he was trying to spoon with the deer. He was behind the deer in the dirt, his legs open like a pair of scissors in order to stabilize himself. He kept one hand on the antlers, trying to keep them from poking one of his eyes out. I turned the light off when I realized what he was doing. It took me until I saw his arm sliding around the deer's neck to understand that Kimber was going to take this animal's life with his bare hands.

My heart started thumping in my chest and a sick feeling came over my stomach. In the darkness, I could hear the movements of the deer—first getting frantic and then beginning to calm as the life began to slip away from him. The struggle to hold the deer's stiff and strong neck was causing Kimber's feet to shift, his right arm firmly around the deer's neck, the other holding his right arm to increase its stability and strength. Kimber's shifting and squirming in the dirt matched the deer's perfectly. As the deer began to give in to his demise, Kimber's movements dwindled as well. It seemed to go on forever, the struggle and the sickening realization that Kimber was killing this animal with his own arms. Suddenly, just as I thought it was over, the deer started to really fight. Kimber let out some groaning noises as the animal lurched and bucked. He tightened down harder as the deer began to seize. Now Kimber had the deer in a death grip. It only took a matter of thirty more seconds before the deer went limp and urinated on the ground beside Kimber.

It was over.

"It's okay, friend. In my Father's house, there are many rooms," Kimber whispered between sobs. I saw Kimber's face when I turned the light back on. I saw the tears dripping down his cheeks.

When the deer was beyond this world, Kimber released his headlock. He cradled the deer's face in his strong hands and carefully placed it on the ground. He stroked the deer's face, petting him softly and weeping into his neck. He tried to close the deer's eyes, but one of them remained open, eerily looking at us as Kimber began to get up. Before Kimber was all the way up, he crouched back down beside the dead animal. Kimber Canavan leaned close to the deer's ear and whispered something I couldn't hear. When he'd said his last words, Kimber wiped the tears from his eyes again, looked at his bloody hands, and said to me, "It's over. He's free of pain and fear now."

"Kimber?" I asked, sobbing.

"Yeah?"

"What did you say to him?"

Kimber looked at the deer and then back to me. "It's nothing. Just a Pearl Jam lyric."

"What is it?" I asked.

"Truants move on, cannot stay long. Some die just to live...." Kimber turned to the animal as I started back to the car, wiping my tears on my shirt.

Kimber spoke one last word to the deer before he came to join me. "Immortality."
CHAPTER 9

The Berkshire was intentionally difficult to get to. Houses with long, difficult to navigate driveways were both cheaper and more suited to our desires. We'd been looking for a place to call our own, a place where if we felt the urge, we could run around naked without being seen by passersby. We were as in love as two people can be and desperate to isolate ourselves in each other's company. Isolation wasn't something I understood before Kimber. Actually, before Kimber my idea of isolation was a Friday night in rather than out. After getting to know Kimber Canavan, I never once had the desire to go out again, at least without him by my side. There's something wonderful about a man that makes you feel above all things both loved and fulfilled. I'd never had this feeling before, but when we found the house on Good Luck Road, we'd known that if we truly wanted isolation, this was it.

I remember the way the house smelled when we moved in that spring—like lilacs and cedar shakes, salty-sweet and with hints of dampness. The house had been built by pioneers in the late 1800's, but had been updated while the Brady Bunch was still on television. So, before we moved in, we painted the walls as colorful and bright as we could find the paint. Kimber loved yellow, so we painted our room in two shades of it, one darker than the other. New carpet was installed just days before we bounced and grinded our way up the driveway in our Penske rental truck, leaving that fresh, clean smell of new carpet that would fade in time, but the scent of cedar shakes and lilacs was forever. A month after we'd moved in, our house smelled, to me anyway, like the town of Kittridge.

The house was situated on a hundred acres of rugged, rocky desert with the benefit of the Bear Creek running directly through the property, winding and widening in places that we'd later build foot bridges across. The house wasn't so much buried in the piney mountains, but stretched across a piece of high desert equally as undesirable to others. Our real estate agent, a longtime customer and friend of Kimber's, was in her mid-fifties, prone to words like "picturesque" and "quaint" and not afraid to put her makeup on with a push-broom. Stella Williams had shown us the place on Good Luck Road as a last ditch effort to find us something that we were actually interested in; this after showing us newer homes in neighborhoods that Kimber and I didn't even bother to explore before moving on to the next. When we pulled into the U-shaped driveway, both Kimber and I knew that we were home, much to Stella's chagrin. She reminded us over and over again that we'd have to do more than a little updating and hammered on the cost of such repair. We paid her almost no attention after we walked through the house. When we came back downstairs to find her sitting at the left-behind kitchen table, Kimber simply said, "Sold."

"You've got to be kidding me! You need a helicopter to get in here!" Stella said with a dry smile.

"It's perfect. We'll take it," Kimber said, looking at me for a second to be sure I was in agreement.

"Kimber, I know you want it, but you haven't even gone through the pre-approval process yet. Not that I think it will hold you up, but you have to wait on that to make an offer."

"I'll write you a check," Kimber said.

Stella laughed out loud, a disbelieving laugh that I thought was a little rude. "Kimber, this place is $350,000, and that's not including the repair it needs. You're looking at half a million, out the door."

"I'm offering $285,000, cash. Talk to the seller. Do not tell me one more time it's a mistake, or I'll find someone else to sell it to me."

Stella, finally understanding that Kimber was both serious and tired of her two cents, nodded in affirmation. Maybe it took her until then to realize that Kimber was financially capable of making such a purchase, but from that point on, she was the definition of a supporting agent. Stella even went so far as to send us a pizza on move-in night along with a note that told us how happy she was to have found us a place we thought so perfect. We thought it was indicative of how people felt about us as a couple in general. Everywhere we went, people were always saying that we were moving too fast, that real love takes time, blah, blah, blah... Kimber crumpled Stella's note up into a tiny ball and tossed it into the fireplace as we ate her pizza.

By the time we moved into the house we named "The Berkshire" after the street Kimber grew up on, his talking of death was approaching obsessive. I guess originally I thought it was kind of cute, quirky even, but after a few months of it, I began to feel like his warnings of death were like sand in my bikini bottom. I could tell he was only feeding me the stuff he couldn't keep down, but still, it was a lot. I made Kimber promise me that when we were out together in mixed company he would not talk about it. For the most part, he did as I asked, but there were exceptions. In those days I was like two different people at the same time—one convinced she'd found the right man and the other certain that she would be widowed in a matter of months. I say widowed because I knew Kimber was shopping for wedding rings. Maybe I was a snoop, but yes, I did check his browser history in order to discover that revelation. When I saw the $44,000 ring he'd been looking at repeatedly on the Tiffany and Co. website, it took my breath away. Some days I'd just go up to our study and look at it for hours, tears in my eyes at the idea of a man so wonderful wanting to buy a ring so extravagant. It also made me believe that maybe this whole death thing was just some sort of game Kimber was playing with me, a test or something. I'd like to believe that the ring was the only sort of light I saw at the end of Kimber's dark tunnel of conversation, but looking back on it, I can honestly say that hope is a funny thing. Hope is a byproduct of desperation, evident in my own life by realizing that whenever things got bad, hope got bigger. When things were good, hope was a speck of dust.

Hope is the plan of the unprepared.

Not long after we moved in, I felt like we were on a decline. It wasn't that we weren't still in love; it's just that Kimber seemed to be withdrawing into himself. Maybe it was my outbursts of tears and pleading whenever he tried to address a situation with me that began with "So, after I'm gone..." but whatever it was, it began to show. Not hearing Kimber talking about the most pressing thing on his mind was somehow worse than hearing it, though at the time I was relieved by the reprieve. I reminded myself that I had, in fact, snagged a man that was way out of my league and that man loved me wholly and truly. I reminded myself that most women can't find that in this world, and that I was lucky, not unfortunate. As far as whether or not I believed Kimber, the answer was no. That's not to say that in the back of my head I didn't think it was possible; it just means that I didn't think that Kimber had talked to God, or whatever he said happened. He was always very vague when telling me how he knew. Through some medium, a dream, he'd been told of his unfortunate fate, but as far as I knew in those days, Kimber was guessing at the whens and hows of it all. Later, much later and too late to change things, Kimber would tell me the truth about what he did and didn't know, but at the time of the new house, I was still in the dark. I chose to see it as a "tic" about him, which compared to my friends' boyfriends who were porn addicts or compulsive gamblers or cheaters, was better.

For Gina and Ruth, my other girlfriend from work, pornography and the occasional game of high stakes poker were their mens' tics, so I reminded myself often, "it could be worse." I'd think of Kimber while he was at Kanavan and I was cleaning up dishes from getting JimmytheKid off to school and realize that at least my Kimber was creative and unique. There wasn't a dull moment with him, and in retrospect that might be the biggest change in my life since his death. Kimber was a magnet, the kind of man that drew people to him without trying. People loved him. We used to joke that The Berkshire could be a TV sitcom because no matter how rutted and muddy our driveway got, people still made their way up the road, every day to visit. The Berkshire seemed to be the center of Kittridge, a mascot representing the best we had to offer the world in our little town.

Kimber spent those months preparing things so that when he was gone, I could go on easily. Literally, by the time he died he'd planned everything out. The cremation, the service, the life insurance, the inheritance... everything was done. Sure, some of that was done in secret, some of it I was tricked into agreeing with, but nevertheless, he'd planned for everything.

In the spring of that year I started to notice that his goodbyes were getting a little more longwinded, even emotional at times, and the effect of that on people was profound. People started, for the first time since I'd met him, to stay away from Kimber. At first I recognized this because there were less impromptu visitors to our house, but later it became more apparent in their demeanor when they'd seek us out. When I asked Kimber if he thought his "death talk" was scaring people away, he'd smile and say, "Maybe. Everyone thinks they're gonna live forever. Hearing me talk about it reminds them that they're just dust and ash, a vessel of God Almighty's, and that when God's ready for them, He'll pull them off this planet in the blink of an eye." This was hardly the sentimental and apologetic response I'd been hoping for. There was no point in pushing the issue. If Kimber was willing to let his friends drift away, there wasn't much I could do to stop him.

I was never good at arguing with Kimber; no one was. He was uncannily smart and quick witted, not to mention the most well-read individual I've ever known. He had catch phrases, Shakespeare and Bible verses memorized to the point where it was sometimes easier for him to quote a chapter of the Bible than to think of an equally poignant rebuttal of his own. He didn't look like a formidable debate foe, but for anyone that ever dared argue with Kimber, the mistake was only made once.

The one thing about Kimber that kept him from being pigeonholed into "peaceful philosopher" was his quickness to throw punches. He never shied away from a fight and when he fought, he was brutal and merciless. There were three instances when I saw Kimber fight and in none of them did he come back to me with more than a lump on his head or a black eye. He was a vicious fighter, direct and unflinching when the opposition was coming at him. He never trained to fight; he'd just grown up in a way where it had been commonplace to settle issues that couldn't be settled with diplomacy with his fists. As long as I knew him, which wasn't all that long, granted, I don't believe I ever knew him to fear anything. He was a man's man, but he liked sewing and singing, writing and painting. He often joked that he'd have made a fine homosexual, but knowing him meant understanding that he was as far from gay as a man could be. That's not to say that he had anything against homosexuals. In fact, I believe he loved them. He loved gay men in particular because he shared so many of their hobbies. Yet it remained, if anyone made the mistake of calling Kimber a "fag" (one of his least favorite words), they'd leave his presence on an ambulance stretcher, or soaked in their own blood.

Enigmatic and creative men have a way of drawing women to them. With the exception of the few people that really mattered to Kimber at Kanavan's, most of the town disliked the two of us as an item. It was like no one wanted to accept me as a permanent fixture in Kimber's life. Sometimes I felt like people honestly thought I hadn't earned my place in his life, as if by entering accidentally and falling madly into love with each other, I bypassed an initiation process I was never aware of. When we were out with other people who'd known him longer than I had, I felt like I was just Robin to his Batman. Honestly, that realization hurt me more after he was gone than while I was with him because number one or number two didn't matter when you were standing in the light of Kimber Canavan. People were at their best when he was around. Folks were bright and vibrant and giving when Kimber was in their presence. On the flip side, they also seemed to try and compete with Kimber as well, one-upping him and trying to stay a step ahead of him. For me, watching this happen was uncomfortable, but to Kimber, it was just the way it had always been. People really just wanted him to like them, to validate them, something that I know now only Joe Frank ever did for Kimber. Kimber validated a population of people who were by nature lonely and longing. He gave them hope; he made them believe in the kindness of people all over again.

I was driving on C-470 the other day with a friend of mine. We were coming home from the Park Meadows Mall, stuck in traffic right there at the junction of I-25 and C-470. I had almost forgotten about the time I was stuck right here with Kimber, about a month after meeting him. In that instance, Kimber and I had gone to the mall for a black, fitted baseball cap and our monthly trip to California Pizza Kitchen. We were on our way home at about the same time as the rest of Denver, just before six o'clock, and stuck in standstill traffic. Kimber was wearing his new hat, smoking a blunt, while I sat behind the wheel adjusting the radio to see what horrific accident was ahead of us and causing such a ridiculous delay. Traffic was so gridlocked that day that people were turning off their cars and sitting on their hoods, smoking cigarettes and talking on their cell phones.

It was one of those perfectly cool and clear fall afternoons in Colorado, the sort of day that made Long's Peak look like it was only a stone's throw away. Kimber and I were out in it, enjoying each other's company and talking about our lives together, when out of nowhere I heard the whine of a performance car engine from behind me somewhere. As I searched my rearview mirror, I couldn't find the source of the noise, that is until I saw it passing me on the left shoulder. I was in the fast lane with my motor turned off, along with most of the cars in my proximity, when the yellow Ferrari made its entrance. The driver wasn't driving fast, probably afraid that someone was going to open their driver's side door and scratch the expensive automobile. As it came around me, I looked into the window, feeling that anger that comes from being in traffic like that. The thirty or forty-something driver was looking at me as if I was the idiot responsible for the traffic jam. I never even thought to say anything to Kimber about it, but just as the car got around my front bumper, he swerved quickly into the place in front of me. There wasn't enough room between me and the big box truck in front of my Tahoe for the Ferrari to get all the way in, so he angled in, leaving his ass end sticking out into the left shoulder. Suddenly, there were sirens behind us, and, sure enough, a fire truck was trying to use the shoulder as a lane to get around the traffic.

I was considering trying to back up a little and give the Ferrari room to get all the way in, but the car behind me might just as well have jumped into my back seat he was so close. The driver of the Ferrari, suddenly a little stressed out about being the guy that blocked the path of the fire truck, began to panic. First, he tried to back out where I assumed he would then drive forward until he found a gap wide enough to get into the fast lane, but the fire truck was close, too close for the Ferrari to back up any farther. So, without anything else that he could do, he began to rev his engine in deafening bursts that had to have been 12,000 RPMs. The sound was ear splitting, and to make it worse, as he revved his engine, he watched me in his rearview mirror. It was at this point that Kimber finally caught onto what was happening here. I watched Kimber studying the situation, unsure of what he was thinking until he set his blunt on the dashboard and opened his car door. The fire truck began to sound that awful buzzing horn they use to push stubborn cars off the road, indicating that they were in a hurry and not too happy about what Mr. Ferrari had decided to do—nothing.

Kimber got out of the car and asked the car behind us to please move back a few feet. When the old Hyundai rolled back a few feet, Kimber waved me back, his hand indicating that I had a few feet more to go. Finally, I was as close to the Hyundai as I could get, and Kimber began to walk toward the Ferrari to tell the guy he should have the room he needed now to get in. Before he could get to the expensive sports car, the engine again whined that ear-splitting, whirring buzz as the engine redlined. Kimber stopped in place, afraid that the guy might just be frustrated enough to smash him between the car and my Tahoe. Kimber leaned against the hood of my car, about even with the passenger front wheel well. When the Ferrari finally got in line, the fire truck accelerated and passed us by, each of the four men in the truck looking down at the driver of the Ferrari with disgust. They waved to Kimber, a wave of gratitude. Kimber waved back calmly while the fire truck passed, and then there was silence.

Rather than just getting in line and waiting, the Ferrari began to maneuver himself into the middle lane. He didn't signal that he was moving to the right, he just revved up his fancy engine and let it do the speaking for him. Kimber, looking back and forth between me, the Ferrari, and the pissed off drivers watching this guy, started to walk forward, toward the yellow car. The Ferrari driver moved the front half of his car into the middle lane, but then could go no farther. The driver apparently saw the ten foot gap between the Ford Focus in front of him and the truck in front of the Focus. The driver of the Ferrari decided that the guy in the Focus could be more accommodating by moving forward, so this time he laid on his horn in ten to fifteen second bursts.

This was the straw that broke the camel's back. Kimber moved fast, walking around the car on the driver's side until he was beside the driver's door. He leaned down and knocked on the darkly tinted window. I couldn't see the driver roll down his window to speak to Kimber, but I saw Kimber speaking and then he listened, signaling to me that the driver had at least complied that far. The next thing I know, Kimber is smiling and walking back to my car as people applauded him from the jammed up cars all around us. Kimber climbed back into my Tahoe, picked up his blunt and lit it, all without saying a word. Finally I asked, unable to refrain. "What did you say to him?"

"I told him that he was obviously the coolest, most important guy in town and what a pleasure it was to direct traffic for him."

"What'd he think of that?"

"I don't know. I just walked away."

"Well at least you didn't get into a..."

Just then I saw the man from the Ferrari getting out of his car and looking at us seated in my Tahoe. The man was maybe 5'9," a hundred and eighty pounds, and wearing an expensive suit. He looked at us then bent to look into his darkly tinted window, pushing his hair back into perfect order before he began to stroll toward us. For a busy night on the highway, I swear you could have heard a pin drop. People from all around us watched as the man came toward our car, pointing directly at Kimber as he closed the distance.

"Be right back. Some people are slow learners," Kimber said, handing me his relit blunt. "Hold this? This will just take a second." He smiled, leaned over and kissed me once on the cheek. With that, Kimber was out of the car and moving quickly to cut the man off before he got all the way to our car.

"What's up?" Kimber asked, stepping close to the man.

"You touched my car. I need your insurance information."

"Oh... really? Well, that's a problem. I'm not in my car, so I don't have my insurance information with me," Kimber said with a smug smile.

"No, I want hers," the man said, pointing at me.

Kimber shook his head. "Nah. I don't think so. Tell you what. Why don't you get back in your car and let this go? I knocked on your window, no damage done."

"You don't know that. I have this car professionally detailed. Your fingerprints alone will cost me a hundred bucks. I don't know what to tell you, buddy. You shouldn't touch what doesn't belong to you."

Kimber's face got gravely savage. "I'm getting back in my car. Have a nice night." Kimber turned to walk back to the Tahoe when the man made the mistake of grabbing Kimber's left arm and jerking it back in the opposite direction.

"You want to buy me a new car, asshole?" the man asked as he jerked Kimber's arm.

Kimber smirked, allowing the man to tug him back far enough from my Tahoe that Kimber could swing on him unobstructed, and swing he did. The first blow, an elbow, shattered the man's nose like a crystal vase landing on a rocky outcropping. Blood gushed down the man's face, turning his goatee red in a matter of three seconds. The second punch, an unnecessary blow, was a gut shot, leaving the man in a forward hunching fetal position, but that was just a set up for the kick to the head that I thought might have killed him. The man recoiled backward like a ragdoll, blood literally splattering against the yellow fin on the back of his Ferrari. "You shouldn't have touched me," Kimber spat.

People honked their horns and cheered out their windows as Kimber wiped the blood off his boots with the man's jacket. When Kimber turned to come back to the car, he smirked at me unafraid. He was always so fearless. Kimber Canavan had a hundred witnesses that had seen the man touch him first, enough money to cover any potential damages to the man's face and/or car, and enough dignity to pay the bleeding man no mind whatsoever.

When traffic began to flow just a few minutes later, I had to change lanes and drive around the man lying behind his Ferrari. As the cars accelerated up beside me, people leaned out their windows in order to scream their gratitude to Kimber.

"Atta boy!"

"Way to teach that son'bitch!"

"He grabbed you first, bro!"

Kimber, seemingly deaf, just pulled on his blunt, stoned beyond his normally stoned state of mind and asked me, "You find out what the holdup's all about?"

"Just Denver traffic, I guess," I said, my heart thumping in my chest. Kimber never once said a single word to me about the incident.
CHAPTER 10

On the night of Kimber and theKid's service, I got drunk. In retrospect, that might have given people the wrong impression, but I wasn't exactly expecting anyone to show up at my door, so when I heard the knock, you can imagine how alarmed I was. We didn't get visitors at The Berkshire anymore. No one in the history of the world had ever accidentally driven up our long, rutted driveway on Good Luck Road, mistaking our place for the Jones's. With that said, I wasn't expecting anyone when the firm, almost impatient knocking scared me.

I knew who it was, or... I should say, I thought I knew who it was.

When I shuffled, in my wobbly way, down the stairs to answer the door, I carried Kimber's .45 in my right hand. In the mountains, guns and unexpected knocking at the door go hand in hand. When I slid the curtain away from the small window in the front door, I saw Joe Frank standing there, looking down at his shoes with his hands in his pockets. I gasped, suddenly sober and... scared. Few people scared me in the way that Joe Frank did. It wasn't that Joe was an ass-kicker or handsy with women, it was that Joe was the only person that knew I was lying about how Kimber died that day. He'd figured it out from the story I'd told, knowing intuitively that Kimber and theKid had died differently than how I'd said. It was my fault that he'd figured me out. I hadn't taken Joe's knowledge of Kimber and theKid into account before I created my flawed tale of woe.

To his credit, Joe had been patient with me. The whole ride back from Vedauwoo, he'd not asked me to tell him the story, allowing me the courtesy of time, allowing me the space and healing I'd need before discussing it. He'd been a gentleman with me, and I appreciated that, even though I'd known that before long, he'd hate me for that same silence. My problem was and is the same. I couldn't tell the story; I just couldn't. It hurt me on too many levels to talk about what had really happened up there, but at that point I guess I thought that I would come out with it eventually. Joe got to my house before I got to the point where I could openly talk about the truth, but still, it was the night of the service, a service I hadn't attended for more than a few minutes.

The second I saw him standing there, I knew why he'd come. I knew before he'd arrived that he would in time. Joe was a lot of things, patient and courteous among them, but neglectful of his best friend in the world wasn't one of those things.

I opened the door slowly and cautiously, allowing Joe to see the gun in my right hand. He did. His eyes started at the gun before they worked their way back up to my eyes. I could feel the redness of my own eyes as Joe looked into them. I'd just smoked a bowl of Kimber's stash, a supply large enough to last me the better part of a year. Crying and smoking pot does short-term damage to the whites of one's eyes. The only thing that will erase that sort of red puffiness is a long night's sleep, something I hadn't enjoyed in the better part of a week.

He stared at me for what felt like a long time, and honestly, I'm not sure if it was his own fear interfering with his mission or the gun in my hand. Regardless, I was glad that I was carrying it. Finally, he spoke, "Can I come in, Lai?"

I didn't speak. I just stepped to the side allowing him into the house where he immediately said hello to Kasey. She had been in the kitchen and came out to see who was at the door. Joe had known Kasey Canavan for years, though, like me, not very well. He and Kasey said hello, and then her worthless boyfriend (who was more concerned with wondering if Kimber had left Kasey his millions) stumbled in awkwardly. He looked at us, nodded an uncomfortable nod to Joe, and retreated back to the kitchen.

I could almost feel the suspicion emanating from Joe, like body odor. He looked at Kasey, recognizing that she was drunk and then to me. He nodded in that "Oh I see what's going on here" sort of way. At the end of his nod was a disbelieving shake of his head. Drunk on the night of your husband's memorial service?

Joe and I had learned over the last eleven months to share Kimber the way a divorced couple shares their kids. When Joe was around, I was not. When I was around, he was not. This is just the way it went for us. Not because I disliked him, I didn't, but because it was easier for everyone to have Kimber to themselves than it was to actively share him. Joe came into the living room and looked around, doing his best to pretend it was just him and me in the house. John, Kasey's boyfriend, came back from his kitchen duties to offer Joe a drink. This was when Joe said what he was really thinking about me, not to me, but to John. "No, I don't want a drink. I buried my best friend and his son today." He must have regretted his tone, because he immediately backpedaled with "Sorry. Thanks though."

Joe began to walk around the living room as if he'd never seen the place before. I followed him while he looked at our family pictures hanging from every wall. Joe seemed lost in the photographs, not a display of something false, but genuine sadness and interest in the remaining pictures of his dead friend. I saw him discreetly wiping tears away from his eyes while his back was to me, standing before a picture of Kimber, me, Emily, and himself at a show Kimber put on in Bailey two weeks before he died. "I wish I had known... No. I wish I had believed..." he managed.

"You did," I offered weakly.

He looked at me. "No, I didn't. I believed that Kimber was special, that he'd become my friend because of some cosmic plan. I thought that his talking about death made him unique, but I didn't believe him."

"I didn't either, Joe."

"You should have!" he said, his tone hardening. "You loved him and he loved you. How could you get that close to Kimber and not believe?"

"I chose not to believe," I said, the burn of tears stinging my eyes.

"Do you think he was worried that he was running out of time? When he crossed into the tenth month of his year-long predicted lifespan, do you think he got worried that he might live?" Joe asked as if he were speaking to someone else, someone he believed might be able to bring him some sort of peace.

I had prepared for any number of conversations with Joe, but not this. I hadn't expected him to come over as if I were the only other person in the world that understood what had been lost on those rocks at Vedauwoo. I'd expected an attack, or if not an attack at least some hard questions about the details. Now, I began to feel bad. I felt like a bitch for keeping the truth from Joe, but again, I wasn't ready to talk about it. I guess I kept thinking that eventually I would be. Every morning I woke up thinking I wonder if today is the day that I can talk about it only to discover that I couldn't.

This was all a little too close to home for me, so I shut him down right then and there. "He damn well knew, Joe. He knew! He wasn't worried about running out of time. To Kimber there was no such thing as time. You ought to know that. I shouldn't have to remind you of who he was."

Joe paced around some more, looking at pictures and paintings on our walls while Kasey and John made more margaritas. "Did you get the house in his will?"

"Yes. He left it to me," I admitted. Here we were, the place we'd all been dancing around for so long. This is what it always came down to—the doubt. Kimber's planning for his death, and the way it all played out, left people suspicious if not downright untrusting. Kimber's good intentions left me looking like any woman scorned, at least to the men in town. I hadn't expected this from Joe, so I said, "If he were standing here and heard you ask me a question like that, he would beat you like a dog." And I meant every damn word.

His face contorted, his eyes darted away from mine as his gut told him I was right. I saw it happening to him and I took something wonderful from it. How dare he? He came to my house on the night of my husband's and step-son's memorial service, a service I felt unwelcomed at, and asks me if I inherited the house that my husband and I purchased together? I smiled at him.

This was his opener. He had planned on asking me about the money, the millions. Now, I didn't think he would—only because I'd called him out on it. "You got the balls to ask me about the money, Joe? Come on, that's why you're here, right?"

"It certainly worked out well for you," he said with a defiant smile. He was calling my bluff.

I let that go because the only other option was a fist to the bridge of his nose and a kick to his face.

"What about Kanavan Coffee?" he asked.

"He left it to me..." I paused for effect. "...I'm not gonna run it. It's closed. No one can replace him in that window."

Joe nodded, finally turning to face me. He was done looking at pictures and paintings, ready to get right to it. "I need it, Lai," he said softly.

"The coffee shop?" I asked dumbly.

"The truth," he articulated clearly. "I don't care what happened, Lai. I don't. I just have to know the truth, please," he begged me. His eyes spilled tears that went swiftly down his face in the path of the ones before. He wiped them away, spread his arms wide, palms toward me, and said, "How will I ever get over him if I don't know what happened? I need to know, please. I'm begging you, Lai... Please."

He looked as pathetic as I'd ever seen a man look. He was broken by the secrets, driven wild by the conspiracies whispered into his ears. He sobbed, his face unprotected or masked in any way, his arms outstretched and aching for me to give him what he so deserved—the truth. Funny, that word isn't what you think it is; well, not according to the Gospel of Kimber Canavan. In his Death Diaries he clearly makes the case that lies told are the burden. He says that asking forgiveness for them, not divine forgiveness but human forgiveness, was to relieve oneself of the guilt. Kimber said to ask God for forgiveness and then carry the worldly weight of it forever; a burden on your back is the surest reminder of your sins.

I saw him, stepping closer to me like a zombie, wet in the face and dazed with need. He wanted to be set free of the nightmares. That's what he started saying next, that the nightmares were killing him. Was it possible that his nightmares rivaled mine? He didn't see the faceless man that died there, right before my eyes. Joe didn't hear the sounds made in the events of that day. I was there. I heard the impact. I can still hear it. The breaking bones override the splattering wetness, and in a theater like Vedauwoo, the echo is always there to remind you in the event you missed it the first time.

No, Joe Frank didn't have nightmares, not like mine anyway. He didn't see the dead eyes of the ones he loved; he didn't see the sticky blood coagulating indiscriminately on cold rocks instead of inside of warm veins. Whatever Joe Frank dreamt about, my dreams would give his dreams nightmares. He comes to my house pretending to be the one who's most hurt. Joe, coming from Kimber's service, where I was surely discussed more often than not as a murderer... He stands there and cries, begging me for what I've already told him a million times I cannot give him and pretends to want the truth. It's always the people without the truth who want it.

"He's dead, Joe. That's all that matters now. He's dead." Hearing myself say it, I realized this might be the first time I'd said those words since he died. I'd been using more comforting terms for Kimber's death, "passing" and "gone" mostly.

"That's not what I asked you," Joe said, stiffening. "I know he's dead!"

Baiting him, I asked, "You know he's dead but you don't like how he died? Is that it, Joe? Sorry, pal... I don't either..."

Joe got mad, fast. "I'm not your pal, and I don't know how he died! You know, Lai. It doesn't make sense to me. You know how many times I went to Vedauwoo with JimmytheKid and Kimber? You know how many times? Guess."

"I know you went a lot."

"Right. And every time I went, I saw the same thing. I saw Kimber holding theKid like he was a priceless diamond. I never once saw Kimber let go of theKid's hand, never once. They climbed the same way every time. Their routes were always different, but their method of climbing was always the same. He wouldn't do a route that he didn't know for a fact that he could get theKid up safely. Don't even tell me that theKid got knocked loose and Kimber reached out for him, sending them both down. That's a lie and we both know it. Kimber wouldn't have to reach out and grab theKid because he never took his hands off of him, ever!"

I guess I'd known that Joe was a smart guy. Honestly, though Kimber never said it, I think he only accepted intelligent people into his inner ring. Sure, Kimber was a nice guy to anyone that came across him, but he despised people who moved through the world looking back on their lives as a bunch of accidents and follies. In order to really be a friend of Kimber's, people had to stand out to him in some way. Joe Frank, unlike Kimber, had been to college and graduate school. He'd played semi-pro golf after he graduated, which I think was what impressed Kimber the most about Joe. It wasn't just that he'd played golf on that horrible semi-pro circuit, it was that he'd lived his life the way he'd wanted to for a while after college, much to the dismay of Joe's upper middle-class family.

Joe is and was a cool guy. I could certainly recognize the draw that he was to Kimber, one of the few people that Kimber ever really respected in that special kind of way. Their bond was tight, though the two men rarely ever saw each other. It made no difference if they hung out last night or last year; their closeness was untouchable by other friends that came and went in the spaces between the two of them getting together. I think that it was this fact that distanced me from Joe right off the bat. I didn't know anyone else in Kimber's life that I felt like I was competing with, and truly, I was never in competition with Joe though it often felt like it. This feeling of competition between Joe and me was hard for us to get beyond. In Joe's mind, Kimber was his but he was willing to share him with me. Obviously, as Kimber and I progressed from dating to purchasing The Berkshire together, I began to feel as if ownership of Kimber was mine. This further divided Joe and me to the point that repairing the damage was almost impossible. Neither Joe nor I ever told Kimber of our feelings about the other. Kimber had to have known that Joe and I didn't really see eye to eye on anything, but he pretended, for convenience sake probably, that everything was okay between his girlfriend and friend, the way most men do.

Just a few days before Kimber and theKid made their way to eternity, Kimber and I had a terrible fight, a fight I knew Joe was aware of. That was also playing a factor in his arrival at my house on this particular night, head down and hands in his pocket like he was Tiny Tim, all bashful and sad. Yeah right. The fact that he knew about the fight is what started these rumors in the first place. He hadn't figured out the story based on his experience with Kimber and theKid on the rocks at Vedauwoo. He'd started with the fight and moved to the story from there. The fight had sparked his doubts and suspicions, so he began to investigate the rest of the details, finding a few holes in my account of the events.

Anyway, I decided that he was here as part of his performance. He was still straddling the fence, afraid to come out and tell me straight-up that he thought I was lying. If he did that, there would be two factions of Kimber Canavan—those that used to know him and those married to the man. When the truth came out (and I believe Joe was wise enough to know that one day it would), Joe Frank didn't want to be on the wrong side of the accusations. If he pointed his finger at me publicly and said I was guilty, I'd ruin him eventually with the truth. So that's not what Joe did. Instead, he just asked questions of people. He planted suspicion in their heads and let them grow on their own. He hadn't made an accusation. He was very, very careful not to. Instead, he said things like, "I know they had a horrible fight the Wednesday before he died. I also know that four days later she inherited everything that was Kimber's." That was just the sort of fodder the local idiots needed to light their torches, gather the pitchforks, and start heading up Good Luck Road where they'd get their justice for Kimber.

I looked at him again. "Well, you seem to have it all figured out, Joe. What do you need to ask me for? You obviously realize that I murdered Kimber for his money. Why don't you call the cops and have them arrest me? Oh yeah, that's right. I've already been cleared by the police that were actually there, at the scene. I suppose you and the village idiots are in this together. I wonder why.... Maybe, well... is it possible that you just want a little piece of the pie? Is that it, Joe? Is this about money?"

"All I want is the truth, Lai."

"Why, Joe? Do you think it will set you free?"

He looked pleadingly at me. "Please. Hasn't it been long enough?"

"You say that you have nightmares. Not only that, you say it as if I owe you something for your nightmares. I wonder, Joe, in your nightmares, who's the bad guy? Me? When you wake up all sweaty and scared, who are you afraid of? I certainly hope it's not me because, you see, in my dreams, I see the dead faces of those two. In my nightmares, I relive the events of that day over and over again. You say you want the truth because you don't have it. I wish you did. I loathe you just enough to wish that it had been you there that day with them. I wish for my own ability to ever get over this, that for one day you could remember the events like I do, to see them happening and know that you're too powerless to stop any of it. Oh, you don't want the truth, Joe. You want to play Matlock for the idiots in town who have to go to Starbucks for their coffee now. You want to know what happened so you can carry your little pail of truths back to the villagers and say 'Look at me! I found them!' You're just the same as the rest of them. You have no idea what the truth is, and I protect you from it because I loved Kimber. I loved him more than you ever will, and I swear if he were here right now, I'd smile as he mopped the floor with your ass."

Joe's face hardened. "You don't even deserve this. You're just a set extra who shouldn't have even had any lines, and here you are, the princess of Kimber's legacy. You hold all the keys now, don't you? You're rich, you're a business owner, and your last name is among the most sacred in this part of the world. Good work. It reminds me of a movie with Richard Gere and Julia Roberts... I can't recall the name but I'm sure it will come to you."

"Yeah? Well, if that's true, you're Jason Alexander. You're just the little man on the outskirts of Kimber's brilliance, picking up the scraps... like a Pilot fish. Don't come to my house and lay your Hollywood theatrics at my feet. You might have glowed in Kimber's presence, but without him you're nothing..."

Kasey popped her head into the living room and looked at the two of us for a minute before withdrawing it back around the corner like a turtle into its shell. As annoying as it was to have her butt her head in, it was a well-needed break in the momentum.

"Okay, Lai. You win. You say, quite easily I might add, that you loved Kimber. I don't doubt that, but I don't think you loved him the way he loved you. Kimber was... he was..." The tears came back with reckless abandon. "He was the most beautiful man I've ever known. I loved him, Lai. I did. You think you did, but I always did! I loved him enough that if I were the one there that day, I would tell people what happened to him so they could continue to love him. You want to hold his death in your hand so people will come around and ask you about it for the rest of your—"

"You son of a bitch!" I screamed with every ounce of volume I could muster. My voice cracked, splitting into two different tones that echoed off the walls inside The Berkshire. "You're so obsessed with attention that you think everyone wants it. What's the matter, Joe? Not feeling like you're important anymore? Huh, is that it? Now that Kimber's gone and the service is over, are you afraid that you're going to slip right back into obscurity? Hmm? Is that it? Why don't you? Better yet, why don't you move to Morrison or Kittridge and set up shop here? You could probably ride Kimber's coattails for a little while longer. Hell, you could run for mayor. Joe Canavan, how's that sound? You always wanted to be him, here's your chance."

"You know―" He started but I cut him off.

"I understand your strategy, Joe. I do. You're being very careful because inside of you, you're not sure that I'm responsible. If you say too much, you might have to eat those words. So be careful now. We're in the bottom of the fourth inning; the game isn't over yet. What you think you want, what you think would help people, might not. You're asking me to kill the memory of Kimber Canavan, to paint him something he wasn't. The actions, the events of that day don't match up with your perfect image of Kimber. In time you'll come to understand. I'm warning you now; don't say more than you can swallow later. The time will come."

Joe Frank went to say something more but stopped, slipped his hands into his pockets, and turned for the door. He'd leave my house as empty and answerless as he'd arrived.

Only after he left did I realize I was still holding the gun. I needed another drink.
CHAPTER 11

September 2009

Arriving at Kimber's rental house, the first thing I noticed was a picture hanging from the wall, encased in an ornate, expensive-looking picture frame. This wasn't just any old picture on the wall; this was the focal point of Kimber's tiny living room where a television was noticeably absent. In the picture, there was a young, blonde-haired woman smiling, her arm wrapped around a fair-haired boy of maybe two years old. The way the woman was holding the boy, sort of cradling him, made sure that everyone who saw it knew she was his mother. I remember thinking that maybe the kid in the picture was Kimber's nephew, but the woman didn't look anything like Kimber. I wondered if maybe the boy in the picture was Kimber when he was young, but judging by the clothing and styling of the people pictured, the picture wasn't old enough. I could feel Kimber's eyes on me as I studied the picture for a minute, yet he said nothing. "Who's that?" I asked, finally realizing he wasn't going to volunteer the information. In the back of my mind I was saying please don't tell me it's your wife, please, please, please.

"Jamie and Jimmy," he said vaguely.

I waited for him to expand a little on that, but he didn't. "And they are..." I ventured.

"My son and my ex," he answered flatly.

My heart began to beat faster and faster as I tried to take that in. "Wait, your son? You have a son?"

Kimber looked around nervously. When he spoke again, he did so quietly. "Shhh," he said smiling. "If he wakes up, I'll never get him back to sleep."

"What? He's here? He's sleeping?" All of a sudden, the images I had in my mind about me and Kimber mopping the floor with our bare asses went out the window, replaced by me in Mom jeans and pigtails at Wal-Mart buying toys and Pop-Tarts. A kid? I knew there had to be a down side to this guy... There always is. Why hadn't he told me? We had all day, hours and hours of nothing but conversation, and yet not a single word about a son.

I was immediately angry with him for not telling me, but then I realized I was jealous of the kid in the picture and I hadn't even met him yet. Here it was—the divide. It had to be somewhere. I'd dated enough to know that there is no one perfect out there. Isn't it always that the more perfect someone appears initially, the more disappointing they are in the long run? Hadn't I dated enough to know this by now? How had I missed the most obvious pitfall of all? I guessed that maybe this was what dating was all about. I meet someone and assume they're better than me, even sometimes saying the word "perfect" when talking about him to my friends, only to find out that he lives with his mother, collects G.I. Joes, and speaks Klingon.

Dating is nothing more than the process of slowly revealing all of our flaws. Sure, we do it under kind lighting or set to slow music, but in essence, dating is just a slow and painful way of revealing our demons to others. Thank God for sexual tension and excitement, the fuel that makes the whole process feel almost... fun. If it weren't for sex, dating would be the catalyst for suicide.

I was jealous.

I wanted this man to myself. I certainly didn't want to share this man's attention with a kid, a son for that matter. Can I catch a break? I looked at Kimber, trying to signal my shock without it looking like shock. From what I knew of Kimber, I could guess that this was going to be a sensitive matter. I could guess that like a momma bear with her cubs, Kimber's leeway for my distaste was going to be minimal, at best. I could feel the ice thinning beneath my feet, maybe even hear the cracking. I had to get control of my facial expression before he saw it. I had to get myself under control, but now my heart was pounding in my chest and my face was flushing. I tried on a smile and it fit like hell. It was fake; not even a good fake, but plastic feeling and thin. I searched the wall for another photograph to comment on, to shift our attention to. Kimber just watched me with amused satisfaction. He was on to me.

There are marked differences between the way a single mom and a single father date. Single mothers, as wrong as it is, are often looked down on. It's easy to see a single mom with her hands full of bastard children at Wal-Mart and think trailer trash. However, if you see the same children in their father's arms at Wal-Mart, it's somehow endearing. The double standard is so obviously wrong that I'm amazed that no one has ever addressed it.

In a speed dating environment, being female and having children is almost as bad as putting herpes down as a medical condition. "Do you have any children?" is always one of the first two questions asked by suitors who do their best to look indifferent as they pose the question. I know because every time I was asked that question and could honestly reply with "No" I felt immediately relieved. Men think of women with children as damaged goods, as cars with more than 100,000 miles on them. On the other hand, if a man has a child, a job, and a car, he's considered a great catch. Why? Because men who have kids are done playing games. They understand the consequences of putting their wieners into women better than childless men. Guys with kids are charming, loving, and thought to be more stable. It's rarely true, but the appearance remains. Women are looking for stability more than any other factor. No one wants a guy who's had more than three jobs in as many years. No one wants a man who just moved to town and might move out of town in a month. We want stability, dependability, and reliability. It's more important than big biceps that will soon turn into flab for the next fifty years. Sure, at twenty-five years old, in shape and with all of his hair, it's hard to realize that this man will look like his grandfather in the blink of an eye, but he will. Guys have the unfair advantage of a socially accepted double standard.

Two thirds of all the women I saw frequently at dating events were both single mothers and trollops. Like Gina, they felt obligated to throw their vaginas at anyone who asked for it, using the statistical, en masse method of finding a man. As long as their birth control is in place, they figure the best way to find someone who will stick around is to give all of them what they want and hope that one of them finds it pleasurable enough to stay. Whereas good-looking, professional, childless women can make men jump through hoops, single mothers cannot.

I was thirty-four years old the summer I met JimmytheKid, certainly old enough to have kids of my own and in some people's opinion, too old not to. There seems to be few things more insulting to women with kids than an attractive, professional, career-oriented woman in her mid-thirties without any. Sometimes if I'm out at a bar or a restaurant sitting at a table with a glass of wine and a good Nelson Demille book in my hand (I love reading in restaurants for some reason), I'll notice that the women seated around me are looking at me with... what? Jealousy? Distaste? Anger? These women, stressed out and drowning in screeching children, usually sitting beside chubby, badly-tattooed husbands, almost never say anything to me directly. Instead, they give me 'the look.' It's subtle, but we women work with the subtleties. We can feel the eyes of another woman and know exactly what she means by her look. We don't even have to see her, we can feel her. They look at me with eyes that remind me that we are all boats at sea. Her, a rowboat paddling with all she has against a current that will eventually overtake her, and me, a slender kayak skimming effortlessly through life with easy, wide strokes of my hair.

Certainly we both started out in the same place, but while I was in graduate school getting my doctorate, she was at dance clubs in her skintight miniskirt, too wasted to recognize that the guy she was dancing with reeks of patchouli and was covered in homemade tribal tattoos. They hate me for my ability to move freely in the world without having to strap car seats into place, fill bottles with powdered formula, and carry puffy, pink bags around my neck full of all the things kids need, whatever that might be. They hate that I don't drive a minivan, that I couldn't pick Barney or the Teletubbies out in a police lineup. They hate me for what I represent—freedom and success, independence and prosperity. They cannot recall what eight hours of uninterrupted sleep feels like, whereas I cannot function with anything less. They want desperately to trade places with me, but since they can't, they find it easier to hate me for it.

Maybe that's why I like reading in restaurants so much. Funny, I never really considered it before. Maybe I sit there because secretly I'm bored, desperate for love, and tired of feeling locked away in my perfectly silent apartment. Maybe I sit there so that in my desperation and loneliness, I can make people who have what I want feel bad. Not that when I see them I want what they have. So what do I want? I wanted Kimber Canavan; at least I thought I did. But that was before Kimber revealed to me that he had a kid.

My maternal instincts never really turned into the force of nature my mother warned me about. She was adamant that if I didn't have kids by the time I was 30, I'd regret it for the rest of my life. By the time she died, I was almost 30 and still without kids. I felt bad about that for a long time. All she wanted was a grandchild, something to believe in as she lay dying. I couldn't even give her that. It was bad enough that as she actually passed from this world to the next, I wasn't there, but to not give her what she wanted most seemed... I don't know, disrespectful. I'm not a baby hater. I'm not anti-children; it's just that in this lifetime I supposed I wasn't meant to have children. I was sentenced to a love affair with books and authors, to old movies and brutish men. I was made to work and achieve things that always came easily to me. It's not my fault that it all worked out the way it did. I started out as open minded and as ready to take the next step as everyone else—just thirty-four years later, I hadn't. The end result was that I'd enjoy silence as a thirty-something and long to escape it when I was sixty something, living alone in a dirty retirement community, attending bridge club meet-ups and pot-luck dinners at the "Community Club House." In the meantime, we live with the decisions we make.

Even as little as I knew Kimber at that point, I knew not to press the issue too much. On the other hand, I'm not a lap dog. Was I disappointed that he had a kid? Damn right I was. Was I willing to walk away from this man because of it? No. I wasn't. Not just then. I just wasn't the kind of woman that met men like Kimber, and from what I'd seen so far of him, he was worth investigating further. I felt, however, like this was a compromise I was making on his behalf. It seemed to me then that Kimber would have to owe me something for my being so accepting of his "situation," especially since he took his sweet time revealing his secret to me.

Kimber was speaking again, softly this time, the way trained parents speak. "Yeah, he's asleep. I have a live-in nanny who takes care of him while I'm out."

"What? A live-in nanny? You a secret millionaire?" I asked.

He didn't answer right away, something I recognized as odd at the time, but didn't have the presence of mind to think that maybe I'd stumbled into something significant or true. If you could have seen Kimber Canavan with his old corduroys and worn-in T-shirts, you wouldn't have believed that there was any possibility that this man was worth the kind of money Kimber was worth either.

When he did finally answer, he said, "I didn't really have a choice in hiring a nanny. His mother died a year and a half ago, from a cocaine overdose. She died in their living room in Aurora sometime after two in the morning on a Tuesday. The police came to the house on that Friday afternoon, after neighbors complained that they'd heard a child crying inside for days on end. When the police finally entered the apartment, JimmytheKid was laying on her cold, dead body sleeping. He came to live with me right away, but I had to fight like hell with her parents to keep him." He stopped and looked at me, searching my face for clues as to my reaction. Before I could put on a conversation appropriate face, he was talking again. "Let me guess... single at thirty, professionally driven, career oriented... never wanted kids? How am I doing?"

I didn't speak. I felt the uncomfortable silence reaching a crescendo but there was nothing I could say. To lie and claim that he was way off base was out of the question. Even if I could muster the words to lie to him, my face would betray me instantly.

"Well then, I suppose you'll have to choose. It's your world, Lai Sarah; you can do as you please. You don't have to stay here, and I'm sorry if I ruined your night. Honestly, I'm happier here at home with that boy sleeping in his bed than I am anywhere else in the world. I'm not going to try and sell you on him. You either want to move forward or you don't. It's your world."

"Kimber I..."

He smiled, but his tone suggested passion and adamancy. He spoke as if he was speaking casually, but I could hear the sharpness of his words. "It's okay. Look, it's like this... There is nothing more important to me than this kid, period. There never will be, so if you have some leftover daddy issues or whatever, you can go. I won't be mad. JimmytheKid will always be what matters most to me. You need to know that. That kid, right in there..." He pointed down the hallway to an old wooden door. "He's all that really matters. I don't know about being a dad. I never wanted kids. I didn't even date women with kids; that's how strongly I felt about it. Now that I have one, I understand what it means. JimmytheKid is always going to be a part of my life. If push comes to shove and you decide to make me choose, you'll lose. You understand what I'm telling you? I'm saying this so you understand right from the get go. No pressure. You can go home now, or you can stay, just don't say I never told you so. He wins, every time."

Suddenly, I did want to leave. It was the first time all day that I'd felt that way, but the desire to run away was unmistakable. It wasn't just that Kimber had a kid, one he didn't mention in the fifteen hours we spent together that day; it was that he was being aggressive because of theKid. He was on the attack, and all I'd done was start to ask what he meant by "If he wakes up, he'll never go back to sleep." I wasn't allowed to ask about theKid without a lecture? I tried to speak, but ended up just swallowing a few times. I looked around, digesting his words. I knew it... I'd known he was going to get touchy about this... I'd seen it coming, but I wasn't prepared to be jumped on like that, so it took me a second to set my purse on his sofa and turn to him. "So basically you're saying that you have a kid and he's first place in your life? So... what? You have an opening for second fiddle?" I asked pointedly; I couldn't stop myself.

"If that's how you took what I said, I won't bother trying to convince you otherwise." He was sitting in an old recliner, watching me without any discernible looks on his face.

I looked at him. He looked different to me, like he did the night he beat the hell out of Mark at London's. Not afterward, but the same face he wore while he was punching that man in the face. He looked differently to me just then, different than he had all day, and I knew he was serious because of a new hardness that had shown up in his eyes.

Part of being a good businesswoman is knowing when and where to make your stand. This wasn't the time to challenge his resolve; he would have come down on me like a hammer. I could see it, or feel it... Regardless, it was there lurking in his suddenly intense eyes. Besides, what had he said that was so upsetting to me anyway? That he'd choose his son over me? Wouldn't I have hated him for the parent he would have been if he'd been able to love me more than his own kid?

Probably.

Definitely.

The same issue that I was over-reacting to was one of those issues that would have bothered me more had it been any other way. Truthfully, I knew that if I was going to still respect and love Kimber six months from that night, he had to be a better dad than boyfriend. There is, and has never been, anything worse than a father that doesn't love his children more than any other thing.

No, what was bothering me wasn't his resolve or dedication to his son, but his tone. He was speaking to me as if he believed I wouldn't leave, as if I wouldn't turn and walk out that door. Realizing that he thought me incapable of leaving, for the first time I wanted to do just that. I wanted to let the door close behind me with a last, poignant "kiss my ass," but I was incapable of doing so. I told myself that I could go home, put a movie on, drink a glass of wine, and give myself a pedicure, but I knew that wasn't the case. I knew I was here because I was supposed to be here, because I was incapable of willing myself to leave. It had been one of the most memorable days of my life. I'd met a man unlike any other I'd ever met before. Kimber was brilliant, magnificent in a simple and humble sort of way. He was warm and devout, intelligent and creative, but even beyond all that, I felt like I'd been led to him.

Finally, the clouds in my head parted and I could speak. "Honestly, I'm not sure second place would ever be enough for me." I felt sort of sorry for myself as I spoke the words, recognizing them as something from deep inside of me, something true and clear, but selfish and stupid nonetheless.

Kimber, recognizing the sadness in my voice, changed his tone. He spoke compassionately and earnestly. "He's my son, Lai. I don't have the wiggle room to negotiate with you. In the past, I've gone months without telling my girlfriends that I even had a kid. He's never met one, ever."

My first inclination was to ask, "Just how many girlfriends have you had?" but I decided against it. Somehow I was still absorbing his words as I, again, fought for a reply. He'd never introduced his kid to his girlfriends? And I was here on our first date? Why was he willing to introduce me and none of them? It made me wonder if Kimber felt like he'd been led to me as well, though I didn't have the guts to ask something as far out there as that. It dawned on me that he was making me feel pliable, as if in Kimber's hands I could be made to accept anything, resolute or not. His words took effect, like any good dosage of medicine. "Why'd you say that if he wakes up, he'll never go back to sleep?" I thought if I tried to put the immediate discussion on the backburner for a minute, I'd be able to digest it slower. Things like this need time. No one can process shocking information instantly. It takes time, different moods, different events and a few nights of sleep to really wrap your head around life-altering news.

Kimber smiled, "Well... it's funny you ask. So he usually goes to bed at about nine. I'm somewhat of an insomniac myself, so I stay up late watching movies on my computer or playing on the internet, whatever. Anyway, about six months ago I was watching The Exorcist, late one night, when suddenly out of nowhere JimmytheKid was standing next to me. He'd woken up and come out to see if I was home. For some reason, I decided it would be okay if he watched a little of the movie with me. I guess I thought that the scary parts of the Exorcist would be way over his head... They weren't. He watched the rest of the movie with me without saying much of anything, but afterward, he refused to go to bed. He asked me to come into his bedroom with him, to lay there in his bed until he fell asleep. I did. From that night on, either Maria, my nanny, or I have to be in bed with him in order for him to fall asleep. He's scared of the dark, scared of being alone in the dark, I guess. It's my fault. It was stupid, but I didn't know how to be a dad. I still don't. I don't know what I'm supposed to lie about and what I'm supposed to be honest about... It's okay to say there's a Santa Clause because that's fun, right? But I'm supposed to lie when he asks me if I've ever used drugs?"

I smiled. Kimber wasn't so different from me after all. I said, "After Columbine, I remember hearing a talk show on the radio... All these parents were calling in and asking the host how they were supposed to explain to their seven year olds what happened in that school, as if there was a lie they were supposed to be telling instead of the truth. I remember thinking 'Why don't you just tell them the truth?' But these moms were psycho. These women were crazy... You know, I never wanted kids myself. Obviously you've deduced that already, but what I mean is that I just hate the psycho-mom thing."

He smiled his trademark smile. "Good news then. I'm a dad, not a mom. But I understand how you feel. I feel the same way about the church. I love God passionately, but hate the unread fanatics that are allowed to make decisions on God's behalf."

"So, you understand that I'm not a baby hater, right?" I asked, inching closer to coming to terms with this.

"Of course. That's why I brought you here. I wanted to give you something I haven't been able to give anyone before you, an introduction to something beautiful and innocent."

I smiled at his words. Man, that guy could sell ice to an Eskimo. Hearing him say those words made all the difference in the world. The entire situation made sense now and suddenly, rather than feeling threatened, I felt accepted and welcomed. I'd been so preoccupied by the picture of Jamie and Jimmy, which all but demanded I notice them as I first came into his house, that I'd not even taken in the rest of the home until that very moment when I felt like I could breathe again.

The house was small, like 900 square feet small, but decorated tastefully. A sofa and Kimber's recliner were all the furniture in the living room, but there were more than enough pictures of Kimber at various ages hanging from the walls to make the place personable. As I scanned them, I realized that Kimber's affect on people had always been much the same. In every shot, people looked genuinely happy to be in his embrace as cameras clicked over the course of almost three decades. There were pictures of his parents—dad in mutton chops and seemingly polyester pants, mom in a polka-dotted print dress, her eye shadow blue and a little overdone. It was endearing to see his life so picturesque and happy, and it also had the strange effect of making me trust him more. There were at least a hundred framed photographs on display, yet each one bore the same smiles, the same looks of genuine happiness.

The same feeling that had come over me that morning as I watched customer after customer drive up to his window, turn off their car and bathe in the light of Kimber, came over me then. Seeing someone established, really and firmly established, makes the rest of us trust them more. It's probably the same reason why so many pedophiles go unnoticed for a quarter century... Regular people, rooted in their communities and known across town, have the benefit of being known and therefore, even if only by human error, trusted. Kimber was known; that much I already knew, but again, I couldn't get my head around how much love people had for him.

Kimber leaned back in his recliner and looked at the ceiling as he spoke, "Columbine... what a nightmare that was... I'm not sure why anyone would lie about what happened there, though. Kids adapt and heal faster than adults. If there's an audience for the truth, it should be kids. You know, Jimmy's four and I've already explained to him why he's not supposed to get in the car with strangers... Maybe that sounds stupid, but the idea of a kid just disappearing... I don't know how those parents do it... waiting, begging, pleading... I mean, when it came time to tell JimmytheKid about the dangers of life, at least as many as he needed to be aware of at four years old, I didn't just say, 'Don't get in the car with strangers.' I said, 'If you get in the car with a strange man, he will put his peepee in your poopoo.' Not exactly parenting 101, but you know what, my kid knows why he's not supposed to get in the car with strangers. He knows the consequences for getting in the car with strangers. If you ask me, that makes my kid better prepared than the next kid, though I'd probably be locked up for my methodology. Like I said, I'm new at this, too. All I can do is treat him like a little adult and credit him with the ability to understand what I know he can understand, rather than setting him in front of the television and letting it teach him what modern programming thinks is valuable to kids. I'd rather have theKid grow up and hate me for being honest than for being a liar. I just don't know how to lie, not long term anyway. As you can see," Kimber paused and waved his arm around his living room, "I don't even have a TV."

I watched as Kimber pulled his pack of pre-rolled joints out of his breast pocket, take one out with his teeth and light it. He smoked it for a second, passed it to me, and then asked out of nowhere, "You ever been a churchgoer?"

"I have a rough understanding of it. But no, I'm not religious."

He smiled. It wasn't his happy smile but rather a complex and vast smile used to cover any number of emotions. In this case, he was smiling because I wasn't well versed in religious matters. He knew that among most twenty to thirty-somethings that he was the only one to have read the Bible once, let alone more times than that. Not only had he read it, he'd memorized everything clever about it along the way. It was part of why he liked himself so much. His intuition to do these sorts of things seemed to come from nowhere, yet he did them, investing countless hours memorizing things, things he may or may not find the venue to repeat.

Later, he'd tell me that he'd had a strained relationship with his actual father for a while, something that they'd remedied not long before his father's passing, but that as a kid, Kimber had known that every night his father read the Bible before bed, something that Kimber took on as his own habit when he was old enough to stop rebelling against God and the church.

"So... Jesus is talking to some Jews at the Temple and they bring Him this woman that they've caught 'in the act' of adultery. I'm not sure if they like caught her in the 'act of adultery' or how that came to be, but here they come, towing this woman along. They find Jesus, who they still have no understanding of and they say essentially, "So... hey, man. We uh... well we caught this whore screwing around on her husband. What do you think we should do with her? Mosaic law says we ought to stone this ho." Kimber smiled.

Maybe more than any other thing he did, he loved to translate Bible stories into "street language" for the heathens of the world. I could see that he was excited to talk about this with me though; his face was warm and bright again as he settled into his Bible lesson of the day. "So, the Pharisees are trying to figure out who this Jesus feller is, really they just want Him crucified and they're trying to bait Him into nailing Himself to a cross. So they've only brought this woman along as a sort of trap. Had Jesus not been visiting in town, they would have already stoned her. But since Jesus, the man calling himself the Son of God, is in town, they decide this is the perfect forum for a little public humiliation. They're all standing around, yelling and screaming about what a dirty tramp this woman is, trying to get Jesus to come down with actual doctrine. They want canon. They want to hear the laws of God, according to this little Jesus fella. While they're trying to bait Him, all excited in typical mob mentality, Jesus leans over and draws in the sand, doodling. Isn't that great?" Kimber asked, jovially. "He's just drawing in the sand, tic-tac-toe boards and hangman games or something, while all these asshole Pharisees are all worked up. You know what He finally said to them? You know this story?"

I didn't, but I knew that somewhere he used the "first stone" analogy, so I gave it a try. "Something about casting the first stone?"

"Yes!" Kimber screamed with absolute joy and excitement. "Yes! He tells them... He's like, 'Let ye who is without sin cast the first stone.' It's brilliant, right? These guys, all worked up and thirsty for blood don't know what to do, so the Bible says that starting with the oldest, the group starts to break up, leaving the woman with Jesus. Jesus is still drawing in the sand you know, acting like He doesn't care about the happenings of the day. He finally looks up and sees the woman still standing there, probably in a puddle of urine, right? Anyway, He's like 'Hey, what happened to that angry mob that wanted you dead?' The woman, probably not sure of what the hell is going on here, looks at Jesus and says, 'My persecutors are all gone.' Jesus, all cool and peaceful, looks at her and says, 'Well I'm not gonna persecute you. Go, and sin no more.' Tell me, Lai, have you ever heard of a cooler man than that?"

I absolutely hate listening to people give me their two cents about who or what God is, but when Kimber talked about God, it was different. Kimber gave Jesus personality; he put Bible stories into perspective for me, something no one had ever bothered doing before. Regardless, I assumed his question was rhetorical.

Kimber continued, "So, next he's still dealing with these old testament thumping idiots, trying to explain to them that He is God, that they are one and the same. He's trying to tell them that if you hear me, if you listen to me and know that what I'm telling you is true, you'll be rewarded in eternity. If not, you're going somewhere else, somewhere dark and lonely... So He says," Kimber paused and looked at me. "I like to think of Jesus as cool and cocky now. I say that because He's talking in metaphor. He's talking in what was probably then some sort of street poetry, okay?" Kimber waited for me to nod and then thought better of it. "Do you know this verse? It's famous; one of the most abused verses in the entire Bible... any ideas?"

I had none, so I shook my head. I was, however, for the first time in my life, excited to hear what Jesus had to say for himself.

"He says... I'm paraphrasing... 'If you believe in what I'm telling you, you believe in the truth, and the truth shall set you free.' Now, Lai, I want you to think about that for a second, okay? Jews, even today, are essentially Christians that don't accept the New Testament. Basically, the Jews were promised a messiah in the Old Testament, and Jesus shows up one day claiming to be it, Him... and they're like 'No, you're not Him. We were expecting Dwayne Johnson droppin' elbows from the top rope, not a pacifist... okay? Trackin' me so far?" Kimber asked me.

I nodded. "Give me a puff of that joint, okay Billy Graham?"

Kimber laughed out loud. "Hardly," he said as he handed me the joint. "So he's there trying to explain the idea of the trinity, of God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit all being the same thing, you know? I heard a preacher explain it once as one man being an uncle, a cousin, a son, and a father... That's the sort of the set up Jesus has working for him. He is God, He is the Father and the Son, but imagine talking to a gang of thugs on the Sixteenth Street Mall and explaining concepts to them that are above the average idiot... Rather than replying to his great one-liner about the 'truth setting you free' with applause and wows, they're like 'We're Jews, bro! We're descendants of Abraham. We've never been anyone's whipping boys! We're the Pharisees. We make the rules. We enforce the rules! We ain't no one's slaves!" Kimber laughed at his clever interpretation. "They didn't understand Him! They're like a kindergarten class being taught physics by a NASA engineer! He was so far above them, so beyond their capability to understand... He was misunderstood by almost everyone he spoke to. He was a radical, a David Koresh in their opinion, but there He was schooling them about the future of things, telling them that they'll either come to terms with Him as the Messiah, or they'll be punished just like the woman they wanted to stone! Jesus was cool as ice. He was just misunderstood."

Suddenly, there was a heavy-set, dark-skinned woman in a bath robe walking into the living room, and I knew it was Maria even before Kimber introduced me. When he did, I shook Maria's hand, noticing that she looked somewhat shocked to see me, reinforcing what he'd told me about no one ever having met theKid before. Her attention went right back to Kimber, not scolding him per se, but telling him in no uncertain terms that his little outburst a few minutes ago had woken theKid, and if Kimber wanted JimmytheKid to be pleasant for the rest of the day, he'd need to put him back to sleep himself.

"Alright, Maria. Thank you. Tell Jimmy to come out here. I want him to meet Lai."

Maria didn't move. She stood there looking at him as if he'd surely made a mistake in what he'd just told her. "Meester Kimbeeeer, you sure that a good idea?" she asked, glancing at me out of the corner of her eye.

"Yes, Maria. It's a good idea. Thank you."

Maria sighed resignedly and started down the hallway toward the door that sealed theKid in his room.

"I'm sorry I woke you, Maria," he added.

She waved her hand dismissively at him.

That made Kimber laugh. He looked at me. "You don't hire a fifty-year-old Mexican woman to be your nanny unless you expect her to be firm, if not insubordinate sometimes." At that, he laughed again.

"Before I meet Jimmy..."

"Call him theKid, please," Kimber said wide eyed. "Either that or JimmytheKid. He saw Young Guns with me when he first moved in and fell in love with Billy the Kid. He started referring to himself as JimmytheKid afterward. I've considered having his name changed ever since." He smiled.

I nodded, smiling at such precociousness. "Tell me how your Jesus story applies to talking to your four-year-old son about anal rape."

"Ah! Yes! You are listening! So... 'the truth shall set you free'... It's not literal. The real payment for your sins is carrying them. You understand? People confess to God what they've done because it makes them feel better. Relieving themselves of the burden that carrying sins creates makes mortals feel better about themselves. The truth is much heavier than that. You cheat on your wife, you feel like shit, right?"

"If you're a good person, I guess."

"Just follow me here, okay? You cheat on your wife. She has no idea. You feel like shit. Let's just assume you're of good moral character..." Kimber continued as I heard a door at the end of the hall creaking open, followed by little footsteps too light to be Maria. "Now, imagine you get weary from carrying the load. You can't take it anymore, so you tell your wife what you've done... With me so far?" he asked, spreading his hands to welcome JimmytheKid as he collapsed against Kimber's chest in a hug. "JimmytheKid, this is my friend Lai Sarah. You wanna say hi?"

TheKid looked once at me before turning back to his father. A second later, Kimber had theKid in his lap on the recliner and was patting him on the back as theKid wiggled into a comfortable sleeping position. TheKid was unbelievably cute―blond and blue eyed, his little fingers searching for somewhere on Kimber's body to hold onto as he tried to fall back asleep. I was surprised by how fragile and soft the boy looked, smaller somehow than what I assumed a four year old would look like. Kimber patted him on the back, sometimes closing his own eyes as he hugged the boy. Kimber looked at me and said in a quieter voice, "Once he tells his wife the truth, a strange but important transfer takes place. Ready?"

"Ready," I said, staring at theKid despite myself.

"The wife learns of her husband's infidelity and immediately shatters. Her whole world collapses as she deciphers what she's been told. Her heart rate increases, as if she is now carrying a load of bricks up a long flight of stairs. The burden becomes real. It has weight, it has mass, and when she's given her husband's sin, she buckles under the pressure of it. Now, here's the rub... What about the husband? How's he feel now that he's told his wife the truth?"

I pulled my eyes away from TheKid for long enough to realize I'd been asked a question. I stammered for a second before I recalled enough of what he'd said to recognize the question. "He feels better?"

"Yes, damnit! He feels better because he's passed the buck. The burden isn't his any longer; the burden is now hers. The burden belongs to the one who carries it, not the one who committed the sin. You understand the point? The truth shall set you free, Lai, but the truth isn't free. The truth is heavy, ugly, and sometimes sickening... I tell JimmytheKid the truth because he needs to grow the legs to carry it. It's heavy, it's burdensome, and it's not his fault. But in this world you can either face things for what they are or be crushed by the weight of them. Growing up in a bubble leaves the adult version of that person with nostalgia. Growing up with the truth gives the adult version of that child, stamina. I want theKid to be prepared, no matter what this world throws at him." I watched as Kimber pushed theKid far enough off his chest to make eye contact with the boy. "You tired, killer?"

"Yeah," theKid said in an almost cliché cute, kid's voice.

"You think you can fall back asleep without me?" Kimber asked.

"No, Dad. I want you to come," JimmytheKid said and then took a spiteful look at me that said, 'Yeah, woman, that's right. He's mine first. You can have the scraps.'

"Okay, just a minute, alright?" Kimber asked patiently.

The kid nodded as he settled back into Kimber's chest.

"Kimber?" I asked. "Who's opening at Kanavan Coffee?"

Kimber looked at me for a second before he understood what I was asking. It was 4:45. "Cain, my part-timer."

"You have a part timer named Cain?"

He smiled. "I know, right? You'd think that they would have named him Abel."

I didn't understand what he meant, so I smiled as if I did.

Kimber looked at me, a long look that went from my head to my toes, as if I were sitting on his sofa naked. "I'm sorry to do this to you, but if I don't go into his room with him, he won't fall back asleep."

"Oh... of course..." I said weakly. I was trying not to look hurt or disappointed, though I felt both of those things. "I'll go home. I'm beat anyway—"

"No!" Kimber stopped me, wanting me to understand that he'd already thought about this and had come up with a better idea. "Sleep in my room. This will only take a min..." He stopped and thought otherwise. "Actually, sometimes it takes him over an hour to conk out. I usually fall asleep before he does. I wonder sometimes if he's aware of that, if that's part of his sinister plan. That's what I get for letting a three year old watch the Exorcist... Just crash in my room until he's out cold, will you?"

I didn't have many options. My car was still at Kanavan Coffee, an eight or ten mile drive from Kimber's rental house, so to demand I be returned to my car so I could go home was imposing, especially with theKid snuggling in Kimber's lap the way he was. "Yeah, okay. That's fine." I said it as if I were open, but not entirely receptive to the idea, but truthfully I was immensely relieved by Kimber's suggestion. I didn't want the date to end. I had more than enough vacation time saved up to take as many days off with Kimber as I wanted. Even despite theKid's crooked glances at me, I was relieved.

"Good," Kimber said jovially; he was a man with his cake and eating it too. He stood, pretending for theKid's sake that the boy weighed a million pounds and that Kimber could hardly stand up with the boy in his arms.

JimmytheKid smiled at this and said, "Yeah right, Dad."

"Yeah right nothin'! You weigh a ton!"

I also stood and followed them down the hall. Kimber dropped JimmytheKid in his race car bed and came to his bedroom to show me around. "Will this work?" he asked. The bed was so huge, a California King, that in comparison to my own full-sized mattress at home it looked like three square acres of comfort. "I've got some sweats in that bottom drawer and plenty of Features T-shirts in that top drawer if you're so inclined." He smiled.

"I saw the Features once," I said matter-of-factly.

"Oh yeah? You liked them?"

"Yeah, they were good. They were opening for the Kings of Leon at Fiddlers Green. I'd never heard of them before that. How do you know them?"

"Joe Frank, my besty..." Kimber suppressed laughter. "He's been known to find a gem now and again. He referred them to me. I fell in love."

"Yeah, they were good."

"No, they're great, under-appreciated and still waiting for their breakthrough, but among the best bands of our time." He looked back toward JimmytheKid's bedroom, hearing something I couldn't. "Okay, let me put him to sleep then I'll come back in here and help you fall asleep," he said with a mischievous smile.

I smiled too, though I thought he might be a little presumptuous. "Okay, I'll see you in a bit."

Kimber turned to leave and then stopped. "Hey?"

"Yeah?"

"I've been thinking about this since London's... My three albums... I wanted to ask you, can I answer with three bands that I'd take with me rather than three albums? I don't have a Discman anymore, making the idea of an album moot. Tell me I can answer with three bands that I've made playlists for, and I'll answer you right now." He was smiling.

It took me a second to realize he was talking about the question I'd asked Mark in the Freestyle Round. The fact that he'd been thinking this over was somehow... I don't know... touching. "No. Albums only."

"Fine. Pearl Jam, 'Ten;' Pretty Lights, 'Making Up a Changing Mind;' and Joe Purdy... maybe 'Julie Blue,' maybe 'Paris in the Morning.'"

It was then, at the mention of Joe Purdy, that I knew I was in love for the first and potentially last time in my life. I wanted it to last forever, to be fairytale fodder for future generations, but looming in the back of my mind as I settled into Kimber's bed, wearing his sweatpants and Features T-shirt, was the idea that this too was like the truth. This thing with Kimber was unusually heavy for as new as it was, but I had a man here that had strong legs. I trusted him entirely; he was certainly stronger than I will ever be. I knew then that Kimber Canavan would carry me. I knew that a man like this was capable of amazing things and that until he was there no longer I would be safe and, more importantly, properly loved. I lay in his bed dreaming of the years to come. I was Pilgrim, laying my own burden down, having finally found the love I'd been seeking for so long.

I held and released deep breaths, trying to prepare myself for what would happen when he came back to his bed. I wanted to fall asleep and feel the bed shifting as he slipped in on the other side, his hands sliding under this shirt of his and cupping my breasts, his pelvis pressed against my own backside as the hairs on his chin tickled my neck. He'd whisper words that dripped with sweetness to me as he undressed me—I knew he would.

I didn't know it then, of course, but eleven months later, almost to the day, I'd be alone, absolutely and excruciatingly alone.

"Truants move on, cannot stay long, some die just to live... Immortality."
CHAPTER 12

Kimber died on Saturday, August 14th just a little after noon. TheKid followed his father into the afterlife two minutes later. That's important to understand as we proceed. The Wednesday night before that, August 11th, Kimber asked me to dinner at the Morrison Inn, where he'd taken the unusual steps of reserving a table in advance. Normally, Mr. Morrison himself didn't have to reserve a table at the MI, and the fact that he'd done so scared me a little, or at least gave me perspective into the seriousness of our meeting there that night. Looking back on it now, I can't help but smile at his preparedness, though at the time, smiles were as far from my capabilities as the east is from the west.

I was at The Berkshire when Kimber called and asked if I would be willing to meet him. There was a strange quietness in his voice as he asked me to join him. Something about the way he asked me alarmed me, but I told myself not to freak out. This was Kimber, my Kimber, the man I loved, after all. "I just have a couple things I want to talk to you about" was all he'd offered me when I asked him why he'd taken the extra step of reserving a table. He had to have known that he was scaring me, yet he offered me no reassurance that things were okay.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't think that maybe, just maybe, he was going to end his relationship with me. Not that I thought he was, but because of the way he sounded, so... I don't know, distant maybe, I did consider it. Things between us had been good, always good, though Kimber was, at this point, spending a lot of his time writing his Death Diaries upstairs. His call came in at about 3:00 that afternoon, late enough that JimmytheKid and I had wondered where he'd gone after closing down Kanavan that morning, but it wasn't completely uncommon for him to disappear for a few hours afterward. We'd talked about how it was late for Kimber to be gone, but our serious game of Scrabble had distracted us from pursuing it further. As far as the Scrabble game went, I should have been killing theKid, but he was within five points of me and my marginal lead was in serious jeopardy.

JimmytheKid answered the phone on the fourth ring in his normal, somewhat precocious way, "Hello, this is the Canavan/Sarah residence."

They spoke for a minute, and listening to theKid talking to his father, I was reminded of how close JtK and Kimber really were. JimmytheKid was just a smaller version of the man I loved, and one day, with the right guidance and influences, theKid could have grown up to be a replica of his father, perhaps without the prophecies of death that so plagued Kimber. "It's Dad. He wants to talk to you," JtK said before looking over the Scrabble board as if I might have cheated.

Kimber cut through the pleasantries and got right to the point, "Hey, Lai, you think you could have Maria keep an eye on JimmytheKid for a while and meet me for dinner at the MI?"

"Uh... sure. What time are you thinking?"

"I can be there in about an hour. How's that work for you?"

"Well, we're in the middle of a pretty serious Scrabble game right now." I joked, "TheKid's got me on the run!" I laughed, but noticed that he didn't. "Kimber? Is everything okay?"

"Everything's fine, but I need you to meet me, okay? It's important. I have a couple of things I need to talk to you about."

Suddenly, I felt like I was going to puke. My stomach roiled and I stood from the table in order to prevent myself from shaking with uneasiness right then. "What's this about? You can't just say that. I need to know what this is about. You're scaring me."

"I can't tell you that right now. Just meet me. About an hour? I'll call Jeff and reserve a table upstairs. Just be there, okay?"

I went to react, to tell him that his explanation wasn't good enough, but he was gone. The phone clicked in my ear a few times before I heard a dial tone. I hung up.

"Your turn!" JimmytheKid said with excitement. He knew he was good at this game. Despite the fact that I was a School of Mines graduate and had thirty plus years of real life experiences assisting me, the little rat believed he had a rally in him.

"Sorry, Kid. I gotta meet your dad at the MI. Maria will keep an eye on you, okay?"

"Noooooo!" He exclaimed with a smile on his face, "I'm gonna win!"

"Maria will make you hot dogs and macaroni and cheese. I promise!" I said, trying to look okay, trying to look any other way than the way I felt. And because I owed it to him, I said, "And no, you don't have a snowball's chance in Hell of beating me!" I laughed.

I tried to put on my best happy face, not wanting theKid to think anything was wrong, before I excused myself to our bedroom where I considered packing an overnight bag, just in case. If Kimber was going to break up with me with some sort of 'before I die I need to cleanse my palate' line, I'd at least be physically ready. I decided against the bag. This was my home too. I didn't understand why my own mind was making me think such ridiculous things.

Looking back on it from the advantage of the future, things really had been wonderful and exciting with Kimber in my life. I'd had an incredible journey with Kimber and his two-piece family, though Maria clearly had her own people with whom she spent most of her free time. There was no way to know then that the feeling gripping my stomach and mind were valid, that my life as I knew it was just about over.

Up until that night, life had been as vibrant and exciting and wonderful as any woman could ever hope for. On one hand, being with Kimber made me feel like time was meaningless. We didn't fight, ever. We had great sex, passionate and meaningful sex, that I know was as meaningful for Kimber as it was for me. We had engaging conversations, something more couples would have if they only had the foresight to realize that their television was coming between them. Kimber and I had always been so close, so communicative with each other, and until that day, I didn't think anything could ever come between us.

I left the Scrabble board where it was on the table when I went to my room to dress for dinner, hoping that I'd see this bedroom again later that night, but fearing otherwise. I never did sleep in that bed again with Kimber. Three days later, when Joe Frank dropped me off at the house after I'd spent that long afternoon alone at Vedauwoo, the Scrabble board was still sitting there, right where theKid and I had left it the afternoon my life began to crumble to dust. Shivers would rip through me that Saturday night when I looked at the board and saw the last word theKid had played sometime after I left him in Maria's care. The word he'd played was "casket" played through my previous word, "kid."

In that moment, I believe I missed theKid more than Kimber.

Maybe Kimber's Death Diaries were getting to me and that because of them, I'd been overly agitated. I hated those books, the very idea of them. They were physical proof, or maybe just a physical reminder that this "thing" between me and Kimber was not as important to him as it was to me. How could it have been? He was convinced of his death, making all other things seem trivial in his mind. I believe that in Kimber's hierarchy of importance, death came first, then theKid, then me.

Perhaps that's why I would get so mad at him at just the sight of him climbing the stairs up to his writing room in the middle of the afternoon. I was jaded from the topic of his death, as was pretty much everyone that knew Kimber in those final days. Every afternoon he would go upstairs for hours, writing things down that he expected me to read someday. There were times I'd see him heading upstairs and hate him for it. I wanted him to focus as hard on living as he did on dying; I believed if he just changed his focus, he could shape his life differently. It felt like Kimber was willing himself to die, and I feared that with concentration and intellect like his, he could and would certainly will himself to death. It seemed to me that people who spent time focusing on things often found them. I always said to him, "Kimber, I just want you to be happy," but that wasn't exactly true. He was happy; he was just scared, sad, and tired of thinking. He had to be. He was, after all, human.

I breezed over it earlier, but it's worth repeating that people had stopped coming by our house about a month before, when Kimber recognized we were in month ten of "no more than twelve." That must have hit home for Kimber, realizing that his time was so short because he seemed to shift gears from somewhat to extremely obsessed with his death. People still came to Kanavan with the same jovial demeanors, but there, Kimber was always in his zone. There, he didn't hassle people about his death. It was only when he was put into a situation where people were making plans with him that he'd go into his routine about "Time being of the essence." I saw the tide changing for him. I saw the way people, who once fawned over the guy, tried like hell to avoid him. It was sad for me to watch, and I remember thinking Kimber's gonna look like a jackass two years from now when he's still alive and well. What would he say for himself? I feared what would happen to Kimber if he did survive the year. I feared the opposite more, but still, Kimber's reputation mattered not only to him but to me as well.

Everyone had passed the point where his goodbyes were touching and... well, odd. By July of that year, he was beyond crazy. He was a man in waiting, and I think it was the waiting that hurt him the most. He woke every morning, or I assumed he did, wondering if this was the day. Each cup of coffee he handed to his beloved customers had to have made him wonder "Is this the last time I'll serve her?" It was only a matter of time until that kind of thing breaks a man, no matter how strong he is, or thinks he is.

Despite his morbid moods, I remained patient and tried to understand. It wasn't until he started talking to theKid about his death that I got mad. Once he started telling theKid that he might not be around to see him graduate high school or get married, I put my foot down. Maria had taken JimmytheKid to her sister's house on Federal Boulevard for homemade tamales, leaving Kimber and I at The Berkshire alone one night. I went nuts. I told Kimber that he was ruining the joy in his son's life and that if he loved him as much as he claimed to, he'd stop. I called him a shitty parent, told him he was selfish and delusional and if it didn't stop, at least as far as theKid was concerned, I was leaving him. I meant it too. That poor kid, the one I swore I wasn't ready for on my first date with Kimber, had become as important to me over the last ten months as Kimber himself, though I saw a lot more of theKid than I did his father.

TheKid worshipped his father for the same reason I did—because he was such an anomaly. JimmytheKid knew the Kimber that presented himself to his son, but JtK was fascinated with the other Kimber, the one that he heard people talking about, always with the same words—gifted, talented, well-spoken, and intelligent. I started talking to JtK about his father's death fantasies, just to work as a sort of counterbalance, promising theKid that his father wasn't going to die, that this was just a thing he was going through right now, but that he'd be okay. TheKid asked me one day, point-blank, "If it's true, if Dad does die, will you take care of me?"

"Of course I will!" I'd said, feeling the heat and sting of tears behind my eyes. I didn't know if it were true, or if I was even capable of such things, but I had to promise, I had to reassure theKid that his father was crazy, that this was all some sort of experiment for him, not literal. I believed that. I believed that Kimber would survive, though in the back of my mind I always wondered, what if? I guess I had the presence of mind to think that if Kimber did die in some horrific, unpreventable and gruesome way, I'd be haunted by the irony, but that wasn't enough to believe it would happen. It just left me in a state of disbelief, enough anyway that I could continue to invest feelings into this man; something I honestly couldn't have done had I believed he was going to die.

"I can't protect him from my death, Lai!" Kimber had tried to say when I'd ripped into him on theKid's behalf.

"You ever think that maybe there's a reason we don't know when we're going to die, Kimber? You ever think that maybe the surprise of it is better than the years of preparation? If you do die..." I stopped before saying that I wasn't convinced.

Kimber had always just assumed that I believed him. I didn't. I thought he was a beautiful and creative man, struggling with deeper issues. That's what I thought. I knew he was special, that he was enlightened about some things; that doesn't mean I believed in his predictions. I believed that month 13 would be a bridge we'd cross together, looking back with smiles on our faces as we recalled the year Kimber thought he was going to die. I thought if we made it to month 13, we'd make it for the rest of eternity. I believed in that; I believed that freedom between Kimber and I would only come after he was convinced otherwise. Until then, I sifted through his statements, dismissing most of them and convincing myself that his self-assuredness was more ego than premonition.

The Morrison Inn was the same as it always was—loud, casual, and packed. I was led upstairs by Kevin, the host, and taken into a room usually reserved for parties of ten or more. Inside that room sat Kimber. He was sitting like a baron at the far end of the long table in an otherwise empty room. Before him, a yellow folder lay open, its contents stacked in a neat white pile an inch thick. I looked at the papers and sat down next to him noticing his face was tight and stretched oddly. It was his anxious face, not happy-anxious, concerned-anxious. Kevin split, on his way to fetch me "The best, biggest margarita on the menu."

"Thanks, Kev," I looked over at Kimber, who was looking at me. Now he was smiling. He thought his smile was passable for real, but I could spot that smile every time he used it, and because of his thought process, he used it a lot. "What's up, Kimber?" I asked, letting him hear my anxiousness.

"I'm sorry if I worried you, Lai."

"If you..." I laughed an angry laugh. "Yeah, you worried me, Kimber!" I told him that he had to stop this nonsense, these stupid predictions and surprises. I told him I needed a break from it, that he was killing me with it. I told him to stop it before he had no more friends left. I wanted to expand on that, so I fired deeper and told him that everyone was tired of it. Everyone was tired of it! I said it, and then watched him. I don't know if I was expecting waterworks or what, but when he smiled at me, I was shocked.

"You still talk about this as if you don't believe me. I'm tired of this too, Lai. I'm tired of it. I wake to it, waiting for it. I am cursed by this knowledge! It's okay if they're tired of it... They'll have the rest of their lives to understand it, and they will. You better not be one of them. You better be ready. I mean it, Lai. I need you to be ready for this; it's why you're here right now."

"So why?" I pleaded, somewhere between murder and self-pity. "Tell me why I'm here? Are you married? Is it AIDS or something, because if that's..."

"No, Lai. It's nothing like that. Look at me. Look at me, okay?" he asked, putting his face next to mine. "You're here because I need a favor of you, a big one."

Kimber's eyes followed mine as I scanned the stack of white papers. He gestured to them and then pulled the top page off. He slid it across the table to me and asked if I knew what it was.

"A bank statement," I said. I didn't even look at the numbers shown, just the name of the bank in the top, center of the page.

"Right," he said. "This is what has accumulated from the money my parents left me. It was just over seven million when they died. I've made a little interest."

I thought about that for a second before the information he was giving me began to settle into its place. He hadn't spent any of it. He had more money now than he did when he'd inherited it. "I see. You didn't spend it," I stated, so he'd know I was paying attention.

"No. I did use some when I opened Sweat Stains, but I paid it all back, including interest on my own money."

I entered the same process that most of Kittridge went through after they found out Kimber was worth several million bucks. I felt like I'd been lied to, but that wasn't exactly it. I felt excluded, as if he'd been keeping something from me, which in my mind felt a lot like being lied to. "I see. So, does Sweat Stains even make any money?" I asked.

He smiled. "Yes. It makes a lot of money."

I shrugged, getting impatient but needing to throw a jab at him for the suspense. "Okay, great. Another winning Canavan Company... Congrats. Can you explain why I'm here please? You're making me nervous, Kimber."

He took a deep breath, like a man about to take a punch he knew he had coming and willed himself not to react. "I want you to take care of JimmytheKid when I'm gone." I sat very still, deathly still. I'm not sure I even breathed. I didn't look at him. I didn't swallow. I didn't do anything for a long time. I needed time to process what he'd just said and this wasn't the place I was going to get it. Kimber was waiting for me to protest. When I didn't, he leaned over and said quieter, "You're all he has, Lai."

"Kimber I..."

"Shhhhhh. Listen, okay? I went to see my money guy and my lawyer today. I'm moving 3.5 million into an account for you to use to take care of theKid. If you want a reward at the end, we have about $700,000.00 left over to play with. Basically, if you raise JimmytheKid to the age of eighteen, on that birthday, he'll inherit his half of the money and you'll get a nice three quarter of a million dollar bonus. In the meantime, you'd have 3.5 in an account to get you and JimmytheKid through until then. You'll never have to work again, Lai."

"Oh, that's so thoughtful, Kimber. Thank you. Maybe I could open my own Canavan Company and then everyone would walk around saying how smart and creative I am, just like you! That what you're thinking? Hmm?" I asked, my tone hard and my eyes glaring at him.

He paused, waiting for my temper to calm before he proceeded carefully. "Think about what I'm saying. Don't get mad because you don't like the topic. Think this over carefully. We're talking about JimmytheKid here... I know you've asked yourself what will happen to the kid if I don't make it... well, you know. You have to have thought about theKid. What did you see happening to him?"

Since the question was so point blank, I answered in the same manner. "I see you raising him, Kimber. I see your year passing and you still living, albeit a little embarrassed about all of this, but it will fade in time. You're not gonna die. I hate to be the one to point this out to you, but this isn't real. No one thinks it is. You're the only one that believes your bullshit. You know that, right?"

He looked hurt by what I'd said, and I immediately regretted it. He looked like he was reeling from my words, as if I were Judas caught with the fifty silver pieces in my hand as the Romans took Jesus into custody. "I didn't know that's how you felt," was all he said. He sipped his margarita for a second, and I thought I saw that angry smirk forming on his face. When he spoke again, he was as cold and direct as I'd ever heard him. "Now that you've said your piece, I'm gonna say mine. You're a fool to believe I'm lying. I'm so distraught by what you just told me that I honestly feel like kicking holes in the wall. You think I'm a liar? Is that it, Lai? You think I'm lying for the sake of what? Dramatics? Do I seem like a high school girl to you, concocting lies in order to win pity?"

"Sometimes, yeah. You do," I said, fighting back. That wasn't enough by itself, so I expanded even further. "Kimber, maybe you can't see it, but people despise your long goodbyes and ludicrous predictions, okay? You know, if you had just died one day, it'd be different. People would have felt the loss you seem to want them to feel all the time. All you're doing is ruining your own legacy. If you survive the next two months, you're going to have a lot of explaining to do. It's gonna ruin everything you've ever said."

Kimber seemed calmer now. "I guess I didn't know this was how you felt. I thought you believed me."

"I don't want to believe you, Kimber! That's the whole thing. I don't want to believe you. I don't even know for sure how I feel. Maybe I do. I don't know! Whether or not I believe hasn't ever seemed important to you before this, so why all of a sudden do you act like you're hurt by my not believing you? You seem to think that I should be able to do both, love you and believe you, but that's just it. Believing you means knowing that I'm going to have to do this alone one day, without you. You walk around the world knowing everything, Kimber. Congrats on that. You found a woman ridiculous enough to stay with you, even at the cost of ending up alone. Here I am... and for what? You are the ignorant one, Kimber, not me. You are the kind of man every guy wishes he was, yet being creative and eccentric isn't enough for you. You had to have premonitions or predictions, whatever they are, making it harder and harder for people that love you to be able to stomach you. You make loving you harder than it has to be if not impossible. Look at yourself! You're losing weight, you have bags under your eyes, and that ink... Look at your hands, Kimber! That's ink smeared across them, ink from your Death Diaries that aren't helping to settle you down. They aren't helping you accept this death. They're driving your paranoia!"

"They aren't for me, Lai. They're for you."

"That's a joke, Kimber. They're for no one else but you because in case you didn't think this part of it over, I'm not going to read them, ever! They'll rot before I ever once read them because if what you seem to think is true is true, the last thing on earth I'll want to do is read the thoughts you had about your death! Are you inhuman? Are you capable of feeling for me what I feel for you, Kimber? I don't think you are. If you were, you wouldn't be writing those books with the deluded notion that as soon as you die, I'll go running for them. Well I won't. You hear me now? I won't!"

Kimber looked hurt, but more promisingly, he looked like maybe he'd heard me after all. "I understand," he said somberly. There was a tone in his voice that I didn't like, something about the way he replied that made me think that he was humoring me.

"I don't believe you. I still think that in your head, you believe I will read these books."

"I do believe you will." Now his eyes were harder, set on me in a way that told me this was a fact; this was from the Gospel of Kimber Canavan. "I know you don't think you will, but you will read them, Lai. When God does exactly what He told me He was going to do, you'll want to know and you'll read them. Believe what you want. I mean that. Believe me or not, it's completely up to you, but..."

"I will believe what I want! I don't need your permission to believe or not believe. It's my right!" I waited to see what Kimber would say about my voice approaching a scream, but he said nothing. He stared at me for a second before his eyes darted back and forth between me and the stack of papers waiting before him. I looked at him and felt bad. Kimber wasn't the guy to scream and yell at me, but apparently I was the type of woman that screamed and yelled at my boyfriend, even in a public place like the Morrison Inn where Kimber was sure to have people eavesdropping on our conversation. He took me in until he thought his looking at me would annoy me.

At that point he lowered his voice and spoke again. "I'm not trying to bring anyone down, Lai. I'm trying to be honest, to just tell people the truth. God can explain it to them later, or hell, maybe logic will explain it. I just... I can't change how they take it. I tell them what I know..."

"How do you know?" I asked. "Hmm? How did you even come to the conclusion that you only had a year left in the first place?"

"I told you this before. I had a dream."

"And in the dream you died? Was there a calendar or something? How did you come to understand that the death you were seeing was within a year of the date you had the dream?"

"I was told."

"God actually told you?"

"God talks through us, not to us necessarily. When people say they heard God's voice, they mean in their head, not in audible words from his mouth. The actual words are our own, but they come from God himself."

"So in the universe, the entire universe, that night, whenever it was, God stopped what he was doing throughout all of the solar system and came to you in a dream?" The edge in his eyes was back. I feared that I was dangerously close to blasphemy so I slowed to a stop and tried to lighten the statement I'd just made by adding a little ignorance to the recipe. "I just don't understand what people mean when they say that they hear the voice of God. Help me to understand."

Kimber smiled, not a warm smile, but a knowing smile. "Nice work backpedaling. When I say God told me, I mean exactly that. Do I seem like someone who minces words? I don't. I know what I've said because I know what I was told. I don't necessarily understand why or how, but I know when and..."

"And what?" I asked, feeling like what he just left out of his statement was more important than what he'd just included.

"And I'm doing my best to follow my orders," he said as if that was what he was going to say.

"That's not what you were going to say. You know when and what?"

"That is what I was going to say."

"Do you know where this is going to happen, Kimber? I guess if you knew where it was going to happen we might be able to stop it."

"This isn't an episode of Family Guy, Lai. This isn't Stewie and Brian climbing into their time machine to stop the earth's destruction!" He laughed and came back to me. "This is the voice of Almighty God warning me to make preparations, much the way he did Noah. Guess how that turned out by the way? God tells Noah to build an ark in the middle of the desert! You think people thought Noah was sane? Uh... no... He was the laughing stock of—"

"That's enough of your Bible lessons, Kimber! I've had enough of your stories about God. You know what I think God is? I think He's a crutch for the weak. I think weak men cling to the idea of a god, especially one that communicates with them. You're willing yourself to die, Kimber."

"I see," Kimber said and then thought for a second. Maybe he was praying for my forgiveness, for my blasphemy and disbelief. He leveled his eyes at me and said in a soft voice, "I'll tell you what, Lai. I'll give you a clue, okay? I was told not to tell anyone about the details of what I know, but I'll give you a warning... You ready?"

I looked at him, not really understanding the question. "Sure, Kimber. Give me a warning."

"Not a warning, a clue that what I'm telling you is real. On the day I die, there will be a pretty woman in red nearby. I saw her as clearly as I've ever seen anyone, and no, it isn't you—though I believe you will be there when it happens."

At this news, my heart began to pound. "What about her?" I asked.

"I don't really know, just that she's there. I see her looking down on my dead body and screaming. She's crying and shrieking when it happens. She's maybe thirty years old and dressed in red. Okay? Can you accept that? If I die without her being there, you can tell everyone I was a liar, okay? Is that fair?"

I nodded, unable to speak. I hadn't realized that Kimber had more details than he'd let on, but at hearing this news, part of my brain took comfort and the other part was paralyzed with fear. Suddenly it was clear to me that maybe Kimber was right. If there was a woman in red shrieking when he died, I would freak out. Kimber obviously knew more than just that he'd be dead in a year. I believed now that maybe he knew exactly when and where, though I wouldn't allow that thought to enter my mind. "Fine," I said, unable to say anything more about it.

"When this is all said and done, I hope you understand it, Lai. I'm afraid that understanding the reasons I must die are not a part of God's plan. I only know that I will die, not why. When it happens, I hope you're prepared. But more than that, I hope you're still around to see how this ends."

"I think I already know how this ends, Kimber. It doesn't end with you in a puddle of blood or on a hospital bed. It ends with a fight because you won't let go of the death issue. That's how it ends, Kimber," I added before standing up to leave.

"Please sit, Lai. Please. There is something else I need to talk to you about." He leaned to his left in order to reach into his right pocket. I think I knew what he was about to produce from his pocket even before he produced it. He set a small, square, "Tiffany blue" box on the table and slid it toward me. "There was this, too," he said as if it were pointless now that I'd admitted that I wasn't entirely convinced of his fantasies.

I stared at it. I have no idea how much time ticked by while I sat there, looking at the box. Here it was, the question I'd waited my whole life for, and now that it was right here, looking me in the face, I didn't know what to say. I didn't even know what to think. Here was the man I'd waited my whole life for, asking me, even in this awful way, to marry him. Of all the dates that Kimber and I had gone on, all the places we'd been together, all the times we'd been lost in conversation with our bodies close enough to feel the heat radiating from one to the other, he chose now. Surely Kimber knew that this wasn't the right time or place to be doing this, yet here he was, doing so. Part of me was mad at him for putting me on the spot here and now, but the other part of me smiled and thought that somehow I'd met and fallen into love with the most fearless, confident man I'd ever meet.

I loved this man but I hated his notion that he was as good as dead. It was too hard, too stressful for me, and what about theKid? All those pep talks Kimber had been giving JimmytheKid about his father's imminent death had to be wearing the boy down. It had to be breaking JimmytheKid's heart the way it was breaking mine, because surely both me and theKid were falling deeper and deeper in love with Kimber each day. Admittedly, theKid was tough when it came to Kimber. TheKid admired Kimber, not the way a boy admires his father, but the way a boy admires a rock star or movie star. Hearing that his dad would be dead in a year's time was far worse than being five years old and having to actually endure the loss.

TheKid, beginning at four years old, had been forced to start thinking about his father's demise not even two years after being left for dead with his mother's corpse for three days in that awful apartment. How a man as careful and considerate as Kimber could miss the fact that this boy's entire life seemed to be revolving around death was beyond me, but it angered me nonetheless. The poor kid. Most adults can escape this world without ever having to look death in the face as closely as theKid had in his short five years, including his own. He'd spent the years that most kids spend playing on the playground and worrying about nothing more than if Santa Clause would come for them next Christmas, trying to forget the tragedy surrounding his mother but unable to escape the tragedy that his father assured him was right around the corner.

Sometimes I think about theKid and wish I'd done something drastic at that meeting with Kimber. I sometimes wish I hadn't just walked away from all of it and let things go, wishing that rather than trusting Kimber because I always felt so inferior to him, I'd stood up for myself, for theKid, and slapped Kimber across his face. It never crossed my mind in those days, not once, that theKid might end up dead in that year timeframe as well. Children, especially precocious ones like JimmytheKid, represent youth and innocence. They are supposed to live forever, longer than those of us old enough to recognize them as children. They are supposed to be the ones to bury us, to represent us in the years that follow, leaving us with the notion of a "legacy" as we lie dying, though I wholly believe that as we lie dying, the last thing we'll concern ourselves with is the idea that a legacy really matters.

JimmytheKid outlived his father by about two minutes, maybe three. I was there beside him as he took his last earthly breath, feeling his little hand go slack in my own. I was there looking at him as instinct took over his mind, releasing the fear and pain, trading them in for whatever comes next. Instead of Kimber following JimmytheKid into the afterlife, Kimber went first; his arms wide open to embrace his son as they left me behind and moved onto whatever is in store for us after this world. I became thankful for that—not immediately, but in time.

Immediately, I felt betrayed. I felt like theKid, who was supposed to come with me, had been cheated, or maybe it was that I'd been cheated. I was hurt by it, not their deaths per se, but by the fact that in all the time I'd spent despising Kimber's God-talk, it never once crossed my mind that theKid might leave me too. I watched as theKid weakened from massive blood loss and severe trauma. I watched his eyes cloud over from clear blue to gray, all that just before my own world went dark. In retrospect, I'm glad JimmytheKid and his father, the brilliant and enigmatic Kimber Canavan, left me together. TheKid deserved to live, but had he, I don't believe I would have ever seen again the once happy, talkative, and smart-beyond-his-years boy that held my hand on long walks around The Berkshire. I think that with Kimber's death, the light in JimmytheKid's eyes would have been extinguished. I say that because for me, the loss of both of my men on the same day, at the same place, extinguished the light in my own life so much so that before it returned to me in what I think of as a diminished way, it had gone from me just as readily and completely.

Thinking of the ring again, wrapped up tight in a bow tied around that blue-green box, I looked at Kimber. "What's that supposed to be? Is that your carrot? You want to tie it to a stick and lure me in with it?" I asked angrily.

"I was hoping to not have to," Kimber said.

"Well, you're gonna have to. I can't do it, Kimber. I can't accept it." I couldn't even believe my own words. I hadn't meant to say that. I hadn't meant to say anything. I was ready to take it a month ago, hell, six months ago. Now, everything was different. Kimber had millions of dollars—good for him. I didn't need money. I had money, and whatever I didn't have, my father damn sure did. I didn't respect or hate Kimber for his millions, not like everyone else would come to. Nor did I like the feeling that he'd thought money would entice me to agree to take care of theKid. I would have taken care of theKid even if it meant we'd had to move into a $300 a month studio apartment in Englewood. Part of the reason I'd stayed with Kimber throughout the year, despite his constantly reminding me that he was leaving this earth, was because I wanted to be there for theKid if and when Kimber couldn't be. That's not the same as believing that Kimber would die. It just meant that I'd prepared myself to the best of my ability for the possibility that Kimber would die, and in that case, theKid was all I'd have left to make my life meaningful.

"I don't understand, Lai. Can you help me to understand why you are turning me down?"

"Sure," I said nonchalantly. Secretly, I was taking a certain sort of satisfaction in hurting him. "I think you're using the ring, the idea of marriage, as a tool to get me to do what I would have done without it. I don't think you're asking me to marry you, if that's even what you're doing, because you can't live without me, but because you're beginning to feel like you can't die without me. Two different feelings altogether, buddy. So no, I won't marry you."

He stood with force, his chair crashing to the floor behind him as he slammed his hands on the table top and screamed at me. "You don't think I can get someone else to be JimmytheKid's guardian for three and a half million dollars? Huh, Lai? You think that's a hard sell? I've been nothing but kind and loving to you since the beginning, and now you flip out and tell me that looking after theKid is too much for you? You're a selfish bitch! Get out of here, Lai! Go! I'm done with you. I'll find a better fit. Don't even worry about it! Consider yourself replaced."

Kimber had never raised his voice to me before, and I feared him. I'd seen him fight three different times in the eleven months we'd been together and each time I'd watched him fight, I'd felt the same things—that weird mix of adrenaline and estrogen, of both being turned on and off by the same events. But seeing that anger of his directed at me was more than I could take. I planted my feet and hit him hard across his face. "Goodbye, Kimber." As a last gesture of seriousness, I reached over and slapped his margarita glass, sending it spinning out of control as it dumped the remaining contents all over his nice little stack of bank statements and whatever else happened to be in that pile of papers. With that, I turned and walked out of the Morrison Inn for the last time in Kimber Canavan's life.

The last thing I saw as I turned to walk out the door was Kimber grabbing frantically at his papers, choosing them over me. He picked them up and shook the fluids from them, watching me as I walked out the door of the reserved room, turned for the stairs, and disappeared. All I could think as I heard my Frye boot heels clicking down the old, wooden stairs was that I'd made a serious mistake when I'd fallen in love with Kimber. I'd misinterpreted his feelings for me. It was never about me, it was always about theKid, about Kimber finding the right woman to watch over his boy when he no longer could. That was the hardest realization of all.

As I ran frantically out of the Morrison Inn, all I could think was that I'd been duped. I'd simply been a business calculation for Kimber, not the love of his life. Upon realizing that he would die, Kimber Canavan had immediately wondered, what will happen to theKid? And I'd been the answer. He'd shopped me, or at least I began to think that he'd shopped me. His dream had happened just weeks before I'd met him, meaning that it was possible he'd not just happened at London's. He'd gone there for the same reasons I'd gone there—to find the right person. Where Kimber had the advantage, was in his money. No, he wouldn't reveal that immediately. He'd wait until he found a woman of good moral character before he mentioned he was wealthy, but men like Kimber don't find the dating world cruel and full of disappointments. They feel like they rise above the other schlubs at an event like that, and by pretending to not be a part of the "daters" at London's, he'd had the advantage of not being categorized or questioned the way the other men there were.

The more I thought about it, the harder it was to un-think. Kimber had learned of his death and immediately started his hunt for the next mother of his son. It wasn't despicable; part of it was perfectly sane and reasonable. It was the way he'd done it, not his intentions that bothered me now. Why he would have thought I would make a great step-mother to theKid, I didn't know. I was the least likely candidate to play mommy. But then again, he'd introduced me to theKid on our first date, something that seemed so innocent and complimentary at the time. It wasn't because he thought I'd be better at the mommy role than the others, it was that this time, he was working against a timer. He now knew he had less than a year left.

Desperation is always its own sort of motive, and for Kimber, it was a new dimension. It added fuel to his normally unsocial way of operating, enough so that he'd had to attend London's for the same reason I had, but of course, he'd been too proud, too cool to admit that to me.

Suddenly, as the facts began to make the sort of sense that leads people to know they've stumbled into the truth blindly, I was sure of what I'd discovered. I thought about the ring, about how I'd known what ring was in the box without even looking at it and again realized that even leaving his browser history intact was part of his plan. He'd known I was unsure of his feelings for me, not because he didn't tell me, but because I'd never once believed that it was possible for him to feel for me what I felt for him. He'd left his browser history in place on purpose, hoping that if and when I looked at it, the idea of a $44,000 ring would be enough reassurance that Kimber loved me, to keep me despite his relentless talk of death. I was so predictable the whole time... How could I have been so blind?

The only thing I couldn't understand was why me? How had he known that engaging in violence in my honor, or whatever, wouldn't have repulsed me? How had he known that by beating the crap out of Mark, I would be drawn to him? Was it just that he assumed people attending a speed dating event were not only desperate, but openly so? Was that enough evidence for him that no matter what he did, I'd bite? Maybe, maybe not. Was it worse than that? Was I noticeably desperate to him, beyond what he saw in all the other people; was I a fish out of water? He'd seen the disgust on my face as Mark badgered me with inappropriate questions, but to go from that to believing that by knocking Mark's teeth out, I'd fall for him was a bit of a stretch. So why me? Why not Gina? She was more desperate than me, and certainly, if Kimber had paid her the sort of attention he paid me that night, Gina would have gone home with him. As much as she liked to act otherwise, Kimber would have been a 10 out of 10 catch for her, but because he'd chosen me instead of her, she'd despised him. Wow. Everyone was a fake, everyone was playing for keeps in a dating game that was anything but.

I wasn't the lucky one. I was the simplest one.

I sat in my Tahoe and cried. At first, just little, sad tears. Moments later, they turned into a flood of pain and embarrassment I couldn't control. I wondered what I'd ever done to him to make him think that for a few million dollars I would sit around with his son and wait for the phone call that would end our little life together. Had I appeared to be motivated by money? After all the time we had spent together, why would he think that I cared about money? I had money. I made more money annually than most median households, but I had the advantage of living frugally. I didn't need Kimber's money. In fact, I would have been capable of raising not only JimmytheKid, but a handful of lost brothers and sisters, had I found out that Kimber had fathered a dozen children.

Money.

Yes, it motivates those without it, but for those of us with it, power is the real tease. I didn't need power either, but it was a far more attractive carrot to dangle before me than money. I didn't need a new car, my Tahoe was only a couple of years old and still worth, according to Kelley Blue Book, $44,000, the exact same price as the ring Kimber had tried to marry me with. The ring was just as unattractive to me in that second as the offer for money had been. It was tasteless of Kimber to assume that he could dupe me with the money or the ring, without a heartfelt proposition. Part of meeting and coming to terms with Kimber was coming to terms with the notion that the man had nothing. That's what he was trying to appear like, right? I'd met him under this pretext. I'd moved forward with him after accepting his little coffee shop as innovative and creative enough to be impressive. Yes, when we'd purchased The Berkshire, I'd realized that Kimber had more money than he'd let on, but it hadn't sent me into a frantic search behind every photograph hanging from his rental house walls, looking for a safe. I'd assumed he had money after that. It never came up in conversation, so I'd never asked about it.

For the people of Morrison, Idledale, and Kittridge, this was too vast a hole in their logic to wrap their heads around. The majority of the world doesn't have a lot of money, so for them it's understandable to seek it; no, to want it. Had Kimber selected almost anyone else at London's that night, this would have played out the exact way he wanted it to. He would have made his proposition involving long-term care for theKid followed by sliding the $44,000 ring across the table nonchalantly. He'd been spared the need to even ask if the young lady would like to take his hand in marriage, which for Kimber was just one more step toward insuring that his son would be well taken care of. It wasn't too much of a leap from there to assume that Kimber needed me to marry him in order to be sure that theKid would get whatever Kimber left behind for him. It's more difficult to give or leave something for a friend than it is to leave it behind for his wife. He'd chosen me and gotten to know me, whether that was accidental or not, well enough to know that I loved him most, yet still he chose to lure me closer to him with gifts and money and rewards for a job well done rather than through a heartfelt proposition that would make me weep with joy as I nodded frantically, yes.

This train of thought was enough to get me to start the Tahoe and want, really want, to leave. Before I even knew what I was doing, I was headed back toward The Berkshire. As soon as I realized that I'd instinctually turned toward "home," toward theKid, I turned left onto Highway 8. As my tires squealed into my left-hand turn, all I could think of was theKid. I looked in the direction of The Berkshire, as if I expected to see theKid hovering in the sky above the steep and barren mountains. When he wasn't there, my emotions overwhelmed me, tears leaking from my eyes like rats abandoning the sinking ship. I shook and cried out loud, listening to how pathetic I sounded as I thought only of the boy, JimmytheKid, who was at home with Maria, waiting for me to come back from dinner with his father so he could beat me at Scrabble. It was the first time that I realized the extent to which I loved that boy. I'd known that I loved him, but it was that instant that I realized how much.

I thought I was at emotional rock bottom. I honestly believed so much that I picked up my phone, scanned it for a text message icon across the top, and noticed there was nothing. Kimber had let me go and I demanded, I promised myself, right then and there that I would do the same. I would let Kimber go. I tossed the phone hopelessly onto the passenger seat and stepped on the gas, trying to outrun my pain and embarrassment. Before I knew it, I was holding the phone again and waiting as the line rang on Gina Dean's end.

One of the things I didn't understand then, that I do now, is that half-assed friends are absolutely worthless. Good friends are priceless, but anything less than a good friend is shit. That's the sort of lesson that a lot of people don't learn before they're dead and gone. It's not the most obvious lesson to people. They have to learn it the hard way. They have to be failed and failed enough, by the same person, to finally demand it stops. Once they do, once they cut the ties that bind and spend a few weeks in a smaller, lonelier world, they come to the conclusion that what they're missing from their lives isn't a friend that was occasionally good to them, but an enemy dressed in sheep's clothing. Eliminating the negative influences in our lives is still isolating, but not all attention is good attention and when the cancerous friends we've kept along throughout the years are gone, we realize that remaining in the stillness of our emptier hours is peace.

When Gina Dean answered her phone, I knew immediately that she was a friend like this to me. As I complained to her through my cries and sobs, I could hear the delight in her voice. Often times, people take our failures and hurts and turn them into food for esteem. As I cried to Gina, my once closest friend, I knew that she wasn't hurting for me. She wasn't quiet and somber the way a hurt friend aches for another; she was loud, happy, and uninterested in making me feel better about the situation. She took the opportunity to tell me that she'd known all along that Kimber and I weren't right for each other, and why hadn't I just listened to her in the first place? Her voice was sing-songy as I pictured her pacing her apartment with her cell phone to her ear, checking her Gateway desktop computer for new tags or comments on her Facebook page, the way pathetic people always do. I could hear her television in the background, and then it went silent. Gina must have walked to it between bouts of checking her Facebook page, thinking that this was a conversation rather than what I'd intended it to be, a rescue.

"Gina, are you going to invite me over?" I finally was forced to ask. As I did so, I promised myself that no matter what happened with me and Kimber, I was never going back to Gina Dean again after this. I needed her now more than I ever had, and after all the times I'd been the person that Gina needed, I suppose I thought that maybe this one time she would do for me what I'd done for her so many times, even if the bitch didn't want to.

There was a pause, which solidified my decision about her, before she finally said, "Yeah, I suppose you can come over. Well... as long as the coal miner isn't with you." Then she laughed before adding, "Well, obviously he's not with you. If he was, I wouldn't be hearing from you at all."

Yes, I had disappeared on her. I had stopped going with her to "events," which was really what Gina was mad about, but she wasn't adult enough to ever admit that to me. Instead, she'd just go on this way for as long as it took me to address the fact that I'd been distant of late. I'd have to grovel at her feet for her to really embrace me in my state of emotion, and frankly, I didn't have groveling at that wretched woman's feet in me. "If you don't want me to come, say so Gina."

"It's not that I don't want you to come over, Lai. It's just that I'm a busy girl these days. I have people counting on me to be there for them."

I almost hung up on her. I didn't, but I almost did. Instead, I closed my eyes and promised myself a one-night stay at Gina's apartment, and if for some reason Kimber and I didn't patch things up by the next day, I'd stay in a hotel. I told myself over and over again that I could survive one night with my former friend, despite the way I found myself loathing her. I reminded myself that my grandmother had survived Auschwitz, that I was from a long line of survivors and a night at Gina's would be hard, but not much harder than a night in a Nazi prison camp.

How can this be over with Kimber? How could this really be over? Was I wrong to get so angry with him? Wasn't he just a guy that was deluded into believing that God, the same God that made the heavens and the earth, had spoken to him through dreams, like Joseph? Wasn't Kimber just doing what he knew to do, taking care of his son to the best of his capabilities? Was it Kimber's fault that my feelings got hurt? Hadn't he warned me on the first night that no matter what, theKid would always come first? Hadn't I agreed to those terms when I'd stayed that night?

I wasn't even to Gina's place yet, and already I felt like I'd been the one to overreact and cause this fight with Kimber. I realized that I didn't like how he'd proposed to me, but I did understand why he'd done what he did. I understood that for Kimber, he was going to die. It didn't matter to him if I believed in him or not, the outcome would be the same. Part of me thought that if Kimber really did believe his life was almost over, he should have convinced me. He should have made it his mission to make me believe, but when I asked myself how he would do that, the only way I could think of was to be an honest man in every other aspect of his life and hope that the people around him would include what they knew of his character when deciding whether he was lying about his death.

My heart seemed to skip beats. I realized that despite his flaws, that is exactly what Kimber had done. He'd been honest and sincere in everything else in his life. He'd been a listener and a shoulder for me so many times in the last eleven months that to not believe in him was... well, disrespectful. I felt awful when I realized that the only way Kimber could continue on in his life, seemingly normal, was to do EXACTLY what he'd been doing. He'd been persistent but standoffish, loving, caring, and sincere since day one. The fact that I still didn't believe him wasn't a criticism of Kimber Canavan, but of the person I had somehow become. I'd gotten so close to him. I loved him so dearly, that in some sort of obsessive way, I'd dismissed what he'd been telling me all along.

"The Bible says that we'll know them by the fruits they bear," Kimber had told me during one day's bible lesson; yet I hadn't understood it, not until that second when I was on my way to Gina's (despite what every fiber in my body was telling me). It was only then that I understood Kimber's verse, or God's meaning by it. It wasn't about believing the words you are hearing, but believing the person telling you. Kimber had produced the sort of fruit God intended of His people. Kimber wasn't a perfect Christian, but that wasn't what he'd set out to be. He'd set out to win people for God in the only respectable way he knew of―through being the sort of person that people trust and believe in.

I began to recall my thoughts from the Morrison Inn when I'd been sitting in my Tahoe too sad to go anywhere. Kimber sought me out. He hunted me down because I was an easy mark... He'd come to London's that night to find the most pathetic of the pathetic, and I was it... But that's not really what happened, is it? I'd hunted Kimber down. I'd come to him. Whether or not Kimber was hunting for a mommy that night didn't matter because he hadn't found it that night. Instead, I'd found him a few days later. Maybe he'd thought I was an easy target that night at London's, but when I'd left there with Gina (against my better judgment), he hadn't come after me. I went after him. Was it possible that God... No. It isn't or it wasn't... But it was. It was at this point that I realized that sometimes the will of God transcends His select gang of devout followers and lands like a hand grenade in a room full of believers and nonbelievers alike. Maybe I was a casualty of war, a casualty of the will of God, whatever that meant.

I should have called Kimber right then and there, but I was too proud or too hurt to do it. I wanted Kimber to hurt for a little while, the way he'd hurt me so many times with his talk of death, his talk of leaving me alone in the world. I realized however that in Kimber's world, time was different than it was in mine. If I left Kimber alone for too long, he'd do what he had to do in order to make sure his son would be protected and looked after in the future. Whether he loved me or not, theKid would always come first, just like Kimber had told me. He didn't have time to wait for me to make up my mind about whether I was in until the end or not. If I was out, he'd have to move and move fast. That wouldn't be hard for him to do with seven million bucks there to assist him as he looked for a candidate. I hoped it would take him at least a day or two, but how many did he have left? I wasn't sure, nor did I know then that Kimber knew exactly how long he had left, almost to the minute. He'd been intentionally vague about when he would die, but part of me knew that Kimber was more informed than he sounded. He'd been sworn to secrecy, partially to avoid this sort of thing. By keeping it vague, he kept hope alive. That was for my sake. Had he told me that on such and such a date, he would die at damn near noon exactly, we would have been counting down. Instead, we counted each day that passed as a blessing, hoping that enough of them would pass unnoticed so that one morning we could wake up and realize that a year and a half had rolled by and Kimber was still among us.

Unbeknownst to me, as I pulled into Gina Dean's driveway, Kimber and theKid had just short of 70 hours left to live.

God forgive me.

Gina Dean wasn't at all what I remembered of her. Sometimes the best perspective we have on someone is the one made after a long absence. As soon as I saw her, I remembered my promise to myself, the one where I'd said this would be the last time we were ever intentionally together. I would see her again, but not intentionally. In a week's time, Gina Dean would show up at The Little Church in Morrison, dressed like Jackie O in black attire and huge, dark shades. When she came into the church, she'd pretend to be the best friend of both the dead man and the bereaved woman who should have been seated in the front of the church, but wasn't because of hostile speculation and ridiculous rumors. When I couldn't stay in the church any longer, I ran out expecting my friend to follow me, but she didn't. She stayed and helped fuel the rumors that isolated me in the first place. She'd do that by taking things I said to her at her apartment that night out of context as she fawned over the friends Kimber and I once shared.

I stayed at Gina's for the night and stayed in a hotel the next night. The isolation and silence of the hotel room contrasted so drastically from Gina's tiny, cluttered apartment that I fell asleep ten minutes after walking into it. When I awoke on Friday morning, I dressed and went to work, determined to go back to The Berkshire when I got off, whether I'd heard from Kimber or not. If he was going to try and replace my position as mother to theKid, he'd have to do it while I played out the game of Scrabble theKid and I had postponed Wednesday night.

By Friday morning, I couldn't muster up one ounce of anger at Kimber. It had become more and more clear to me that what he and I were fighting about that night was nothing more than Kimber's desire to see his son protected. I should have just refused the money and taken theKid under my wing on my own terms. JimmytheKid didn't know about the millions in wait for him, so had I just agreed to take him and use my own money to raise him, he would have been none the wiser. It wasn't just about me and Kimber anymore; in fact, it wasn't about the two of us at all anymore. It was all about me and theKid now. I couldn't have been happier about the idea of spending the rest of my life with the boy that would surely grow up to be his father one day. I thought fleetingly, now I know how Mary must have felt when she was chosen by God to deliver His son into the world.

About an hour before I was scheduled to leave E.E. Errand and Sons, my phone rang. I looked at it frantically, the way I had with every phone call that had come to me for the last 48 hours and almost screamed out loud when I saw the name "Kimber" on the screen. I picked up and began to cry instantly, as did Kimber. We talked for five minutes before he told me to come home right away and to forget the fight because it was meaningless. He said, for my sake, that theKid had been crying because of my absence. He told me that JimmytheKid loved me, but not nearly as much as his father did. I almost died as a wave of relief flooded over me. I hung up the phone, closed my laptop, and walked out of the office.

When I drove up the long driveway to The Berkshire, the tears began to flow again. I was never so glad to be "home" in all of my life. The first thing I saw as I made the sharp right into the U of our driveway was theKid, running full bore at me, his arms spread wide. I'm not sure I even put the car in park before I was out the door and embracing the young boy, squeezing him to my chest and kissing the side of his head while he hung onto me for dear life. Kimber was out the door as soon as he heard me, probably from his upstairs writing office. When he saw me, he wept. Before I could even set theKid back down on his own two feet, Kimber was hugging the boy and me both with his strong, wide arms.

Walking into the house, the first thing I noticed was the smell. Lilacs and cedar shakes, the way home had come to smell, the way it was supposed to smell, embraced me as I walked through the door. I looked at the house, our house, and took it all in. On the kitchen table, exactly where I left it, was the Scrabble board. I picked JimmytheKid up and hugged him again. I whispered into his ear, "I'm so glad you kept the game out. I'm so glad you didn't give up on me, Kid."

JimmytheKid looked into my eyes, his little hand touching me on the face and said, "Don't ever leave us again, Lai. I need you more than ever."

Beside the Scrabble board was the stack of papers I'd last seen at the Morrison Inn two days ago. Seeing them reminded me that we weren't done with this discussion, though by this point my idealism and stick-to-itiveness had receded into mere displeasure at seeing them. Kimber's eyes followed mine to the stack of papers. He watched me glance at them and then when my eyes found his again, he kept his gaze on me. "What'ya say? You want to sign?"

I didn't answer immediately, scared that he was going to get animated and outlandish if I denied him his peace of mind one more time. "What's in the stack? Why so many papers?"

"It's just power of attorney, will stuff, financial matters... You can read them all, Lai. It's just what I said it is, nothing more."

"I don't need to read them. Give me a pen." I was amazed at my own transformation. It dawned on me that two days without Kimber had taught me more about who he was―not only in my life, but in this world―than all the time I'd spent with him before our hiatus. He was an honest man, a good man, and this was what it took to assemble Kimber's peace of mind. I wasn't going to stand between him and his preparedness any longer. I loved him, wholly, selflessly, and entirely. I took the pen into my hand and without looking at a single document (more to prove my loyalty to Kimber than for any other purpose), I signed each page that theKid happily slid into place before me.

When I was done, theKid looked at me and said, "So you're my mom now?"

"I'll never be your mom, JimmytheKid, not the one that gave you life; but if I can spend the rest of mine with you, I'll be happy."

"If you spend the rest of your life with me, I think you are my mom," he said simply, naively.

"If the title works for you, buddy, it works for me," I said, glancing at Kimber who was wiping tears from his eyes.

JimmytheKid wasn't done with the conversation as Kimber came over to me, seated at the kitchen table, and placed his hands on my shoulders. "I want you to be my mom now, but is it okay if I still call you Lai?"

"You can call me anything you want," I said, tears in my own eyes because of those I saw in Kimber's.

"Thank you," Kimber barely managed before he allowed his tears to flow more readily. "I can't tell you how relieved I am to have that taken care of," he said, sobbing.

I stood up and hugged him, my chest to his, my head tucked into his neck. Kimber hugged me back, his hands moving slowly up and down my back as I relished his touch. I squeezed him, my body shaking as I tightened my grip around his back. "I'm glad you feel relieved."

"Wanna finish the game?" JimmytheKid asked, pointing at the Scrabble board.

I looked it over curiously, excited, no euphoric to have my family back. I pretended to be scrutinizing the board, suggesting that theKid might have cheated in my absence. "Did you cheat, little boy?" I asked, tickling him under his arms as he screamed in torture.

"No! I didn't cheat!" he protested.

"You sure?" I asked again, giving him what I thought were teacher eyes, intense and penetrating.

"I promise."

"Okay, then let's play. I'm about to put you out of your misery," I said, sliding out a chair for him on the other side of the game board.

"Dad wanted me to put the game away, but I told him no. I told him that you'd be back and when you were, you'd want to finish the game with me."

I looked at Kimber who was standing over us, smiling distantly. "He did," Kimber said with a nod of his head.

I touched JimmytheKid's little hand, patting it. I squeezed it to get his attention, leaned over to him and said with all my heart, "I love you, Kid. I couldn't love you more if you'd come out of my belly. Thank you for waiting for me, for knowing that I had to come back for you. I'll never leave you again, I promise."

"I love you too, Lai." he said, his eyes disengaging me and returning to the board. He was ready for his next move.

TheKid played the word 'casket' through my previously played word, 'kid.' JimmytheKid was about to play again when out of nowhere Kimber said, "I have an idea. Y'all want to go to Vedauwoo?"

When news of my inheritance got out, the time at which I signed those documents would be called into question. It would start with Joe Frank and end only after the Jefferson County Sheriff's Deputy who'd been "following up on a tip" announced that there was nothing more he could do to investigate me. I'd been cleared by the Wyoming State Police, the Colorado State Police, and a representative of the Canavan estate, who was put in his place by Kimber's longtime friend and lawyer, Jeffery Meyer. Meyer insisted relentlessly for months that everything that happened was natural, and that Kimber's wishes had been seen through. Jeff became an ally for me in the months that followed Kimber and theKid's death, and honestly, without him I might have been locked up, outcast, or worse, murdered.

I inherited 7.7 million dollars, two businesses, the house, Kimber's 401k, and everything that once belonged to Kimber and theKid. Of those belongings, the Scrabble board was most important to me. I had the game pieces glued into place, and the board framed and mounted on the wall. I still see it upon entering The Berkshire, and sometimes I stare at it wondering what my next word would have been.
CHAPTER 13

September 2009

Kimber fell asleep in theKid's bed before theKid did, leaving me in his bed alone, staring at the ceiling fan and the strange art on Kimber's rental house walls. For a while I lay awake waiting for him, but the weed and the alcohol were both sedatives, and before long I couldn't resist them any longer. I closed my eyes feeling strangely at home in their little house, and with the exception of Maria, who seemed unfriendly and uninterested in me, I felt like I belonged there.

It seemed like I'd just closed my eyes when I heard the door squeaking open, followed by footsteps, slow and quiet, and then there was weight in the bed. The mattress moved in that way it does when someone is getting in or out on the other side; but this time, I could tell that there were two bodies in bed with me, not just Kimber. I'll admit that I was hoping for some alone time with him, especially here, in his bed, but at the sight of theKid that first morning, I was just as happy. I didn't know, nor will I ever know, what Kimber said to theKid about me that night as he tried to put the boy to sleep, but it seemed to me that by morning theKid had come to terms with me.

I rolled over to face them, smiling at the sight of them. Their hair was matted, sleep was written across their faces, and I realized for the first time just how shockingly similar the two of them appeared. JimmytheKid was just a smaller version of his father, and I thought that it must have killed theKid's mother to see Kimber in her son as clearly as I could. It seemed to me that theKid didn't have any features of anyone else in him. It was as if Kimber had cloned him, or birthed him alone without the genetic input of anyone else.

"You wanna have breakfast?" theKid asked me as he bounced on his knees in the space between his father and me in the big bed.

"I'd love breakfast," I said a little hesitantly. I was unfamiliar with kids, unsure of what I could and couldn't say to him about his father and me, and everything else.

"My dad makes the best egg and bacon sandwiches. They're the best in the whole world!"

"Is that right? I'm not sure about that; you haven't tried mine yet," I said, feeling awkward.

"Well..." theKid thought about that for a second and said, "I haven't had yours, but his are sooooooo good." JimmytheKid looked at his father for Kimber's nod of approval.

"Well, why take chances. Let's have your dad's," I said, smiling at Kimber.

"You know how to play any games?" theKid asked.

"Sure, I know how to play a bunch of games. What are your favorites? Sorry? Chutes and Ladders?" I asked optimistically. I thought I remembered how to play those games, but mentally I began quizzing my recollection of the game of Sorry. I was sure of most of the cards, but the eleven was concerning me. Was that the one where you could switch with another player? I thought so.

"My favorite is Scrabble," theKid said.

I laughed, thinking he was mistaken. "You sure you mean Scrabble? That's a word game."

"I know what it is. I play it all the time. Maria taught me, but her English isn't the best, so sometimes I have to tell her that the words she plays aren't real. Sometimes she tries to cheat and use Spanish words."

I laughed again and looked at Kimber to confirm we were talking about the same game. He nodded, his eyebrows arched as he did so. "Don't discredit him. He's damn good," Kimber said seriously.

"Really?" I asked Kimber but looked at theKid. "Why Scrabble?"

"He loves words. He loves knowing them. Obviously, some of them he spells phonetically, but he understands their meaning as well as you and me."

I looked at theKid. "Well, it just so happens that I'm the Colorado State champion at Scrabble," I lied.

"You are?" the boy said impressed.

"No, that's entirely untrue. But I am pretty good."

"Oh," JimmytheKid said a little disappointed. "Well, I'll play with you if you want to."

"Why don't the two of you battle it out while I make breakfast? Then, if theKid wants to, I'll take you guys to my other business," Kimber said.

"Sweat Stains?" theKid asked with renewed pep in his voice.

"Of course," Kimber said. "Assuming you'll dance," he said to his son.

"Yeah, Dad. You know I'll dance!" TheKid looked at me and asked, "Have you been to Sweat Stains, Lai?"

"I don't even know what you two are talking about." I said, looking at Kimber, "You own another business?"

"Yes, ma'am," he said proudly. "And trust me, it's different than Kanavan."

"Is it a coffee shop?"

"Yeah, it's coffee," theKid answered for his father.

"It is, but not like anything else you've ever seen," Kimber added.

"Well, why do I find that easy to believe? Let's do it," I said, excited to see what else Kimber Canavan had up his sleeve.

On day two of my date with Kimber, which was really just an extension of day one, he took me to what theKid called "the dancing place." We took my Tahoe instead of Kimber's old Honda because theKid was so enamored with the idea of having a television screen behind each seat. I didn't have any kid's movies for him to watch, but theKid remedied that with a stack of movies that would've taken him a lifetime to watch. As we all climbed into my car, theKid went on and on about how nice it was, just before he started picking on his dad for driving such an old car.

Without discussing it, the two of them decided to keep everything about Sweat Stains a mystery. They'd say nothing about the place or how to get there, unless we were coming up on a turn that I'd have to make. We took highway 8 from Morrison to US-285 where I turned north and followed it to C-470. Once we reached 470, Kimber instructed me to turn toward Morrison, past the Bandimere Speedway until we merged with I-70 eastbound. From there, I turned onto 6th Avenue and drove into Denver proper where directions got too complicated to repeat. I was making lefts and rights, merging into one-way streets and then following Broadway south. At 1st and Broadway, Kimber had me park in a small parking garage where a friendly attendant waved and said, "Good morning, Mr. Canavan."

"Mornin', Julio," Kimber said with a wave and then pointed me to "his spot." We parked the car and exited the vehicle, theKid so excited for me to see this place that he was hard to contain. "Come on, guys!" he yelled as he ran for the elevator.

"What is this place?" I asked Kimber.

"This," he paused for effect, "is my brainchild. I believed in it right from the get-go, though not everyone thought it would work."

"But you knew it would, huh?" I asked.

"I knew it had potential, but I also knew that once I did it, it would be an easy business to replicate."

"So was it?"

"What, replicated?" he asked. "Yeah, but they didn't survive. I'd already become the industry standard for such a business. Businesses are about more than just buildings. They're about heart. Anyone can open a business, but only the people with heart will really thrive in it."

"Well, your coffee shop certainly has heart," I said and meant it.

"And it thrives," Kimber said unnecessarily. "I think it was because of Kanavan that I decided I could pull this off. I saw a need, and I filled it. Yeah, it's coffee but it's more than just that. You'll see. It's a lifeline to the disenfranchised."

"What's that mean?" I asked.

Kimber grabbed my hand and squeezed it. "You'll see. Be patient."

The elevator opened up onto the street. I wasn't expecting to be looking directly at Broadway when the doors opened, but there we were. When the doors closed behind us, I realized that they had been painted to look exactly like the brick wall surrounding it, making it almost perfectly invisible. "Yeah, it's fun to watch people leaving, when they're trying to find the elevator doors," Kimber said with a laugh.

The building, obviously an old theater house, was two stories tall and deeper than it appeared from the street side. It was made of red brick and had what appeared to be the original, white trim around the authentic, old windows. Everything about the structure looked authentically ancient with the exception of a futuristic looking room that jutted out into the sidewalk, made entirely of mirrors. The room sticking out of the far side wall was about fifteen feet by twenty, and I noticed that someone had taken on the cost of rerouting the sidewalk around the room, a task that had to have involved town officials and a lot of money. The room changed the way the theater looked. I didn't know what the place could have been, or what the room was for, but just looking at the building, curiosity overtook me. As we approached, I noticed a woman standing in front of one of the mirrored walls, touching her face and straightening her hair. When she was satisfied that she looked as good as she could, she moved on, following the path of sidewalk as it wound around the room.

"Well the mirror walls are certainly clean," I said to no one in particular.

"They better be. I pay a guy to clean them five times a day. People can't just look in a mirror; for some reason, they have to touch it."

I'd been on this street before, everyone in the Denver area has, but I'd never noticed this particular building before, which seemed strange to me as it was so noticeably unique. "How long has this place been here?"

"The building was built in 1885, but I bought it in 2007. The glass addition has been here since," he said.

"Why have I never noticed it before?"

He looked at me. "I don't know the answer to that. It's been here, just like this, for a couple of years."

"Hmm... strange," I said as I watched theKid disappear into the entrance. When theKid opened the door I heard voices inside, as if the place were packed. Somewhere behind the hum of talking customers was the sound of electronic music thumping from behind closed doors. "Is he okay in there without you?" I asked.

"Yeah. He's fine. He's a local celebrity at Sweat Stains."

"Because his father owns it?" I asked, regretting my words immediately. It sounded like I was discrediting the boy. Kimber heard the mistake I'd made and looked at me. I quickly said, "No, I just mean..."

"It's fine. Yeah, partly because the place is mine, but also because he's a pretty good dancer himself."

I smiled. "I believe that. Are you?"

"What, a good dancer?" he asked. "No. But that hasn't stopped me in the past."

I smiled.

"What?" he asked.

"Nothing."

"No, tell me. What's funny?"

"You just seem like the kind of guy that only does things that he's good at," I admitted.

Kimber stopped walking, his smile turning into a loud belly laugh. "Really? Is that how I come across?" he asked me, genuinely interested in my answer.

"I guess. I don't know." I was laughing too. "I just haven't seen anything that you're not good at yet."

"Oh," he said simply. "Well... welcome to Sweat Stains, a Canavan Company where we offer dancing, coffee, and friendship, and... more importantly, where you'll surely see me doing something I'm not good at―dancing. You ready?" he asked and reached out his hand for the door. I looked at the door and smiled when I saw the word Sweat Stains hand painted onto it. Below it, in old fashioned lettering, were the words A CANAVAN COMPANY, which I knew just by the fact that they were there, meant "another genius canavan company."

Just to get a rise out of Kimber, I asked, "What's the meaning behind A Canavan Company?"

"It means that what's inside is genius, different." He smiled smugly.

"Pretty proud of yourself, huh?" I asked as Kimber opened the door.

"Indeed, Lai. Indeed."

Other than the wonderful smell of coffee brewing, the most noticeable thing about Sweat Stains was the darkness that surrounded old, hardwood furniture and a matching bar top. The barista, if you can call the guy making coffee on the old-looking, Italian espresso machine such a thing, was wearing an old-time barkeep outfit, including bow tie and suspenders. He had a beard, a bald head, and wore his white sleeves rolled up to just below his elbows.

There were people everywhere, making the large interior feel uncomfortably crowded in my opinion. We got no further inside than just out of reach of the door when we were stopped by the crowd of women, lost in loud conversation, as they talked over the sound of electronic music thumping in a different room.

The barkeep looked at Kimber, who gestured to the large wooden doors that separated the coffee shop part of Sweat Stains from the theater part, obviously the place where the dance floor was now located. The barkeep looked at another man wearing the same get-up, standing just beside the old, heavy looking, wooden doors on the far side of the coffee portion, and gestured to the doors. The other man, big and muscular looking, instantly turned and closed the doors. The sound of thumping music diminished, not disappearing entirely, but certainly receded into a tolerable volume. The room we were standing in instantly grew quieter as the women switched from their outdoor voices to their coffee shop murmuring.

Still pinned into the small space beside the door, Kimber squeezed past me and began to make a hole for us to walk through by tapping women on the shoulder to excuse us as we passed. The women we were trying to pass recognized Kimber now that he was moving, and it was like Kanavan Coffee all over again. The ladies squealed his name as recognition dawned on them. Kisses and hugs, whispered words in his ears, and pats on his back began immediately as Kimber worked desperately to get me to the bar where we could talk. That was out of the question for Kimber, however. Even if he'd wanted to, he wouldn't have had the time to speak to me in there, not at Sweat Stains, his place. The women were thrilled to have the man himself in their midst, and though at first it seemed like a lot of glad-handing, I realized that these were friends of his and not just acquaintances.

It wasn't until we'd made it half way to the bar that I realized what most, if not all, of these women had in common. They were larger, plus-sized women, most of whom were caked in makeup and perfume and all of whom were smiling uncontrollably at the sight of Kimber Canavan. Being there and seeing what I'd seen the day before, but in a different environment happening all over again, was as daunting as it was flattering. I was sure of Kimber now, surer than I'd been yesterday at Kanavan and again that night at the MI, but now it was starting to feel like a bit much to compete with. I felt strongly about Kimber, maybe I even loved him before Sweat Stains, but as strongly as I felt about him, I felt out of place here with him, where he was obviously wanted by hordes of women. I asked myself if I wanted this sort of relationship, a relationship where Kimber was always going to be Mr. Popular and I'd be reduced to "the girl with Kimber" for the rest of our lives. I didn't know if I had the self-esteem to be Kimber's girlfriend, to be hated by the women that loved him and threw themselves at him day in and day out. As appealing as he was, he didn't come to me without costs. The cost was this, being stranded at the coffee bar in a strange place without the man I loved or liked there to talk to me because he was too busy giving everyone else little pieces of himself. If Kimber was always going to be "handling" his local celebrity status, where did that leave me? Alone and uncomfortable, watching him work the crowd over with his magic smile and genuine hugs of care and concern for his customers, which made me feel, almost immediately, like a third wheel.

His entrance had stirred the herd and now there was no getting him back, not easily anyway. I was beginning to feel sorry for myself when I remembered theKid was in here somewhere with me. I began to look frantically for theKid whom I felt might be a little more accessible to me. I couldn't find him anywhere as I scanned the room for glimpses of theKid between big thighs and bellies. Women were walking around in the entire gamut of wardrobe choices from business casual to stretch pants and home-made tank-tops, some sweaty and others perfectly dry and made up. I didn't get what Sweat Stains was, not even after I realized almost all of the people before me were of plus size, but I was certainly curious.

Just then there was a voice from behind me, addressing me by name. "Lai?" I turned around and realized that the barkeep was looking at me, waiting to see if I'd reply to the name that theKid had obviously given him.

"Yes?" I asked.

"Hey, I'm Poppy, Kimber's business partner and friend," he said, sticking out his hand to shake.

"Hi, Poppy. It's nice to meet you."

Poppy was older than I'd thought when I'd seen him from the doorway, probably pushing forty years old, well-built, and handsome in a feminine sort of way. He's what my father would have called "a pretty fella," with his eyebrows meticulously waxed, his eyelashes long and luxurious, his lips shiny enough to make me think that he'd put lip gloss on them just seconds before. He had a warm smile and I liked him immediately. I shook his hand and noticed that pretty or not, Poppy had a serious grip, strong, tattoo-free arms, and well-manicured nails. "It's a little busier than usual," Poppy explained. "We're in the middle of Kimber's 'Biggest Loser' challenge."

I leaned toward him and said, "Forgive me, but what is this place? I don't understand what it is. Kimber was supposed to explain it to me, but he's uh..." I turned and looked around the crowded room for Kimber, not seeing him anywhere.

"Yeah, I feel ya on that one. It's always like this with him at this place. No one can ever get him to talk for more than thirty seconds without someone else coming up and interrupting. We do all of our business talks after hours for that exact reason."

"Good, then I'm not alone or being shunned?" I smiled.

Poppy smiled too. "No. He's just one of those guys. He's magic; I swear it. He comes off as humble and all that, but secretly, I think he relishes the attention."

"Yeah, I see that," I said, deciding to sit down on the old bar stools that had recently been reupholstered.

"So Sweat Stains..." Poppy began, "Is Kimber's idea of a health club. Back there, beyond those two very heavy doors, is a dance floor. The idea is that no one thinks of dancing as exercise, but it is. Kimber thought, and gambled his money on the idea, that if he made a non-alcoholic dance club, a place that served coffee rather than booze, people would come before work to dance and wake up, drink their coffee, take a shower, and face the day with confidence."

"Wait, so this whole thing is designed to be exercise oriented? What's the prize for the Biggest Loser contest?" I asked.

"A hundred grand," Poppy said with wide eyes.

"What? No way! Kimber's got a hundred grand to give away?" I asked, not thinking I'd heard him right.

Poppy looked at me quizzically for a minute before he nodded. "Yeah. Kimber does well for himself. Don't let the corduroys fool ya, or that hunk of crap car of his. He does just fine, believe me." Poppy smiled.

"Is it working? Are people losing weight?"

Poppy's eyes widened. "Are you kidding me? Girl, you gotta see the chart. Look at that." Poppy pointed at a chart on the wall that tallied not only the individual contestants, but the combined total. "You see that? All told, Sweat Stains has taken two thousand pounds off of its patrons in the last year. A thousand just in the last sixty days. They've got thirty-three more days before the winner is announced, but we're thinking that the winner will have lost more than a hundred pounds in 90 days. Part of that is the diet. Kimber bought juicers for everyone that could lose more than forty pounds in the first month, which in turn drastically increased their weight loss. You know about juicing, right?" Poppy asked.

"Yeah. Like vegetable juicing you mean?"

"Exactly. Look up there. You see Martha Thomas' name up there? She's at seventy-seven pounds as of this morning, and we're thinking she'll break a hundred before the competition ends. There are five women all within five pounds of each other. It'll be a nail biter in a few weeks, but regardless, the competition has done wonders for our membership, I'll give him that. If he pays out a hundred grand, he'll make half a mil easy just from word of mouth. He's talking about having a competition like this every quarter. If he does, we'll have to open Sweat Stains Two."

"I hate to admit it, but this is a brilliant idea. Not just the competition, but the whole place. And to top it all off, it's beautiful too."

Poppy looked at the crowd and then back to me nodding. "Yeah, I gotta give it to the guy, he comes up with some off the wall ideas, but they're brilliant. When he told me about the idea for Sweat Stains, I thought it was smart and innovative and all, but I didn't have any faith that it would really work. I was like, 'Who's gonna pay a hundred bucks a month to dance?' but look." He nodded to the crowd. "It worked."

"So he used the same subscription based ideas for this place as he did the coffee shop?"

"Exactly."

"So, you said there was no booze. Does that mean it's not open at night?"

"Correct. It's open from four in the morning until four in the afternoon. The coffee shop stays open all day, but the dance floor closes at one so the writers can write in peace. Kimber caters to writers and musicians. That's why he built the Writer's Room over there." Poppy pointed to the room encased in mirrors. That was the first time I saw the room that had been so obvious from outside. The mirrored room wasn't mirrored at all, at least not from inside. Looking at it now I realized that the mirrors were actually one-way mirrors, obstructing the view from the outside in but not from the inside out. "You saw it from outside, right?" Poppy asked. I nodded. "Well, that was his ode to the writers that hang out. We call them campers because they sit in here for so long, but Kimber was adamant that we tolerate them. Honesty, I think we could do better things with that space, but Kimber likes it and he's the boss. I don't know, the writers are okay, a little pretentious maybe and definitely bad tippers, but they're a peaceful enough group."

"So the glass... the mirror thing is for what? For writers to look at people?"

"Yep. People from the outside can't see in, but they often stop and adjust their tits or their makeup in what they think is just a mirror. For writers, this is apparently paradise. Kimber says it's to help them people watch, which is supposed to be a big deal for writers. I don't know of any of our writers that have written anything worth reading, but maybe one day I'll be surprised."

"I think it's brilliant," I admitted, staring at the room with big office chairs and desks instead of countertops. "I bet they love it."

Poppy nodded. "Oh they definitely love it. I just wish one of them would write something noteworthy."

"Is this whole place his doing? Did Kimber come up with it all or did you help him?"

"Mostly it's all his. I tweaked a few things here and there, but Kimber's the boss. He came up with the ideas. I brought them to fruition."

"Well, nice job, Poppy. It's awesome." I thought for a second. "Hey, is Poppy your real name?"

"Cain Poponopolous," he said wincing. "We use Poppy to make it more palatable."

I smiled. "So you're Cain? I thought he was making that up."

"Did he tell you that he was baffled by the fact that my parents named me Cain instead of Abel?"

"Yes he did."

Poppy rolled his eyes. "He might be original in some aspects, but that joke's old and not even funny to most people. Of course, when your name is Cain you understand the Biblical reference, but for the rest of the world, it goes right over their heads. Kimber still thinks it's funny though, huh?"

"Yeah, I think so. He laughed when he told me, but I didn't get it."

"No one does," Poppy said and then turned to make another cup of coffee.

I raised my voice so that Poppy could hear me as he made coffee. "So you make coffee part time at Kanavan and then you drive over and make coffee here at Sweat Stains?"

"Yep. I just love making coffee that much," he said with a chuckle.

"So, Sweat Stains, is it just for... bigger women? Like, can anyone come in here or is it just for..."

"Yeah, just bigger women. It's a haven for them. Every other club in the world is full of pretty, scantily dressed women so Kimber made being plus size a requirement. That was another thing I disagreed with initially, but it turned out to be the right call after all. It's the exclusivity that brings 'em in... Well, that and the hundred grand he's giving away."

"It's brilliant, though now I think I understand why everyone's being so... well... cold to me in here."

"Partially. The other part is that Kimber is these women's perfect idea of what their future husband should be like."

"I can see that," I said, finding Kimber in the crowd again as he was making his way back to me.

"Here he comes," Poppy said, nodding in Kimber's direction.

Kimber got hung up no more than ten feet from reaching me, but the women that were surrounding him now seemed particularly intent on keeping him with them for the foreseeable future. I noticed they were pointing at the weight loss chart and talking animatedly about their standings as of that morning's weigh in. Poppy was back to work, glancing back to check on me every few seconds, when out of nowhere there was a tug on the bottom of my shirt. JimmytheKid was standing beside me, and when I turned to face him he asked, "You wanna dance with me, Lai?"

"Of course I do! You any good?" I asked.

"Yeah, I'm good!" TheKid insisted.

"I guess I'll have to be the judge of that," I said to theKid.

Poppy was back at the countertop, looking at JimmytheKid. "What's up, Kid? You gonna show this pretty lady how to dance or what?" he asked theKid as if he'd known him all his life.

JimmytheKid was equally as familiar with Poppy as Poppy was with him. "Yeah, I'll show her what's up," theKid said in his precocious way.

"I bet you will," Poppy said. "Hey, JimmytheKid, when you get in there, ask DJ Dark to spin that Pretty Lights song. You know... the one your father can never seem to resist."

"'I Can See it in Your Face'?" theKid asked.

"Yeah, that one and the other one... uh... 'Funk Smash'? Whatever, you know the other one."

"'Smash the Funk' by GRiZ," theKid said matter-of-factly. Then theKid turned to me and said, "Those are the two songs Dad can't resist dancing to. Every time they play them, the crowd makes him dance."

"Really? Your dad likes techno music?" I asked incredulous. I wouldn't have gotten that from his Features T-shirts.

"Oh yeah. He doesn't like people to know, but secretly he loves EDM."

"What's EDM?" I asked, stepping down from the bar stool.

"Electronic Dance Music," Poppy clarified. "Techno is the old term. Same crappy music, different name," Poppy said with a sly smile.

"It's not crappy. Not Pretty Lights anyway," theKid said to Poppy in a stern voice.

Poppy raised his hands in surrender. "Sorry, Kid. Don't shoot."

"I'm gonna tell Dad that you said that!" theKid said with a laugh.

"Nooooooo!" Poppy yelled in mock terror.

"Oh yeah, I'm gonna tell him you called Pretty Lights crappy."

"What if I pay you?" Poppy asked.

"What's Pretty Lights?" I asked.

"Pretty Lights? You don't know Pretty Lights? Uh oh, Dad's gonna flip out when he hears that!" TheKid looked at me severely. "It's only his favorite DJ."

"Wait, Pretty Lights is a band?" I asked naively.

"Not a band, a DJ. One guy. He's like the best DJ ever and he's from Denver. Dad wants to meet him. He keeps saying he's going to, but he hasn't."

"Kimber's celebrity-status has obvious limitations," Poppy said. "But theKid's right. He is seriously in love with that guy."

"Do you know him too?" I asked Poppy.

"Only because of Kimber's obsessions with him."

I looked at Kimber and then theKid. "Well, let's get in there and ask DJ Dark to play it. I want to hear it, but more than that, I want to see your dad dance. Is he any good?"

"To those songs he is," JimmytheKid said, pulling at my hand. "You'll see."

I gave Poppy a kindly nod of the head and my best terrified face as theKid pulled me by the hand to the massive doors. At the doors, a giant man wearing the exact same old-timey uniform as Poppy high fived theKid, nodded politely at me, and swung the doors open.

When the doors were open, a wall of sound collapsed onto my ears as theKid led me into the darkness. I followed theKid down the aisle that was once one of three that led from the back of the theater to the front. There were more than a hundred mostly larger women who moved unabashed on the dark dance floor, sweating and twisting, and laughing as they bounced in rhythm.

Dancing has always been the sort of thing I wished I could do, the sort of thing I sometimes fantasized about doing, but when I really do it, it's always the same brand of awful. I just can't seem to release myself into the music, to fall headfirst into the rhythm and let myself off the hook of self-judgment. For these women, however, it seemed easy. I'd never seen so many big people in the same room, let alone a dance floor. Here though, they were at peace with themselves. They were happy and feeling good as the caffeine pulsed through their veins and the music pulsed through their ears. They had routines, signature moves, and a repertoire that had been forged over a hundred days of this. They smiled and opened their arms to JimmytheKid who was bopping his little head as he made his way to them. They screeched and screamed for theKid to dance with them as the boy who seemed so small and meek became a dancing machine.

I stood just on the edge of the floor, unable to make myself take the next three steps. JimmytheKid waved his hand at me to join him but I frantically shook my head "no" back to him. He smiled. It was theKid's forgiving smile, but I was disappointed at myself for being such a stick in the mud. I might have turned away and walked back to the safety of the bar, but suddenly there were hands on my hips. I turned to see Kimber Canavan standing behind me, using me as a human shield as he hid behind me avoiding theKid's waving him onto the floor.

"Not so much a dancer, huh?" Kimber asked me.

"I'm terrible," I admitted.

"Are you really terrible, or do you think you're terrible?"

"I think I'm terrible," I said with a satisfied smile.

"Touché, Ms. Sarah." Kimber smiled. "Has anyone actually ever come out and told you that you're terrible?"

"No."

"Excellent," Kimber said and turned around to face DJ Dark, who was only a few feet to the side of the huge doors in the back of the theater. Kimber looked at him, holding up two fingers and spun them like a third base coach giving the runner a secret signal. I saw DJ Dark flash Kimber the "hang loose" sign, his pinky and thumb in an L shape, twisting side to side, and then the song that was playing began to fade away.

The women on the dance floor went absolutely wild. Women's shrieks and screams became deafening in their vibrato. TheKid was smiling at us, a smile he seemed barely able to contain as excitement grew within him. Women were stepping back, allowing us a walkway to the center of the dance floor as Kimber leaned into my ear. He had to scream over the sound of the women, "You with me on this?"

"Kimber, I..."

"Perfect, let's do it," he said, ignoring me and pulling, literally pulling, me along with him onto the floor.

"Ladies and little dude, please welcome Kimber Canavan to the dance floor!" DJ Dark announced in a voice that sounded like God when he spoke to Moses. "And to welcome him, I'll spin your favorite and mine... You know the song. Don't deny yourself the pleasure... Two songs back to back, track to track... Pretty Lights and GRiZ in our two song marathon... It's time to 'Smash the Funk' cause I 'Can See it in Your Face'!" The DJ howled as cheers reached an all-time high. With that, GRiZ's soft-starting 'Smash the Funk' began to tap for its thirty-five second build up, when it changed and dropped into what I can only describe as a plateau for another thirty seconds. Kimber pulled me into position, seemingly counting the beats so that we'd be exactly where he wanted us to be when the bass dropped. At exactly one minute and twenty-seven seconds, it did. The song's bass line dropped into place, setting up the foundation for what I consider to this day to be one of the finest dance songs ever made.

The women went wild.

As the low bass line thumped and dragged, the siren-like tweaks screamed over the top of the melody, making what I had to call an impossibly full groove that dragged slowly until it reached a pinnacle and started over again. Women bounced and grooved around Kimber, bumping elbows with him as Kimber transformed from the man I thought I knew into the most fluid dancer I'd ever seen. He was someone else entirely as he danced, flawlessly and uninhibited. I longed to understand music the way I could tell he did. I longed for the abandonment of ego that Kimber just sort of fell into.

TheKid, watching and taking cues from his dad, did the same moves at the same time, his little eyes always on Kimber as he danced for all he was worth. It was infectious to watch, my heart skipping every few beats as I danced with what I have to call amused immersion. I was dancing, really dancing, unlike any other time I'd ever danced. Suddenly I felt like I'd reached that level of drunkenness I'd always assumed I needed to dance, where my form and moves didn't matter.

Big women, smiling and sweating, embraced me as I came into the dance floor and let myself go entirely. It was the first time I ever remember dancing and not thinking about how ridiculous I looked, feeling the deep bass line in my chest more than in my ears. My body moved in cadence with everyone else, all of us bouncing up and down as the music pulsated around us. We were there, really there... We were in the music, part of it; all of us individuals somehow connected to each other by invisible threads of music that united us. I laughed, I danced, I took off my jacket and tossed it with reckless abandon to the side of the dance floor where another old-timey employee came by to pick it up immediately.

I'd never experienced freedom, not like that. Lost in the music my body felt like a tool. I felt like I was making the music that was playing around me as I wobbled and twisted, rubbing asses with the girls dying for a piece of Kimber, my Kimber. He smiled at me, spinning me round and round a few times before letting me go so he could grind on the women in waiting. The shrieks were, again, ear splitting. Kimber smiled, taking the fun in stride and making sure to always return to me, the perfect gentleman.

When GRiZ's jam was winding down the crowd began to scream again. Next was Kimber's favorite song, maybe of all time. "I Can See it in Your Face" became like a battle cry. People were cheering it, screaming it in the same off-kilter cadence as the song started up. There were trumpets, not my favorite sound, but when Pretty Lights makes a track, all sounds come together.

JimmytheKid was standing beside me. "Don't dance till Dad does. He waits for this one part... You'll see. Just wait till we dance, okay?"

I only caught part of what he was saying, but enough to get the gist. Pretty Lights hit a stride at about fifteen seconds, a steady, good jogging pace as the DJ scratched onto the foundation of the song. The trumpets were gently announcing a melody line and there was talking, unintelligible and distorted, just before the entire room screamed, "I can see it in your face! I can see it in your face, face!"

Kimber remained still through the wind up. As he bobbed his head, women danced around him in a choo-choo-train style, all of them doing their best ass shake as they went round and round Kimber. He looked like a Broadway version of a pimp, bobbing his head while his harem danced around him for a minute, and then... I saw Kimber coming to life. Slowly, as the music dropped into this buzzing wobble, Kimber began what had to have been practiced dance steps that matched up perfectly with the buzzing. Four measures later, the buzzing wobble sped up and so did Kimber. Women went wild. Clothes were coming off, tossed haphazardly onto the side of the dance floor as more employees tried to keep up with the frenzy.

Kimber was just getting started when the massive theater doors opened up and another fifty to a hundred people came running into the theater. The new mob of women ran to the rest of us like a battle scene from a medieval movie, making contact with the crowd and then filtering through onto the floor. There was a circle forming in the center and when I looked to see who was in the middle, it was JimmytheKid. Tears crept up into my eyes as I watched theKid falling into his groove and releasing himself. He was better than Kimber but not until he stopped trying to emulate his dad and did his own thing. JimmytheKid was like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. He danced effortlessly and casually, all of his movements in exactly perfect time.

When theKid was done, it was Kimber's turn. This might have been the only time I ever saw Kimber intentionally trying to outdo his son, but make no mistake about it, that's exactly what he was trying to do. JimmytheKid had set the bar, and high at that. Honestly, had it been a dance off, I think theKid might have won, but the crowd was definitely in Kimber's favor. Everything the guy did, every move he made, resulted in applause and hoots and hollers from the adoring spectators.

When the song was winding down, I felt like I was coming off a cocaine high. The sound started to recede as did the mob of additional dancers, but DJ Dark wasn't done yet. I literally laughed out loud when the DJ's voice came over the PA system saying exactly what I'd been thinking. "How about that y'all? Little Canavan just gave his father the ass kicking of his life, and as y'all know, Kimber don't like taking an ass kicking! Let's hear it for JimmytheKid!" The lights flashed in unison as the crowd gave JimmytheKid the victory he so deserved. Kimber, tears in his eyes, bowed politely to the champion of the day. The day would go on to live forever between them, a passing of the torch so to speak. It was the first time JimmytheKid would rise above the lofty position of Kimber, and I don't think Kimber could have been prouder.

Sweat Stains wasn't just a dance club, it was a haven for the otherwise shunned. Here, they were the rule-makers, the first and last vote for what they wanted. Kimber hadn't built an exercise facility. He'd built a shelter for people who'd probably felt unwanted for a long time. In Sweat Stains, no one had ego problems, either too large or too small. They were all welcome, they were all warm to each other, and, somehow, they were all beautiful, more so than perhaps they'd ever felt before. That morning I didn't understand it all, not entirely, but in the months that followed, I got to know people from Sweat Stains and found that what Kimber had given them wasn't a place to just be, it was a place that gave them something back―their pride, their respect for themselves and a community of support. It was an outreach center and the patrons of Sweat Stains rallied for their cause. They advertised for Kimber. Each time someone asked them how they'd lost so much weight, Kimber got new customers. There were over 500 members of Sweat Stains the day Kimber died. 500 people had found that old theater, paid their monthly dues, and spread the word. About six months into our relationship, someone tried to copy Kimber's business model and opened Sweaty Steve's. It was only three miles as a crow flies from Sweat Stains and almost identical in every way, but it failed a few months later. Kimber bought it and named it More Sweat Stains. It was more successful than the first, probably because it was closer to the affordable sections of downtown and much, much larger. Within four months, MSS had over a thousand members and a community outreach program that was routinely written about in The Denver Post.

Seeing the words A CANAVAN COMPANY beneath a business name meant more than what it implied. It was never meant to state the obvious; it was the trademark for innovation, creativity, and a member-owned community. Kimber Canavan was anything but a businessman, but everything he touched became successful. He was a genuine hero to the people that mattered to him, and he cared about them as much as they cared about him.

These days I think about theKid more than I do Kimber. I feel the burden of life lost, of innocence denied. I find theKid in my dreams and tell him that I love him. I remind him that his father loved him, though I like to believe that they're still together, watching over me. TheKid visits me often. I can feel his little hands on my knees sometimes, or hear his little voice in the wind that blows across The Berkshire. I wonder what he would have grown up to become, knowing intuitively that he would have been great at anything he'd tried, like his father. Kimber was enigmatic, crafty, and prepared for what befell him. He was always two steps ahead of his competition, and came to be thought of as exactly that―unbeatable. I know how theKid loved him. I know how much Kimber's hand on theKid's meant to both of them. I think sometimes that theKid was a better version of Kimber. He had his father to emulate, but he also had his father's flaws to avoid.

That's a lot of weight for a five-year-old boy to carry, enough to propel him into greatness or crush him under the weight of missing it.
CHAPTER 14

When we left Sweat Stains, Kimber suggested we go see "Uncle" Joe Frank. TheKid was more than happy to go visit Joe's place, but for me it was more complicated than that. For a woman dating a man that she really likes, there is always a lot of pressure when it comes to meeting his best male friends. It's not in every instance that the best friend controls the decisions of the man, but there have been enough known and notable cases to give a woman pause. I'd heard plenty about Joe Frank in the few hours I'd known Kimber, certainly enough to make me curious, but not curious enough to want to go over to his house unannounced in yesterday's clothes. I was going to look like a one-night stand.

I tried to imagine what Joe Frank would expect from one of Kimber's potential love interests, and doing that conjured up the sort of women I will never be. I imagined thin blondes, perhaps with dreadlocks, tattoos, and a few tastefully placed piercings. Not that he was a piercings kind of guy. Who is anymore? But Kimber's sort of creativity was the kind that's hard to put on a leash. I assumed that it had led him to strange places, to meet strange and wonderful minds, and for those people, the truly creative, what they are is what they want you to see. Therefore, tattoos and piercings become a go-to outlet. They allow, through self-deformation, the sort of freedom and labeling required for helping them function. Kimber was different than that, not in his mind, but in his sense of expression. He wasn't tattooed and even looked down a little on those that were. He had no piercings that one could see, though his long beard left the same sort of impression on people that piercings sometimes do. Kimber wore the beard years before the television show about a duck-call family made such masculinity popular. He looked unkempt, but unlike the way most beards seem to conceal a man's face, his facial hair didn't subtract from his facial expressions. Kimber looked wiser than a red-neck, but for a lot of people, facial hair meant red-neck and always will.

I didn't know he was rich, but I knew he was successful. In my images of what Joe Frank would consider perfect for Kimber: this thin, busty blonde with or without dreadlocks, who wore bohemian dresses and gaudy jewelry, would also own a boutique or flower shop that had trendy art on the walls, independent music whining away inappropriately loud for a department store, but this is a boutique... free of all rules and too cool for the average woman to ever understand... As I turned out onto Broadway, headed for "Uncle" Joe's house, I tried to look happy about it. It was too early to be myself and tell Kimber why I didn't want to go over there; that would sound... needy. I guess I just resigned myself to it. I just let go of the wheel, so to speak, and decided to trust Kimber. After all, I reminded myself, ultimately it's on Kimber.

As we pulled into Joe's driveway, I was glad I hadn't slept with Kimber. Luckily we were all sweaty from our dancing the morning away, so it wasn't completely obvious that I was in yesterday's clothes.

Joe Frank was almost what I'd expected him to be. That's rarely the case, but Kimber had given me an accurate physical description of Joe on the way over from Sweat Stains. He'd described him to a tee, all except for Joe's eyes, which I recognized as those of an analytical man. Joe was an observer, polite and chivalrous, but there was something underneath the pretty-boy country club kid―a curiosity or... a suspicion of all things that involve his friend Kimber.

Joe was warm and smiled easily enough. I could see the easiness between them... after the initial uneasiness had passed. For the first minutes it was weird, maybe not for those two, but for Joe's girlfriend Emily, theKid, and me, it was a little weird. I noticed about Emily that she was like a classier version of the girls I'd imagined Joe conjuring up of me. She was thin and elegant, stylish and warm, though I fear we struggled to find middle-ground throughout the entire visit. Joe and Kimber talked about Vedauwoo (though they pronounced it veed-a-voo), about all the times they'd had "near death" experiences there, and how disappointed Joe was that he wouldn't be able to get up there with Kimber this summer.

We stayed about an hour before we were comfortable enough with each other for Joe to move into his next area of conversation, strange premonitions that Kimber claimed to have had. Joe explained very carefully that Kimber had predicted his own death recently, and that in Kimber's mind, he had less than a year to live. I didn't know if it was Joe Frank's way of discrediting our budding relationship, but I took offense to finding out about that in this way. I asked questions, most of which Joe fielded himself, but a few made it to Kimber for further explanation. Kimber told me that he'd be dead in a year while Joe argued that this was just his Jim Morrison/Jesus Christ complex and not to be taken too seriously.

It took me a few minutes to understand that Joe wasn't making this up, that Kimber had really said all of this. I'd been waiting to find out something bad about him. No one is perfect, so it's just a matter of time until the real "cost" of the man is revealed. I was relieved it wasn't HIV or herpes, no serious "mommy issues," no pornography or gambling addictions to contend with... just this... death-wish thing.

I told myself that it wasn't that bad, that I could get used to it. I told myself that the years will go fast and before we knew it, we'd look at each other and realized that his "year" had long since passed. We'd smile and hug, my investment secure as perfection settled in over us. Yes, I should have recognized the hopelessness of dating someone convinced they will die, but when I didn't want to, it was easy to overlook. It was easy to believe that it would be okay, that for once I'd be allowed to step out of reality and into perfection and real, long-lasting happiness. Kimber was so different from anything I'd ever known that had he performed magic tricks for me. I might have believed him magical. He seemed immeasurable, like a well that was as deep as it was wide. I thought I'd never run out of curiosity about Kimber, that he'd sustain me for decades at a time with nothing more than his thoughtful observations. I thought that his obsession with his own death made him beautiful and unique. I thought it made an already wonderful man mysterious and romantic, and that this was just a quirk of that sort of man.

I think about that day sometimes now, sitting in the sun on Joe's back porch, sweaty and tired from a late night and reckless dancing. I remember Emily in those days, before she became Joe's wife and adopted his anti-Lai agenda. She was so pretty, flawless, and light in the sunshine. I remember Emily watching my face as Joe told me about Kimber's "dream" and how she tried to understand me as I fought the muscles in my jaw that wanted desperately to make a frown. I remember Emily watching the men with curious objectivity as they spoke about what Kimber had revealed about his death. I remember the way her eyes would go from them to me, back to them, across theKid and back to me... I didn't notice it then, only after Kimber died. When I recalled the day Joe told me about Kimber's death prophecy, all I saw was Emily and the way she watched me that afternoon. There had been something haunting in her expression, something that had told me what I was hearing was true, that I needed to believe...

Kimber and theKid agreed to come see my apartment after we left Joe's so I could shower real quick and change before we all went back to Kittridge, where we'd agreed to make hot dogs and corn on the cob bought from a farmer Kimber knew.

TheKid was eager to get home to play more Scrabble. That game will always haunt me now. There is no chance that I will ever play it again. It embodies all that theKid was to me and how we came to love each other so dearly in the months that followed. It would be more than a game for me and theKid; it was an access point to him. Through Scrabble I learned stories about him, how he knew this word or that, and spent time talking to him. It would have taken me years to get to know him the way I did if we'd not played Scrabble that very first day.

On the way back to Kimber's place from my apartment, I asked Kimber, "If you think that there's a chance something could happen to you guys on the rocks, why do you go?"

"Nothing's gonna happen to me that isn't part of God's plan, Lai. I can't live in fear of my death the same way you can't. I guess I just assume that if God wants us, He'll take us. If not, I have absolutely nothing to fear." Kimber was of the mind that God's will cannot be tested by human minds; that God's too big for all of that. He kept saying that God would keep theKid from harm as long as Kimber kept theKid on the right path, on God's path. Kimber spoke with the authority of an evangelical minister, repeating over and over again that for the rest of their lives, he and theKid would continue to visit Vedauwoo as it had always been a religious place, not only for Kimber and theKid, but for the Native Americans that worshipped there for centuries. "When theKid comes home from college, he'll take his friends to Vedauwoo. Hell, he might even propose there," Kimber said satisfactorily. "It's an important part of me and theKid; it has been since he came to live with me. There aren't many places that are as much mine and theKid's as Vedauwoo. Yeah, it might be the death of me, but for theKid, it's not gonna be."

"I'm not gonna get married, Dad!" theKid said laughing.

"Yeah you will, Buddy. One day you'll meet the right woman and marry her. Mark my words, when you start thinking about the place to propose to her, you'll think of Vedauwoo."

"Are you gonna propose there, Dad?" theKid asked.

I swallowed, wishing kids could understand the impact of their questions before they asked them. Kimber glanced at me and laughed aloud, "Maybe."

My heart thudded the way a woman's heart thuds when she hears something like that. I quickly searched for a comment, not only for my sake but for Kimber's. "So, tell me about the rock star thing. You really aren't interested?" I asked. Joe had made a point of telling me that Kimber could, would, be playing professionally if he so desired. Joe had even charged me with trying to encourage Kimber to do so, but even on day two of the Kimber Canavan experience, I knew it would never happen.

Kimber looked at me and asked, "You want to hear a story? The real reason I'm not interested in rock stardom?"

"Absolutely," I said, and meant it.

Kimber looked straight ahead as I drove. "Five years ago I was in a rock band. We played all over Denver, like four nights a week. We were good, really good, but we weren't a recording sort of band. The one thing we all shared was a love for live music. We all wanted to be the sort of band that played freestyle, live. We hated seeing our favorite bands play songs we knew the same way they were recorded. Music should be more fluid than that. A song you hear on the radio should sound different live, or what's the point? So anyway, one of the clubs we used to play every week at was up north, in Arvada. It was a biker bar, but we were like rock royalty there. It was just a dive, you know? Pool tables and dart boards were the best of the amenities there, but we loved the place and they loved us.

"Anyway, we'd been playing there for like a year or something when one night there was this old man who'd come all by himself to the bar to hear us. The guy looked like a bum, like he'd spent all day panhandling on the side of the highway. He was dirty, old, and his clothes were worn out and ragged. The first night I noticed him there, I couldn't take my eyes off of him. There was something about the guy, something haunting or eerie. I don't know, maybe it was just that he was so old and seemed so out of place in there, but through the entire two hour set, my eyes just kept going back to him. You know, a singer stands there and sings, looking at the audience but really he's just looking through them. It's a give and take...

"Without getting too philosophical, it's sort of like the audience looks to the band to pump them up, but the band needs the audience to get them pumped up in the first place... All I'm trying to say is that I was singing and for some reason that particular guy had an effect on me. I was rarely in the mood to be a rock star, but I remember looking out there and seeing this old guy watching me so closely that I sort of felt naked. It was like the guy could see through me or... into me or something. I wanted to talk to him, and I would have but by the time the set was over, the guy was gone. He was undoubtedly the only person in the audience that night that was listening to what I was saying in my lyrics, not just how I was saying them. These are the sort of things singers know. When you spend your nights trying to distract people from their pool game you know who's paying attention and who isn't. That old man seemed to know what I was going to say before I even said it. I don't know, maybe he'd been there before or maybe he knew the songs somehow, but seriously, this old guy was the reason I was there that night, I could feel it. He was the only reason I had that night to really put my heart into the music... And then, just like that, he was gone. After I realized he was gone and I wouldn't get to talk to him, I didn't think too much about it. We came back a few more times and he wasn't there, but then one night he was. It'd been maybe three months since that first night I saw him, but as soon as he walked through the door, I recognized him. It was all I could do to keep playing and not stop the song in the middle and ask him over the PA to stick around for a while after so I could talk to him. I didn't, but I was going to. I just wanted to find out who he was and how he knew the songs... The whole thing was so odd. He was so out of place in there...

"So anyway, we were maybe on our third song when he showed up. As a band we'd talked about the guy that first night he showed up, and to some degree, we all wanted to know who he was. Together, we'd all been on the lookout for him. As soon as he came back in, we all saw him. We looked at each other, announcing with our eyes that he was back. Honestly, the dude's presence was uncanny, and I was thankful to know that I wasn't the only one that could see him!" Kimber laughed.

"So did they see him too?" I asked.

"Yeah, of course they did. I wasn't imagining him; he was really there. So we keep playing songs and seriously, the guy knows every word to every song. I'm about to flip my lid because, like, nobody knew the lyrics to my songs. One of the reasons I came to hate the rock and roll business I might add, and yet this guy knows every word? All I want to ask him, I mean if I could have only asked the guy one question, it would have been 'How?' I just wanted to know how he knew the words, why he even liked us... Not that we were good enough or well-known enough to have a demographic, but if we had, the guy would certainly not have fit into it...

"Anyway, so we're getting really close to finishing up the set and we're gonna end with an ass-kicker of a song. I know the guy knows the song because I remembered him singing along the first time he was there, so I'm excited to get into it. It's a long song, like fifteen minutes or so depending on how high we are when we play it, right?" Kimber looked at me to make sure he hadn't lost me yet. I nodded. "So the song starts off and I intentionally didn't say anything about it being the last song of our set, just because I didn't want the guy to bounce on me before I got a chance to talk to him. Anyway, about five minutes into the song, the bass and drums come together for a really heavy groove. This is the part of the song that everyone loves the most... So I look out to see if the old guy's still with me, and I see two bouncers talking to him. So I'm on the stage looking down, trying to figure out what's going on because I can see the bouncers putting their fat hands on the old guy's shoulders, like they're gonna drag him out the door. My heart starts to pound as I see them nudging the guy toward the doors, and I flip out. Without a word, I jump off the stage and run across the dance floor, draw back and fire a hard right at the bigger of the two bouncers. I hit the guy square in the jaw, and I feel the hinge break under the weight of my knuckles. The one bouncer goes flying sideways while the other instinctually tosses me an elbow. I don't think he meant to hit me; he was just reacting to seeing me coming at them. The guy's elbow hits me in the bridge of the nose, and it's all over. I go down in a flash of white light, trying to pinch off the geyser in my nose, and the last thing I see before I hear the cracking sound of wood is Eric, my guitar player, with his guitar over his head like an axe as he closed in on the bouncer that mistakenly broke my nose. CRACK! I hear the guitar bash the other guy over the head and then he's on the floor beside me, groaning and bleeding...

"Anyway, long story short, I get dragged out of the bar by my shirt along with my bandmates, and somewhere in the commotion, the old guy disappears again. I mean seriously, he disappeared. No one knew where he went or how he got away... He was just gone. Later, Tony, the owner of the bar, told me that he was bounced for not buying the two drink minimum. Tony tells me this as he's begging us to agree to come back and play again, but we've had it with the bar, Tony and his bouncers... all of it."

"So did you ever see the guy? You ever get to talk to him?"

"Nope. Never saw him again. The point is this—that guy was the only person I ever saw that cared about what I was saying. He might have been the only person in the world that even heard what I said. Something about that guy touched me, you know? I just wanted to tell him that he mattered to me, to thank him really. After him, we never went back to that bar, and I quit the band a week later. It seemed pointless, shallow or hollow... I don't know. Maybe I took it too personally, but standing up there to sing is only as important as people hearing what I was saying. If people are just drinking and playing pool, why not just put a juke box on? Seriously, it's a thankless job unless all you care about is fame and sex."

"I'm sure people listened to what you were saying, Kimber."

He looked at me with seriousness in his eyes, "No. They didn't. They told me I should be famous, but they didn't hear a damn word I said. It's shallow. That old man was the only person that ever heard me sing. A lot of people saw me sing, but that old man was the only audience that ever mattered to me."

I nodded, not knowing what else I should say.

"But you see, Lai, it's God's will. Nothing I do or have done was on my own. I've always known that God went with me. That probably sounds like religious mumbo jumbo to you. I hope that eventually you'll come to understand what I mean. You see, the most important thing I do all day is ask God for direction. It's our thing and always has been. God and I know each other. I've lived a... well, let's say 'colorful' life where it might have been easy for people to look at me, the decisions I've made, and the ways I chose, and think I was a wayward sinner. I am liberal with God, indeed. I mean, obviously I smoke some weed, drink a little. You know, stuff like that. Do I think these things are going to prevent me from getting into Heaven? Absolutely not. God isn't that overweight sinner in a bad suit standing behind the pulpit on Sunday morning. He's not the old ladies gossiping by the church doors... Jesus was a Jew, but that didn't stop Him from going into the temple and raising hell. He went into the temple and went nuts, told everyone they were making a mockery of the institution. Christ went more berserk in that temple than He did anywhere else in His lifetime. He wasn't a friend of the religious hierarchy in His day, nor would He be in ours. Please, whatever your feelings about Christians and whatever you know of God... don't let that be the wedge that keeps you from Him, Lai. He's not an idiot. He's not looking for handouts. It's simple. I love God and He loves me. I trust God and He tolerates my failures. He understands why I fall down, even before I do."

"I'm glad it works out so well for you with God and all that," I said without conviction.

"That's what I mean," he said emphatically.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Just what you said. You're turned off by God. You're not even receptive to Him. No wonder you don't believe in Him."

"I didn't say I didn't believe in Him. I just... I don't know..." Frankly, the conversation was making me uncomfortable.

"Okay, so let's go back to that old man, okay?" he asked innocently enough.

"Okay," I agreed.

"So essentially I quit the band that night, though it took me a week to break it to my bandmates. They were upset to say the least. They were average at best without me, not that I'm blowing my own horn, but it's true. Without me there to lead them, they had nothing worth hearing. I'm not saying that I've always been that kind of key guy, but in the case of that band, I was. I was their leader, though not all of them were willing to admit that they worked for me. Anyway, so I quit and realize that my music career was ending with my decision to leave the band. This band... they were good. I mean we were good, a special kind of good... When I left, I took all the hope that was left in them with me. To the band it wasn't about being rich and famous, though that was what we all wanted in those days; it was about believing that there was something waiting for us out there. The hopelessness was gone when we played because the call could have come tomorrow that we were going big time.

"When I quit and the band fell apart, I was left to feel bad for my friends that were now, once again, hopeless. They had nine-dollar-an-hour jobs, illegitimate kids on their way into the world, and two of them had drug habits that would see them dead within ten years. They were a wreck... I was a wreck. The band and the constant playing and constant disappointment of people not coming to the gigs or us not getting the headlining slot at a show... It had taken its toll on all of us. I remember the night after, asking God for direction. That old man stayed on my mind through the night, reassuring me that the decision I made and my interpretation of the events the night before were meaningful and not just an overreaction to stress or disappointment. I'd decided to quit rather hastily, but still I knew that God was the one that was telling me to stop. I couldn't understand it. I couldn't imagine God asking me to walk away from my best talent and tried to ask Him to reconsider. I begged Him to show me an open door, which I thought would be a band looking for a singer. When it didn't come, I again questioned why I'd quit the band, almost going so far as to call them all back up and try to put it back together again.

"Almost a month after the band ended, I was asked to play at a coffee shop in Englewood. They were doing an open mic night, and the owner asked me if I wanted to fill in for the guy that normally led it. The owner and I had been friends since the days we worked at Starbucks together, and honestly, I helped him build and design his coffee shop way back then. The night I hosted his open mic was almost six years since he'd opened his coffee shop, and he'd used most of my ideas for his place but refused to take on the subscription based coffee idea. He made a coffee club, but it wasn't like I'd designed. He was as inventive as a punch card thing. You know... like you buy twenty drinks and get a small drink free... My coffee shop is my design, the one I gave to him when his coffee shop was nothing more than a scrap piece of paper with my innovative ideas scribbled across it. I'd come up with the subscription idea while I worked with him at Starbucks. I saw that the same people came in every day to get the same damned thing every time. It got to the point where we'd see the customers pulling into the parking lot and we'd start their drink. That's where the idea came from. People don't like to try new things every morning. They find what they want and stick to it. Yeah, maybe at some point later on they'll change it up, but for the most part, people are dependably routine.

"I noticed that the most loyal customers, even the die-hards, only came in on average about four out of five work days a week. It crossed my mind that if you charged people what their entire week would cost on Monday, they'd probably pay it, believing that they'd be in every day anyway. If they did come in every day, great, I made my money. If they came in four out of five days, I made more money. My parents died that night I played the open mic at Brian's coffee place. It was profound to me that a month later I realized I'd been left enough money to open my own place. Really, I could have gone nuts and opened a three-story coffee shop with a Sweat Stains upstairs, but I didn't have the idea for Sweat Stains yet. So when I got my chance, I opened Kanavan. It cost me ten grand to open the business. I employed my ideas, despite everyone who heard my business plan telling me it wouldn't work. I knew it would work. You know why?" He looked at me and waited.

"Because of what you saw at Starbucks?"

"Because God told me it would work. God told me more than that. He told me that I would be a success, that I would want for nothing. He told me to keep the faith, to trust and serve Him, and if I did that, I would be a success." Kimber waited to see if I was going to reply with sarcasm, but honestly the thought hadn't even crossed my mind. "So I lost the band because I was following God's plan. I didn't understand it, but I knew that God would bring me something even better. Sacrifice and follow through—that's how you prove loyalty to God. Yeah, He demands it sometimes, not for His sake obviously. By walking away from something toxic and comfortable, trusting God to carry you to something better... Well, that's where faith comes from. You can pray for faith; that's what most of the church-going public does. But to really earn reliable faith, you have to learn to hear God. It's not a voice; it's a thought. It's a thought so clear... and a lot of times it's completely contrary to what you want to do. Learning to trust God is a process, and talking about it to others is absolutely fruitless. I can hear God, Lai. I mean when God is talking to me, giving me instructions, or comforting me with His promises, I can hear Him. I heard Him that night at Brian's coffee shop... I was playing my guitar in a store I built from my mind, but I was just a visitor there... It wasn't my coffee shop, just a few of my ideas. It was awakening. By the time I left that place that night, I'd refused an offer from Brian to be his General Manager, and had begged God for the means to open my own place, a place where I could be as free as humanly possible. I'd like to believe that what happened to my parents about two hours after I left Brian's coffee shop had nothing to do with my prayers, and I don't believe they did, but look how God worked that out! My parents died, Lai! They were taken to Heaven without me, but look how it played out! It was a symphony of seemingly random events, so well-coordinated that looking back on it from the vantage point of a few years later, I was amazed. If I hadn't quit the band, I wouldn't have been back to Brian's coffee shop. I wouldn't have wanted my own. My parents would probably still have died, but instead of buying myself a business, I would have put the money left to me up my nose and lived a wicked, meaningless life. I would have been so crushed by their deaths that I wouldn't have had the faculties to remember God's place in my life. I would have been as hopeless as I felt in the aftermath of the band."

"Okay, I admit that is an incredible story, Kimber," I said and meant it.

"But listen, it keeps going. So I open Kanavan, and it's an immediate success. I mean, on the first day I opened, I signed ten people up for my subscription based coffee idea. People loved it. That first day I gave coffee away; I wasn't charging. I'd already known that the roaster I was going to use was the best in the area. It was the same one Brian used because we took a tour of the place and sampled about a million coffees before we'd picked, way back then. I knew that I had a gift with people. I've always liked people and believed that they mean to be good. They mean to be honest and devoted. They just... well, fail. The day I opened Kanavan, I talked more than I made coffee. I sold the people coffee because they were responding so well to me. I felt like God was in that shack with me. I always did, and I always will. So about nine that morning this woman, Mary Beth, pulls in. I have never seen her before, but she came to see me. Someone who I sold a subscription to had called her and told her to come check the place out... So she pulls in and turns off her engine. She sits and talks to me for about half an hour, decides not to buy a subscription from me until she talks about it with her husband. I tell her that it's no problem, that anytime she wants to get in on it, she can. She leaves and I don't see her again for about a year and a half. The next time I see her she's gained about fifty pounds. I didn't recognize her immediately, but after she explained who she was I recalled meeting her on the first Kanavan day. While we're talking, she addresses her weight. She tells me that her beloved husband passed away a month earlier, and in the time since she'd been unable to do anything but eat and cry. She feels like hell, you know? She's got no self-esteem, she's alone and too old to feel good about joining a gym. She asks me point blank, 'How does a fifty-year-old woman lose fifty pounds without embarrassing herself?' My suggestion was dancing. I tell her to go out, to find a club, and drink water. I tell her to let the music carry her away; that being alone on a dark dance floor is like being on the moon. People only matter if you make them. I told her that she needed to escape herself long enough to let her body do what it wants to do—drop the weight. Anyway, she sort of agrees, but I can tell she's disappointed by my answer. I don't know why she thought I was a sage or something in the first place. I guess being a barista is a lot like being a bartender; people just assume you talk to enough people that solving people issues should come easily... So she leaves. I know she's not thrilled with my idea, but, nonetheless, she leaves and says she'll try it. A month later she shows back up. She's lost twenty-five pounds.

"Sweat Stains was born at that moment. I wanted to make a club for women where they didn't have to sacrifice pride for weight loss. I only thought about it for a week before I decided to do it. Joe Frank told me the idea was a loser; that I needed to stick with coffee and open more Kanavan's around the area. He saw me as a franchise in ten years with a low buy-in cost, which to me sounded like the shittiest job on earth. I prayed about Sweat Stains relentlessly, waiting on God for an answer before I took the next step. I waited and waited for God to reply to me. I had promised in my prayers that I'd wait till I knew for sure, but I found myself ready to jump before God told me to do so. A building came open in Sheridan just off Oxford and Santa Fe that I thought for sure was the right place. It was renting for a quarter of the price that the building on Broadway costs and had everything I needed in it already. I begged God to give me the go-ahead on it, but the answer never came. The building rented a week after I learned about it. The cheap price, the size, the accessibility to US-285... I was convinced that God had placed that building before me as the path. When it rented before God gave me an answer, I was crushed. I was angry, confused, and hurt. I was so mad that I decided to forget the idea of Sweat Stains altogether.

"About a month after the building rented, there was a story on the news about a roof collapse in Sheridan. When I saw the building on the news, I fell to my knees and begged God to forgive me for my blindness. The exact same building I almost moved into had collapsed on a Tuesday afternoon and killed everyone that had worked there. A month later, it was bulldozed over and a Chic-fil-A was erected it its place. By that time I'd purchased the old theater on Broadway and was restoring it to its current glory. Everything about The Bethany Theater building was perfect. When I saw it for the first time, I knew that God hadn't ignored me about the building in Sheridan. He was teaching me patience. He was teaching me to trust, to really trust in Him. The Bethany was the place of my dreams. Nostalgia and eloquence mixed with creativity and music... It was my masterpiece. I made Mary Beth my first member. I gave her a lifetime membership to Sweat Stains and hung her picture behind the bar. Mary Beth died of a heart attack a few months after we opened. That was tragic for me. It put me into a tailspin for a few days, but I came to understand that God's plans are perfect. I cannot always understand Him. I try, Lai. I really do, but God is too vast, too big for me to get my head around. I've learned since then that the only way to be happy is to believe that there is a plan for me.

"Music was hope to me in the rock star days, but it was hollow. Six months after Kanavan opened, I was headlining in Morrison to play and sing once a month, but now it is for fun. Before, it was so serious that we didn't enjoy it; now I do. Now I play and people listen to me. Not because they've changed, but because their perception of me has. Now I don't need the music thing for hope. I have everything I wanted in life, Lai. I have a son, someone to carry on my genetics when I go away. I have businesses that help people, that give people more than coffee and music. They give them hope. Sweat Stains has changed people's lives. It continues to change people's lives every day. It's a haven for them. For the people that need a place like it, it's perfect. I make a lot of money if I'm being honest. I've made more than a million dollars on Sweat Stains, all given to me by God. I have been touched by God. So when I say God told me that I'll be dead in a year's time, I don't mean that He spoke out loud to me like Moses and the burning bush. I mean that He told me in His own way, in the way I've come to know and trust. He told me in the same way He's told me everything else. It's not a joke, it's not a game, and it's certainly not a false prophesy. It is the truth. I will be dead."

"And what about theKid, Kimber?" I looked back to see JimmytheKid fast asleep in the back of my Tahoe.

"I know that theKid will be okay, though it's hard to think about him here without me. It breaks my heart. It's hard to imagine the losses he's already experienced and how he'll deal with them in the future. I believe that God will take care of theKid. I have to. I know he goes on to live a full life. It's in the promise God made me."
CHAPTER 15

August 13th, 2010

JimmytheKid and I both perked up at the name Vedauwoo. The fact that Kimber had suggested we go was more than just welcoming, it was an initiation of sorts for me and theKid. It was their place, and I'd been invited to join them. I'd been imagining what Vedauwoo would be like ever since the first date with Kimber when I'd heard of it for the first time. I'd searched it on Google images, heard the stories over and over again, and even had a dream or two about it in the time I'd been with Kimber. In many ways, Vedauwoo had haunted me even before we went for the first and last time as a family.

Kimber and I never spoke of the fight we'd had at the Morrison Inn. It seemed like water under the bridge by that point anyway, but I think we chose to let it go because it was a difficult thing for us to talk about. Knowing Kimber was upstairs writing his Death Diaries was one thing but signing formal documents about the remains of his body was quite another. I'd signed the papers he'd asked me to. I'd done so without even reading them. I didn't want to read them. I didn't want to know what they said. I'd done what Kimber wanted, what he needed, and that made talking about our fight pointless. We'd both learned a lot about ourselves in the two nights I was gone from The Berkshire, enough to know that we were meant to be together, no matter what it took.

Kimber, as eager as he seemed to be to go to Vedauwoo, was strangely off that night. He wasn't his normal, happy self, but seemed more introspective and closed off. When theKid or I would ask him a question, he'd snap out of his funk for a second and answer us with his normal vigor, but immediately seem to slip back into the clouds. I could sense that he was deeply in thought about something, though I had no idea what it was. All that mattered to me in that moment was that I had my family back, and I was never going to leave them again, ever. I guessed that Kimber was just being Kimber, thinking about his death and how it would affect me and theKid, but I know now that there was much more on his mind that night.

The subject of Vedauwoo had come up a number of times since we'd moved into The Berkshire, but never had I been invited. TheKid and I had suggested we go a number of times, but Kimber always found a reason not to. We went to the Grand Canyon, Florida, and New York City in the eleven months we'd been together, but never to Vedauwoo. I'd been a little hurt by the lack of an invitation to go; it was, after all, their favorite place in the world. Why Kimber wouldn't take me, I didn't know, but each time I heard or thought of the name Vedauwoo, I felt pangs of jealously. Kimber was a wonderfully honest man, but like a lot of honest men, that was simply a byproduct of not being a very good liar. Maybe honest men don't lie easily, or maybe the inability to lie convincingly turns otherwise dishonest men honest. I don't know. I do know that every time Kimber would think of a reason why we couldn't go, I knew he was lying. I didn't question him about it like I should have. Instead, I pouted a little. I was angry and hurt by the way he seemed to keep Vedauwoo from me, but addressing it seemed somehow like addressing his death prophesies. It was better not to.

One time he told me he couldn't go because Poppy couldn't watch Kanavan. How he knew that Poppy was unavailable without calling him first, I didn't know, but I let it go. Another time I asked if we could go and he told me that his car was malfunctioning. I said we could take the Tahoe, so Kimber suddenly became an activist for Earth and lectured me on greenhouse gasses and hydrocarbons. It was like that, like maybe inside of him he wanted me to know he was lying, but why? Why would Kimber want me to know he was lying? Did he think me stupid enough to believe these reasons? No, I know now he didn't. I know now that everything Kimber did was deliberate. As far back into our time together as I can recall, Kimber was synchronizing our relationship with inside information that I remained unaware of, until my trip to Bailey to read his Death Diaries.

JimmytheKid went crazy when his father suggested Vedauwoo because he knew that getting Kimber to agree to go was the only hurdle between us and those rocks. The politics of why we hadn't gone since I'd entered the picture was beyond his five years of age, so theKid was just thrilled to have his father suggest it. It spared him the rollercoaster of excitement followed by disappointment when Kimber said no, like he had for the last few months.

Before we went, Kimber asked me if I would join him in the shower. When I did, he ravished me with a passion that had been missing from our relationship of late, and it startled me. Kimber was so even-keeled most of the time that his deviation was alarming. He made love to me quickly, and then, when he was done, he turned around and began to cry softly. When I saw him cry, I thought my heart would break. When I asked him what was wrong, he said "nothing" and began to try and get himself under control. His crying was the physical embodiment of the emotions I'd seen him wrestling with after suggesting Vedauwoo, and I was completely lost for words. I rubbed his back gently while he washed his face and got out of the shower as if nothing were wrong. When he left the bathroom, I too began to cry, feeling like something was happening all around me, something I couldn't see or understand but real and happening nonetheless.

It took us less than an hour to pack and get on our way. TheKid was beyond excited despite the late hour, and as we drove out of Kittridge, theKid began recalling all of the experiences they'd had at Vedauwoo over the years. We were crammed into Kimber's Honda as we twisted and turned our way down Morrison Road, theKid and I begging Kimber to buy a bigger, newer car when we got back. All he would say was "I'll take care of it" as theKid and I pressed him for a concrete "yes."

Of course, just like Kimber's story about how he came to open Kanavan, the things I was seeing and experiencing wouldn't make any sense to me until later, much later. At the time, all of these little details bout Kimber's emotional state—the sudden trip to Vedauwoo, the stack of papers so important to him that he'd lose me over them if he had to... they all seemed like independent issues unattached to each other. I know now what Kimber meant about God's plans being hard to understand while they're happening.

It's only in retrospect that we can see them for what they are—pieces of a giant machine.

As we came into Morrison, Kimber's mood began to lighten a little. The road trip and the excitement of being in motion seemed distracting enough to break his deep concentration on the things I didn't know about, the things that had him so bound up back at The Berkshire. When we passed the Morrison Inn, Kimber honked the horn and leaned out his window to wave to his friends atop Vinnie's Bar. I couldn't see them from the passenger side, but I heard his name being yelled as we passed by, theKid straining his neck to look backward and ask, "Who was that, Dad?"

"Nicole and Kim were up there. I don't know who else," he said with a funny shrug.

Later on, Nicole and Kim would say that Kimber was alone in the car that night, leading people to believe that I'd driven up independently later on with the intention of killing him over the fight we'd had a few days earlier. No one saw me and theKid in the car with him, which seemed unimportant enough at the time, but complicated my life twenty-four hours later. Kimber and I hadn't told anyone that we'd reconciled. As far as people knew, the fight Kimber and I had at the Morrison Inn was the end of our relationship; it was certainly public enough for them to have assumed so. Kimber hadn't called Joe Frank, and I hadn't called Gina, leaving the two most destructive forces in my world in the dark. Both of them were acting out of emotional overload when they did what they did in the days that followed. I cannot blame them entirely. Had Kimber and I made it back from Vedauwoo, it wouldn't have mattered that we'd gone. But when I came back alone, all they had to go on was the fight we'd had so publicly.

Before we got from C-470 onto I-70, theKid was out cold. Kimber and I began to talk as if we'd never separated. At some point before we made it onto I-25 North, Kimber asked, "Lai, when we get home I want you to look up a verse from the Bible. Will you?"

Begrudgingly, I agreed. I hated when he'd ask me to look up a verse. As far as religion went, I was all for people believing what they wanted. That means that as long as they believe without pushing their agendas onto me, I was okay with it. Even Kimber wasn't invited to give me biblical homework, a point I made over and over again with him. For him to have asked me to look up a verse, as petty as it sounds, was sort of a big deal. Something in his attitude, in his emotional state, and the reconciliation we'd just been through urged me to just agree without the feelings of anger it normally brought out in me.

"Matthew 26:39. Can you remember that?" he asked.

"Uh... yeah. I think so."

"Here, write it on your arm," he said, pulling a pen from his door compartment.

I looked at him, not particularly liking the look on his face. "What is it?" I asked as I humored him by writing Matthew 26:39 on my arm, hoping the sweat would wash it away and I'd forget. I didn't want to know what it said because of the way he'd presented me with the verse. I knew there was something in it for me, something important and probably profound. He seemed sad, but covered it with fake happiness that seemed thinner and weaker than his genuine warmth. The tone in his voice, the lack of contact in his eyes... Something was wrong with Kimber Canavan and I knew it, though I couldn't put a finger on what it was.

"It's just a verse I want you to look up on your own when you think of it. It's nothing huge. I've just been reading a lot of the Bible lately, and I have no one to talk to about it." That was absolutely and unequivocally untrue. Yes, he had been reading the Bible a lot lately, but no more than normal. Secondly, he'd told me already that he'd been hanging out with Billy Marks, the pastor of The Little Church in Morrison, and that doing so had helped him immensely. Without knowing what Matthew 26:39 was, it seemed sweet almost. I thought maybe I was overreacting, and this was Kimber's special verse for me. I thought maybe it was about love and commitment, about enduring and surviving as a happy couple despite life's letdowns. I found out later that's not what Matthew 26:39 is about at all. It was about Kimber. It was the reason I was seeing the sadness in him despite his best attempt to cover it. Had I just looked up the verse on my phone right then and there, I could have prevented the tragedy that was only hours away from happening. I didn't. I made a shallow promise to look the verse up while secretly hoping I would forget it altogether.

Kimber was trying to tell me what was happening, all while fulfilling his promise to God to remain silent about what he'd been told. He feared what would happen if he broke his promise of secrecy. He still had theKid and me to look out for, and in Kimber's mind, the best thing he could do for us was what God wanted him to do. He believed with all of his heart that if he did as he was told, we would be okay. Kimber tried to save us both. He tried to tip me off but I was too set in my ways, I was too anti-Christianity to see the forest for the trees. "Is it something deep?" I asked, almost as a slam.

"Yeah, it's deep alright."

"So... what's it say?" I asked, now a little concerned.

"I want you to read it for yourself. No pressure. I'm not here to Bible thump you."

The conversation quickly drifted back toward work and friends, Kimber saying at least three times as we drove through the darkness, "I should call Joe and tell him we're going," but he never did. Instead, we talked and smoked pot as the empty miles of Northern Colorado passed us by as fast as Kimber's old car could make them. We were on our way to Kimber's favorite place, with his favorite person asleep in the back seat, and me, complacent with being his number three priority at his side.

Vedauwoo was incredible, even under the moon.

It looked like an enormous castle built of small stones stacked with painstakingly perfect alignment. When we exited I-80 just east of Laramie, the rocks of Vedauwoo jutted up from the otherwise bland, rolling landscape that makes up most of that part of Wyoming. There was no doubt in my mind that this was a spiritual place. Just pulling into the park under the cover of moonlit darkness, the place felt electrified and spooky but welcoming and familiar. My heart was pounding as we wove our way down winding, narrow roads, deep in the canyon of the looming rocks.

From the highway, there was no way to give the rocks scale. From that far away, they could have been a hundred or a thousand feet tall, but as we drove deeper and deeper into the park, I recognized that they were actually about three hundred feet tall at their highest point. What made the benign looking rocks so spectacular was their massive width. They stretched for miles in every direction, and no matter where I looked, I saw routes up them that looked doable in the darkness from the safety of our car. From down below, every approach looked forgiving, but I could imagine that from up there, half way up and exposed, things would appear very differently.

TheKid, now awake and chomping at the bit to get climbing despite the fact that it was after two in the morning, yelped from the cramped back seat that he'd seen a good campsite. We stopped, backed in, and killed the engine. With the car turned off, the chilly, nighttime, summer breeze blew through the car and we heard the sound of the stream bubbling through our site. It was perfect indeed. It was just like our home; the sound of the wind mixed with the sound of running water.

JimmytheKid helped set up the tent, which we realized we were a few tent-stakes short for, but being that we were tucked into a grove of aspen trees, all full of leaves, we figured we'd be okay for a night or two. We didn't know how long we were going to stay, or rather, Kimber seemed unsure of how long we were going to stay. He had yet to commit to the question, "When are we going to go home? Tomorrow or Sunday?" Instead of an answer, he'd say, "We'll just stay as long as we have to. We'll know when it's time to go home."

Once the tent was up, JimmytheKid busied himself filling water bottles with water he'd pumped from the little stream running through the site, using some kind of water purification apparatus. All of the sleeping bags were opened and aired out, turned inside out and shaken in case some black widow or brown recluse had set up shop in them for the last year or two. Most of the stuff we'd brought with us was left in the car to keep the bears from rummaging through our site. JimmytheKid argued that if we didn't leave food out for the bears to find, they'd think we were the tastiest thing in our site and eat us. It was funny because it was hard logic to argue against, or at least I thought so.

Waking up later that morning in Vedauwoo, my first inclination was to look for Kimber in the bag next to me. He was there, much to my relief, but I'd had a terrible dream in which theKid and I were back in Kittridge talking about Kimber in the past tense. In the dream, theKid kept asking me "Who's my dad?" over and over again in a voice that wasn't quite his. It was odd, and as I woke, my hand jumped from my side to Kimber's thigh. I squeezed it, feeling his warmth beside me and knowing we were okay. Kimber was there, and I was safely at his side. I wanted to wake that way for the rest of my life, with Kimber Canavan beside me and the knowledge that I was safe, always safe.

The second thing that stuck out about waking up on that clear-blue sky morning was the rocks. They were painted in oranges and pinks as the sun broke over the horizon. I stared at the rocks in amazement. They now contrasted with the height of the trees, giving me real perspective. The rocks were even bigger than I'd assumed last night. Each rock or boulder looked to be the size of a tractor trailer and the tiny gaps between them I'd seen last night now looked like they were more than twenty feet across. These rocks weren't happy, smiling rocks that said, "Come to me, I will keep you safe." Instead, they said nothing, staring back at me and daring me to come break myself on them. "Birds measure people in dog years," Kimber had said, and to these rocks, I realized we were almost nonexistent already. They would be here always. When I turned to ash, they would be here. When Jesus was nailed to that cross so many centuries ago, they were here beckoning those at the base of them to climb aboard and fall to their deaths.

I suppose that people love the rocks at Vedauwoo because of their dangerous beauty. From a few hundred feet below or away, they looked benign, rounded and massive. They seemed immobile, too big to ever move, but rocks are always in the process of falling down, always. They were as alive as the three of us standing before them. We were just insignificant human beings, soft and fragile, looking up into the face of God, timeless and impermeable to us. They suggested nothing, said nothing, and felt nothing for us as we took them in. I was speechless. I scanned the middle of the rock wall before us, trying to imagine how anyone could be so stupid as to look up into these rocks and believe they'd found a path through them from so far away. It seemed like suicide to just look up and point from rock to rock while saying things like, "Well, if we go from there to there, over that one, around the base of that one and up across those..." My heart thumped in my chest as the feeling of excitement that had been so prevalent turned into thoughts of cowardice. "We're gonna do a route you guys have done before, right?" I asked them both.

JimmytheKid said, "No! We gotta do a new one. We gotta make the Lai route!"

"The Lai route?" I asked with a poke to his belly.

"Yeah, we already got our own routes; you need one."

I looked at Kimber to clarify, but he was lost in a distant stare. I followed the path of his stare, trying to figure out if he saw something atop the rocks that we hadn't, or if he was just stoned and dazed. It wasn't the latter. He was thinking about something deep and emotional. I know because when he spoke, he did it in a voice that broke and waned. "We'll go that way," he said, pointing into the center of the chaos of rocks littering our foreground.

"What way?" I asked incredulously.

"Right there, that's the way," he said, pointing again into the middle of the crumbling mountain of boulders.

"Yeah!" JimmytheKid exclaimed. "Can we go, Dad?"

"We need to eat our breakfast first, bud. Then we'll get at it," he said, trying to sound happy, but his face was stiff and tense.

"Are you okay, Kimber? You haven't been right since last night. What's up?" I finally asked.

He looked at me, instantly snapping out of that long stare. He rolled his eyes at his weird behavior and shrugged nonchalantly. "No, I'm fine! It's just been a long time since I've been here. I'm excited to be back."

I asked him point blank, "We're gonna be okay, right?" I don't know why I asked it that way, but it seemed like Kimber was wrestling with something heavy. I needed Kimber to tell me that this was okay, that we were all going to be okay, even though when he did, I no longer believed him.

"Yeah," he said smiling at me. "Of course we will."

"Alright," I said with a sigh, letting them know I was a little unsure of my ability, especially when trying to picture myself as a dot among the rocks I was looking into.

"You'll be okay, Lai. Dad hasn't lost a man out here yet!" he laughed. "Right, Dad?"

Kimber laughed, but it was humorless. "That's right, buddy. I ain't lost a man yet."

"That's what Dad always says when someone gets scared. That's what he tells me when he's putting me to sleep at night."

I nodded. I ain't lost a man yet... So why do you look so lost, Kimber? "I'll start the bacon," I said, turning my back on the rocks.

JimmytheKid followed me back to the site. Kimber remained looking at the rocks. When I looked back again a moment later, he was on his knees, praying beside the stream. Chills went through me as I watched him for a second.

Kimber, always a ferocious eater, didn't eat much of his breakfast that morning. He pushed the eggs I'd scrambled around his plate until they were cold. He did eat a few slices of bacon and toast, but the eggs went uneaten. TheKid was so excited to climb and use some of that youthful energy that he didn't finish his plate either, but that was par for the course with him. When the breakfast stuff was all stowed away, we put on our hiking gear, packed our day bags, and topped off our water bottles. We were getting ready to climb those rocks, rocks that seemed to be no longer quiet and waiting, but calling to us, all of us. "Come to me. You are nothing here. You are already dead, just a passing breeze... Come break yourselves and see if we weep for you."

When our boots were tied, our water topped off, and our picnic lunch secured in the main compartment of Kimber's backpack, we were off. We walked across the stream, through the thicket of willows, and into the scree that lay at the outside edge of the slowly tumbling rocks. Small rocks, no bigger than suitcases, welcomed us into the world of Vedauwoo. They slowly gave way to bigger and bigger versions of the same stone as we passed out of sight from the campground and dropped into a shallow valley before we'd have to climb our way up. It felt good to be moving forward, to be doing something other than just sitting there, staring at the rocks. It didn't seem as chaotic inside the mess of fallen rocks. Once we were into the thick of it, our ascent seemed to be self-explanatory. It was just one rock to another, one step at a time, like crossing a creek on the few rocks that protrude from the water, one and then the next.

I remember thinking that as long as it stayed this way, the worst thing that could happen was a sprained ankle, or if you really blew it, maybe a broken knee. Other than that, by the time we'd come up out of the valley, entering the lair of the beast, I thought to myself, This is easy! I can do this! I began to let go of my paranoia and feelings of weakness and made a conscious effort to have fun. I looked at my watch and saw that it was 9:23 A.M., and by my hasty calculations, I guessed that Kimber was right and we'd be summiting in a matter of two and a half hours.

The morning was beautiful, maybe in the mid 70's but with a stiff breeze that bordered on chilly against the sweat dripping from our bodies. It was early enough to predict that this cool breeze would turn into a hot one by noon, but I guessed that climbing down would be less labor intensive and therefore the heat would be a welcome change. We took breaks every few moves, mostly so Kimber could talk to JimmytheKid, who at this point was still free to move around without Kimber having a death grip on the boy's belt. We were going up as we went, but gradually enough to hardly notice, that is until we turned around and looked back on our campsite. On one of these pauses I asked Kimber where the keys to his car were. He misunderstood my question and answered with "Don't worry, no one's gonna steal anything―camper's etiquette."

"No, I'm asking because if you fall and break your leg, I need to be able to get to the keys so I can drive you three hundred miles to the nearest hospital!" I laughed, giddy with nervous excitement.

"There's a hospital in Laramie." He smiled. Kimber was back. The expressionless face that had been haunting me since I'd returned to Kittridge the night before was gone, replaced by his genuine smile, easy nature, and careful observation. He was like the old Kimber again, a man in his element, a man with a far more beautiful mind than beard.

"You think we'll be up there by noon?"

He looked up, licked a finger, and held it in the wind with a smile. "Yep. 'Bout twelve-oh-two."

"Thanks, Sir Edmund Hillary." I laughed. "You ready to do this, Kid?" I asked Jimmy.

"Oh yeah!" he said, his eyes shifting to his father.

"Alright look... JimmytheKid, when we get up to those rocks there," he pointed to a ledge about seventy-five feet above us, "you're on lockdown, got it?"

TheKid looked up and said with wide eyes, "Maybe before that, Dad."

Kimber smiled. "We'll see how it goes. Remember, three points of contact with the rocks at all times. No hot-shotting up there, understand?"

TheKid gave his 'Who, me?' look and said, "Yes, sir. I'm not crazy!"

Kimber looked at me affectionately. "You okay? You having fun?"

I returned his look and smiled. "Yeah, it's awesome. It's also great to have you back. You seemed... I don't know, distant before."

"Just a little apprehensive, that's all. I'm better now. We're on God's path. We'll be okay."

"No, Dad. We're on Lai's path," JimmytheKid interjected.

We all laughed. "Yeah we are; this is Lai's path alright. Long, scary, and covered in shadows." He laughed again.

With that, we were off, scrambling and climbing, lifting each other from one ledge to the next. There were only a few places we crossed early that morning with any real exposure. Most of the time, we were no more than a ten or fifteen foot drop from where we'd land if we were to slip, and in most cases, that would be in the dark, cavernous spaces at the base of the round boulders we were crossing atop. There were a few scary moves, however, one of which left us with our backs to a hundred foot straight-shot to the afterlife, but by the time the severity of the situation had crossed my mind, we were above it. I was amped up with adrenaline, but felt otherwise peaceful. We just kept climbing, one step at a time, one boulder after another until we'd landed on the rocks that Kimber had pointed out to JimmytheKid. When we got to that point, theKid sat dutifully and waited for Kimber and me to catch up to him. TheKid was smiling when we finally caught up to him. "I waited, Dad, just like you said."

"You're a good boy, JimmytheKid," Kimber said, giving him a half hug with one arm. "And you made it up this far all by yourself. You're gonna be a hell of a mountaineer one day, bud."

"I already am, Dad! I made it all the way up here, even at that one spot, and I didn't freak out."

"No you didn't," I said crediting theKid. What had scared me to death hadn't even fazed him. That comforted me and scared me both at the same time. If theKid had experienced bad enough situations to make light of that one, I feared that the rest of this route would be more and more difficult. We all drank water while we rested, all of us staring up at the rocks looming above us with nervous anticipation.

Kimber spoke as if he knew what I was thinking, "Don't worry. It always looks impassible from about half way. Once we get up there, it'll be no different than what we've already done."

"Okay," I agreed, a little unsure. "What about that spot right there?" I asked, pointing to a submarine shaped rock that stuck straight out from the rest of the cliff as if half of the sub were buried inside the rock wall.

"Yeah, I saw that. That'll be a little trickier, but there'll be a way. There always is."

But that wasn't exactly true, was it? I'd already been told of a time they'd almost died on these rocks because they'd run into a situation where the next move didn't make itself known to them, and for it, Kimber had risked his life. "If it's not, will we be able to down-climb?" I asked apprehensively.

Kimber put his arm around me. "Yes. Definitely. We won't go up anything that we can't get down. Promise."

I kissed him on the mouth. TheKid said, "Get a room!" and we laughed, Kimber spraying me with snot as he laughed through his nose.

"Gross, Kimber! You just gave me a snot shower!" I said, wiping frantically at my face.

TheKid was in stitches, laughing riotously as I wiped my face and made pretend vomiting gestures. Yeah, I was feeling pretty good. "You want my do-rag?" Kimber asked, his hand grabbing at the bandana he'd tied around his hair.

"Uh... no thanks," I said with my 'Gross!' face.

"Alright, just don't say I didn't offer it."

"Maybe you should use it to blow your nose!" I laughed at my own, newfound hilarity.

Kimber didn't even bat an eye. "Don't need to. Just blew it." He patted me on the small of my back.

"Come on, let's do this!" TheKid urged, pulling at my hand.

"Alright, you ready?" Kimber asked. "JimmytheKid, you're right with me. You know the drill. No screwing around. This is where it gets more serious." Kimber removed a dog leash from his bag and attached it to theKid's belt, right in the dead center of his back. He connected the handle end of theKid's dog leash to a harness he'd slipped into. When he tightened everything down, I smiled at Kimber's crotch which was bulging from the tightness of the harness.

"Easy, tiger," I said and then exploded in laughter. How I'd gotten so funny in a matter of minutes, I don't know, but I was feeling great. I needed this, the fresh air, the bonding, the adrenaline... I knew why they loved it here. It wasn't because these rocks were any different than others; it was because Vedauwoo was different than other places. It had personality―tranquil and dangerous braided together in the light of the sun mixed with shadows and that unrelenting breeze that was warming five degrees an hour.

Kimber snapped a carabiner to the end of the leash that was now affixed to his harness, slipped his backpack over his shoulders and snapped it to his chest, adjusting the straps for a secure fit.

"Is theKid's belt strong enough to catch him if he falls?" I asked.

Kimber smiled and nodded at me. "I had Kevin from the Morrison Garage put a steel cable through the center of it. Check it out," he said, turning theKid around to face me. JimmytheKid lifted his shirt and showed me a specially designed belt buckle that was incapable of slipping out of its holes. "It'll hold ten thousand pounds." He looked at JimmytheKid and nodded. The boy dropped his shirt. Apparently, every time they hooked together, Kimber inspected theKid's belt buckle to be sure it'd been fastened correctly. "If theKid doesn't stop eating, I'll have to have it upgraded to the twenty-thousand-pound cable."

JimmytheKid laughed, but turned and started up the trail of rocks that would lead us to the submarine jutting out, about a hundred feet above us. I realized looking up at it that if we were to fall from there, we'd land right where we stood now, with a splat. There'd be little chance of surviving a fall from there, almost none, to be exact.

We climbed for a half an hour before we arrived at the submarine. Once we were there, it did look passible but not without risking some serious exposure. The main problem with breaching the sub was a gap of about four feet between the flat rock we were on and the top side of the sub rock; a move that had to be made in order to summit. Everywhere else to the right and left of the sub was a flat, sheer rock wall that climbed thirty feet or so before a ledge wide enough to stand on made itself available. No, the sub was the only way, and as I looked at it, I got an eerily terrifying sensation. It felt like I was in free fall, dizzying and loose. I braced myself, feeling like I'd just undergone a spell of vertigo. I looked at Kimber, shaking my head. "I don't know, Kimber."

He walked past me, staring into the gap between the rocks and whistled. "Well, you definitely don't want to come up short. Looks like more than a hundred feet, and those rocks sticking up down there don't look like they're Nerf."

"Should we go back?" I asked, hoping it would be taken as a suggestion rather than a question.

"No. We've come too far to go back. We can do this." He looked at me, his eyes begging me to trust him.

"Kimber, you said... Look, we have to be careful. I have sort of a weird feeling about this," I said, sounding more like I was pleading than stating my feelings.

"What sort of feeling?" he asked me with earnestness. He genuinely wanted to know what I was talking about, like I'd struck a nerve with my simple comment.

"I don't know exactly, but this rock in particular... it's giving me the creeps." I stared into the void between the rocks and then wondered if the sub would even hold us. It was certainly big enough and looked strong enough, but it stuck out a long way, ten feet of overhang at least, which I assumed was very, very heavy. What if our additional four hundred pounds was enough to snap the damned thing in half? We'd fall to our deaths while being chased by a twenty-ton rock that would make quick work of our remains. They'd never find us. "I just think we need to go back."

Kimber looked strangely disappointed with my explanation of my feelings. It was as if he'd hoped I was going to say something that I didn't. I felt like I had disappointed him with my inarticulate summary of my emotions. He turned toward the gap, unclipped the carabineer that secured JimmytheKid to him, and with two steps to gain him some speed, jumped the gap, landing on the side of the submarine rock and immediately grabbing for a hold. The platform we were jumping from was just below the sub, making a leap onto the sub's side doable, but once you landed on the rock, one would have to immediately scramble up the side of the sub, onto its top that was maybe five feet wide, but rounded. He fumbled with his landing for a second, starting to slip back toward us as we watched in horror, but before he slipped off the edge, he found a hold and stopped his backward traverse. In three steps, he was standing on top of the rock, jumping up and down on it to prove to me that it was strong enough. "You could park a tractor trailer on this rock!" he said, smiling wide with pride.

"Jesus, Kimber!" I yelled at him angrily. I clutched theKid in my hands by the shoulders, not wanting him to trip on the loose dog leash dangling dangerously behind him now that it was free of Kimber's harness. "If you're going to be reckless..." I started to give him a lecture, but he stopped me.

"Lai, it's just a four-foot gap. I'm six two. It's not a biggie, okay? And look... I'm safe. Now listen, here's how we'll do this, toss me JimmytheKid's leash and I'm gonna tie off to it." Kimber produced a piece of rope, colorfully orange, red, and blue and made of thick nylon. It was genuine climbing rope, and longer than I could imagine we'd ever need. "Unhook theKid until I can secure this end, then I'll toss it back to you. You re-clip him in, and he runs for it. If he misses, I'll catch him with the rope." Kimber looked at JimmytheKid, who now looked unsure.

"Dad..." JimmytheKid started, but Kimber was expecting this.

"Kid, you think I'd ever drop you? Honestly, do you believe that you could fall with me clipped in on my end?"

This seemed to satisfy theKid. "No. I know you won't drop me, Dad."

"Right. I ain't lost a man out here yet, JimmytheKid! Today ain't gonna be the day I lose you, that's for damn sure."

"Kimber, this is stupid. You promised me that if we couldn't make it forward, we'd climb down," I demanded.

"Lai, you have to trust me. This is part of the process. If it was all hiking, we'd call it hiking at Vedauwoo, not climbing. This is what we do. Every route has a few tricky spots; that's what makes it exciting. Now trust me, okay? You're going to be fine."

I looked at theKid. "You think you can make it?" I asked.

Kimber was right, I had to do this. We had to do this, together. I didn't want to sound like a sissy. These two had no tolerance for it, and I had too much pride for that. It wasn't that I was so scared for myself; I was scared for theKid. I knew that the boy was scared himself, and that made me sad for him. This was only fun, as far as I knew, while theKid was having fun. If theKid was scared, this was pointless. We were here to have fun, not to die, but I realized that for theKid, he had to make this jump. He believed that his father, whom he adored, would be hard on him or disappointed in him if he didn't. For theKid, this was for the future, for the next trip, for bragging rights later on. For young boys out to prove to their fathers that they are little men, not little boys, these sorts of tests are worth passing. It's a very dangerous thing. That boy would follow his father through the gap if he thought it meant respect from Kimber on the other side.

"Yeah, I can make it," JimmytheKid said in his bravest voice.

I clipped him into his belt after Kimber tied the leash to the climbing rope. I turned JimmytheKid around to show Kimber, wanting him to sign off that I'd done it right, and when Kimber nodded, he clicked the rope in on his end. "I'm good." Kimber said. "How you doing, Kid? You okay? Look, if this was a jump from one piece of sidewalk to the next, it'd be a piece of cake. Don't think about the height, think about the distance. You with me, Kid?"

"Just tell me when I can go, Dad," JimmytheKid said a little too matter-of-factly to be genuinely how he felt. He wasn't ready for the jump, but he never would be.

Kimber looked at me, and then at theKid. I saw fear, as real and heavy as the fear in me, and theKid for that matter, but Kimber just smiled, looked at his son and said, "Jimmy, I'll never let you fall. Do you understand? I am your father, and I would gladly die to save you. You will make this and when you do, you're going to be one badass little dude. Now come on, get over here!"

Kimber's words hadn't even stopped echoing off the rocks when JimmytheKid turned toward the gap and ran as fast as he could on a five foot platform. I watched as the rope between them slipped into the void as theKid neared the edge of the platform. I couldn't breathe as I watched, terrified about what was happening. I kept my eyes open as the boy launched himself, right leg forward. In the space between the platforms, his arms flailed, carrying him across the gap upright. He landed two thirds of the way up the sub's round side and without even a single tug from Kimber's end was on top of the sub with his dad in one step. The boy turned and looked at me, his smile uncontainable. "I made it! I am the king of these rocks!" he screamed with pride.

Kimber hugged him ferociously. "I love you, Kid. You are one bad little dude, you know that? That was incredible! You made it higher up this side than I did!"

"I made it, Lai! I made it!" he yelled.

Now I was alone on the other side, watching as the Canavan boys patted each other on the back in some sort of brotherly respect and admiration for each other. "Alright, Lai, tie this around your waist," Kimber said, trying to unclip JimmytheKid. Before he could even finish, as if possessed by the Devil himself, I turned and ran at them. When I saw the black hole coming, I pressed with my left foot and threw myself across the void at them. Only when I was in the air, somewhere between here and there, did I realize that I might have overdone it a bit. The last thing I saw as I crossed over the gap and waited to make contact with the sub was the end of theKid's line, unhooked and in Kimber's hand. They had disconnected from each other in order to throw me the line, and I'd overshot my mark.

I knew in that instant that I was about to make contact with the boy, body to body contact, and with my weight advantage, that meant theKid was going to recoil from my impact and fly off the back side of the sub, down to the place we'd all been looking up from forty-five minutes ago.
CHAPTER 16

I married Cain Michael Poponopolous eighteen months after Kimber and theKid died. It was a small ceremony, just our closest friends and family, which included the newly married Joe and Emily Frank, and, of course, the ceremony was performed by Kimber's pastor friend Billy at The Little Church in Morrison.

Joe pulled me aside later to ask how I was doing, and I replied with what had become so practiced: "I'm hanging in there." I said it the way I always did, with tears in my eyes. It was hard to see Joe, and I fear that it will always be that way. He doesn't say it now, but I know the same is true for him. It's not all that often that we do see each other, though in the years since Kimber, we have gotten to be friends again, closer than we were while Kimber lived, but not as good as we could have been had Kimber outlived his predicted lifespan. Most of the time when I do see Joe and Emily it's at an event for The Canavan Foundation. They have yet to miss a single event, and for that I am always so thankful. It's ironic how important Joe Frank is to the legacy of Kimber and TheKid. Even if the actual scheduling and event coordinating is done by Poppy and me, Joe Frank is a critical part of the Foundation's overwhelming success. People, when they remember Kimber, seem to remember Joe Frank more vividly than they do me. There was a time when that realization was hurtful, but now I take pride in Joe Frank and all that he does for the memories of Kimber and TheKid.

Joe Frank and Emily Marchellis were married on Kimber's birthday, October 17th, a year after he died. In their service, the best man spot was intentionally left unfilled. At the end of the service, Joe and Emily played "The Sweetest Thing I've Ever Known" by Juice Newton, one of the three songs Kimber had requested at his funeral. By the time Juice climbed to her first chorus, there was audible weeping in the church, Joe and Emily among them. Joe added that song specifically for me. You see, I'd left the day of the funeral service, before Kimber's songs had played, knowing damn well that I wouldn't be able to deal with them. I'd been mad at myself for bailing out before the songs had been played ever since. That song haunts me now. Somehow I still consider it among my favorites, though I do not listen to it, ever, anymore.

Things with Joe and me were better than they'd ever been before. Unbeknownst to me, a month after Joe's wedding, or there about, Poppy sent him the Death Diaries, Volumes 1-4, but theKid's we burned in the fireplace, none of us willing to open that one. The messages he'd left for me were damn near impossible to digest, so I couldn't even have imagined trying to read his thoughts and goodbyes to his son, and only now, all this time later, can I say that I am glad that they died together. That took me so long to be able to say. After Joe read the books, which he did in a matter of days, he came out to our house for a tear-filled dinner where we all made our amends. Joe and I apologized to each other over and over again for the year of miscommunication and rumor-fueled hatred. All Joe had to say about the Diaries, to me anyway, was "I know now. Thank you, Lai. Whenever you're ready to tell me the how, I'll be here."

I told him right then and there. It was the first time I'd ever told the story, and I was in hysterics as I did so, reliving it in audible narrative for the first time, and realizing again and again that it was that terrible. Joe listened to me recalling the events, step by awful step, with his head in his hands, his elbows resting on his knees, his back and body shaking violently when I got to the heart of it. When I got to the part about theKid, he made me stop. "Just tell me the end. Tell me how my friend died. Please... for the love of God, leave theKid out of it. I just can't..." he said, breaking into another bout of tears, barely able to say, "I'll need to know about theKid too. I know I will, but today I can't. I just can't."

It was a relief to me to be hearing Joe Frank saying aloud that my long silence was understandable and warranted. I continued, telling him what Kimber did and how he did it, barely able to even speak because I saw the pain he was in, and it hurt me much the same. When I finished, Joe produced a joint. "It's laced up with the Orient," he said, his face red and swollen, but a thin smile lay like concrete at the bottom of the pain.

While we smoked the joint together on the porch, we didn't speak. When it was too small to handle, Joe flicked it off my porch and said, "Thank Poppy for me, please. Jesus, Lai, what did I do to you? I am so sorry for putting you through all of that. I can't imagine how lost and alone you were. Kimber would be hard on me for it. He'd probably punch me in the face for what I put you through." He stood and looked at me, our faces matching red wetness for red wetness, and said one last thing before he went. "The truth is..." He stopped to try and breathe, just so he could get the words out. "Neither of them could have done it here without the other. There is no higher compliment to pay our dear friend than that." He left without another word, unable to speak further.

I was elated to have Joe Frank back in my life. He was a crucial piece of Kimber, and I felt more complete in remembering Kimber with Joe as a friend. I count him now among the best friends I have in the world, though we rarely speak.

Two years after Joe married the love of his life, Poppy made his demand. "Write the book, Lai. You don't have to create answers. You just have to tell them what he did. Let them come to their own conclusions... These were friends of Kimber's. They'll understand."

"But they won't believe!" I snapped at Poppy.

"They don't have to. They just have to know. The hell with 'em if they don't understand Kimber Canavan. I knew the guy as well as anyone, and I barely grasped the simplest concepts Kimber understood. They never did because they never could." He'd sounded just like Kimber.

"I don't know, Poppy... with the way everyone feels about me..."

"That's why, Lai. That's why you have to write it. Kimber said in the books that you would be a tool for God, that you would see His plans all the way through. Maybe it's God's will you write the book. Ever thought of that?"

No. I hadn't. But then again, I hadn't read the books yet either.

So instead, I took the Death Diaries to Bailey for that awful weekend and read the words left for me by my late husband. When I started book four, I stared at the pages, unable to read more than one sentence at a time, pausing for a drink between each of them. When I finished it, I knew that I was ready. Not to give you the answers, but to give you the story, all of it. I'll trust God to give you the rest.

Poppy is 100% homosexual, and our life together is more about convenience than anything else. He manages Sweat Stains, much the way he always has. Without Kimber there to dance with the women that so loved him, it's not the same as it once was, but it has grown under Poppy's care.

We find ourselves asking each other all the time, "What would Kimber have done about this or that?" Usually one of us suggests, "Punch the bastard in the face?" We laugh, remembering the brawn and ballsiness of Kimber. For a soldier of God, there was no one more fearless or prepared to fight God's causes, both figuratively and literally, and it brings us great pride to remember the times Kimber kicked ass.

Poppy has a wonderful boyfriend named Kenneth who spends a lot of time at our house. I still own Sweat Stains, along with The Canavan Foundation for boys without fathers, but I haven't ever gone back there during business hours since the man that created such a novel idea left me behind. The proceeds are split evenly between Poppy and his crew and The Canavan Foundation. We run Sweat Stains as an employee owned business, making rich men out of the snappily dressed employees. An equal portion is donated to charities and The Canavan Foundation. Last year we donated 1.1 million dollars to the foundation from membership sales and an additional $350,000 from private donations from the members of Sweat Stains. In 2015 we're doing the Canavan 5K through Morrison, five years after his death. All of the proceeds go to The Canavan Foundation, and more importantly, in order to run you have to adopt a kid for a day, a kid without a father and run with him or her. It's just the sort of catch Kimber would have demanded, and each time I get a letter that says, "I'd do the 5k for Kimber's Foundation, but I'm not doing the whole sponsor a kid thing," I send the same reply, "If you are unwilling to sponsor a kid for a day, we don't want you."

No, I don't have Kimber's etiquette, nor do I have the love for these people that Kimber would have. We don't need them. In the Death Diaries, Kimber left me two business ideas that I think are crazy, but, as usual, there is the potential for them to work; not just work, but become legendary Canavan Companies. I'm not moving on them now, but in time I will realize them, when it's God's time, something I'm learning to understand.

With Poppy obviously not into women, I have taken on a life of chastity. The only reason I married Poppy was because of that fact. Had he been romantically interested in me, I would have declined. I will never marry again. Poppy and I will not last. He and Kevin have made tentative plans to marry in the year 2016, and if Poppy will stay by me until then, I will be grateful and okay. Poppy was an important crutch for me in the year that followed Kimber's death, and I know, as did Kimber, that God loves His homosexuals the same way he loves His heterosexuals. To think otherwise is ungodly and, if there is any justice, blasphemy. Poppy may never come to God, not formally, but in so many ways, Kimber's testimony brought us all closer to God.

Being widowed is a curse. Every man that I meet feels intimidated, not only that I had a husband who died, but I had a Kimber. It seems to them to be an impossibly high bar, and frankly, I agree. Kimber's creative beauty ruined me for men, and honestly, I'm okay with that now. Love is always worth waiting on, and for me, maybe that means waiting until I'm ninety years old. If so, I'll wait. I'll wait the rest of my life and long for the day when I am reunited with Kimber and theKid. I'll hold them both through all of eternity, never letting them out of my sight again. If and when you are lucky enough to hold the hand of love, anything less is fraudulent.

It took me just over three months to write this story. I could have done it in two had the tears ever once stopped rolling down my face, blurring my vision. However, taking people that will never know Kimber through the amazing life he had and describing the man he was has felt, since my first key stroke, like the meaning of my time with him. You see, no matter what you choose to believe, there are certain truths about Kimber. He was a prophet. People came to Kimber the way they came to Christ: dressed in rags, tattooed and high or drunk... They came to him because for the first time in their lives, they heard about God through the words of a man who was without pretention in any form.

By the time I set the date to call all of Kimber's friends back to Morrison for my account of his death, I was almost done with my manuscript. It became clear to me that I owed them this explanation, so in contrast to every fiber inside of me that said not to, I did it. It was the first time I felt like I heard God speaking to me. It came as an inexplicable thought that seemed to beckon to me. "You owe them the truth. You owe Me the truth." My role in the life of Kimber and theKid was that of lover, mother, and most importantly, recorder. I have decided to name this book The Gospel of Kimber Canavan, both because I believe him deserving of the title, and because it's what I always said to him when I was tired of his biblical lecturing.

I sent out 414 invitations, posted notices at the Morrison Inn and Vinnie's Bar, and advertised in the local papers. All I said in my announcements was that the story of Kimber Canavan's death was going to be recounted by the only person left alive to tell it.

Three days before the event titled "Accounting for the Death of Kimber Canavan" at The Little Church in Morrison, a local radio station picked up the story. The reporter who was charged with getting to the bottom of this mysterious event began interviewing people in Morrison. He started his inquiry at the Morrison Inn and quickly found out that I was the one behind it. He called me one afternoon and asked if he could come out to my house so he could better understand who Kimber was.

I found myself in an odd place between wanting to tell this reporter who Kimber was and knowing that Kimber had to be known. My final reply to the ambitious young reporter was simply "Come to the event. You'll understand better who he was if you see that. I haven't been much good to people seeking to understand Kimber Canavan for the last three years."

He did come.

On the day of the "Accounting for the Death of Kimber Canavan" event, I arrived early to meet with Billy, hoping to put him at ease with a brief summary of the events of that day. Billy took me into the back office of the church and asked me to keep my bad language to a minimum. I suppose he figured that because Kimber liked to swear in church, I would. That wasn't true. Kimber did like to swear at church; not because he enjoyed being thought of as blasphemous, but because he believed that people's shock was method acting. He believed that people are all sinners, but at church they pretended to be otherwise. Kimber had gone so far as to tell Billy that he was a hypocrite, just like the rest of them. "Why don't you stand up there every Sunday morning and announce your sins of the week, Billy? Why do you wear robes and burn incense and pretend to be Christ on Earth? You're a sinner, right? Don't you think that if you announced your sins to the congregation, they'd come to understand that all these pretenses are unnecessary and sinful?"

Billy had just laughed his bemused laugh at Kimber.

"See, Billy, you're as damned as the rest. The difference between Joe Sinner in the congregation and you is your position of authority. You are charged with being Christ-like. You are the one in the front, the one collecting the money... You are supposed to do what God would ask of you, but you don't. You come to the bar and get drunk, swear and harass the waitresses, just like the rest of us, but you can't own it. You pretend in the house of God... You've got balls, but no ethics."

That conversation had strained their relationship for a while, but Billy came back to Kimber with humility, eventually. Billy loved Kimber differently than I did, but it was still love. Billy respected Kimber, not because he had to, but because he knew Kimber was right.

Unnecessarily, I assured Billy that I would be on my best behavior, but as I answered him, I realized that he was really just winding up for a fastball. "Tell me what happened, Lai." he said, his eyes filling with tears. "I'm scared of my own death. I need to know."

I considered, but couldn't. "Billy, I swear, I don't even know if I can do it once. Please don't ask me to do it twice."

He nodded. "You ready for them? I mean, you know that they're sort of a... well, hostile crowd."

"Uh yes, Billy, I think I understand that," I said, despising the little man in that second more than I should have. He was all the things Kimber disliked in religious figures. He was dependent on money to run his church, and in Kimber's mind, that compromised him.

"I'll be right there in the front seat if you need me..." he said with a pat on my shoulder.

I didn't.

When I came out of the back office, the church looked like Grand Central Station. I'd guessed that maybe a hundred people would show up. I thought that the majority of people wouldn't come because it was me telling the tale, and I was disliked if not hated and distrusted in that little town. I knew the Nooney's were coming. They'd written me a letter to tell me so. I knew Joe and Emily would be there. Poppy and some of the people from Sweat Stains would be there, but other than that, I didn't think anyone would want to hear my words about Kimber. It turns out that people came because they loved Kimber enough to hear me out. They wanted to love me; they just hadn't been able to.

There were eight hundred people in the sanctuary and more in the foyer looking in through the oak doors between us and them. I almost turned around and went back in to Billy's office and told him the story, hoping he'd tell it to the crowd of saddened guests. The more I considered this, the louder God's voice grew in my mind. "Tell them the truth. Let me worry about the details," God was whispering.

The young, inexperienced reporter hadn't stopped at me. He'd gone on, interviewing the Nooney's, Joe and Emily, Poppy, people at Sweat Stains, people in the music business, people at the bars, the restaurants... The guy had uncovered enough about Kimber to think that maybe this little event today was more than the little story he'd been told it was, maybe it was his breakthrough as a reporter. In the three days before the service, the radio station he worked for advertised the event, making more of it than I had, and the people came. By the time the Morrison Police showed up to control parking and traffic, it had turned into the event of the year, at least for this little town nestled in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.

All I could think as I stared at the mass of people crammed into the hot little church was that Kimber would smile at seeing his impact. All a man ever really wants is to be remembered. When push comes to shove, being remembered after you're gone is far more important than being the man of the hour while you live. Kimber had been one of the few that could be both, and for it, he was rewarded with over eight hundred people in the building before me.

Some of my former friends from Kanavan saw me standing nervously in the front of the church and came to see me. We had awkward conversations, mostly catching up on the events of the last few years, but I could see the nervousness in their faces. They were scared for me, for what I might admit. Even then, people still believed I'd killed my family and seeing it on that day was different than seeing it years before. I hurt for them. I wanted to alleviate their hurts and worries. I wanted to let them know that Kimber died in a way that he thought was necessary, but suddenly I worried that no one was going to believe me. I kept the pre-speech chit-chat to a minimum and told them all that I'd be available to them afterward if they wanted to talk further about it.

Finally, I took my spot in a chair behind the pulpit and waited while Billy tried to get the crowd under control. I'd never heard him speak before, never been to one of his non-denominational Sunday morning services, so I had no idea what to expect. It turned out that Billy was quite a speaker, eloquent and direct yet emotional enough to really break through. I thought that maybe God was working through Billy after all, and wondered if somewhere out there Kimber was proud of his friend. He started in, talking about service times and church events, unable to let this crowd escape without at least mentioning that they were all welcomed to come back again and again. When he was done with his preliminary announcements and invitations, Billy's face sobered up. "Many of you remember our dear friend Kimber Canavan and his loving little son JimmytheKid, or James Pharoe Canavan to be more official. TheKid, as we called him, had seen a cowboy movie with Kimber where Billy the Kid had been a major character, and he'd fallen in love with the name... Anyway, three years ago we lost Kimber under uh... well, unusual circumstances. He'd predicted his death within a year and died in the middle of the twelfth month. It left this town of ours with a void unlike any I have ever seen before or since. Kimber was a sweet man, maybe that's not even good enough... He was special, as you might have guessed by the attendance here today. Beside me is Lai Canavan, Kimber's widowed wife. She has remarried now and has never spoken of what happened to Kimber that day. I imagine that for Lai, this day has been a long time coming.

"After Kimber and theKid died, many of us acted in ways that we are ashamed of now,. Many of us pointed the blame at people we could still see, people like Lai. As a man of faith, I always felt a little intimidated by Kimber. He was... well, he was Kimber. He only did what he did well, and one of those things was understanding God. He was a musician..." Billy had to stop as the crowd of gatherers clapped and screamed for a minute. Billy smiled and nodded as he waited for the applause to die down. "Yeah, I figured some of you knew him as that..." and again, Billy stopped, this time to hear the words people were yelling from the standing-room-only church. "The radio? They're playing him on the radio?" Billy asked someone in the first few pews. "Wow. No kidding? I know that Kimber turned down multiple offers to be a legit, nationwide act... I know that people that knew him loved him. He was a sometimes violent man, but he was a lover and a follower of Jesus Christ. None of us are without sin... As I close, so Lai can answer the questions that have been haunting us for years, I want to say this about Kimber..." Billy stopped speaking and looked at the ceiling, allowing his tears to fall for a second. "There are many that God calls to Him. There are many that martyr themselves in the name of God, but there are few that have the impact that Kimber Canavan had. He touched us all, each of us in a very personal way. I don't drive up Morrison Road anymore, past where the old Kanavan Coffee shop used to be. I find it haunting." Billy paused to let that sink in. "I'll turn this over to Lai now and say for Kimber's sake... he was a good man, through and through, and I know, more so than I know where I'll end up, that he sits with his Heavenly Father now. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Lai Canavan."

There was awkward applause as I prepared myself to go deep into the details of that day. For three years everyone had asked me what happened, and for three years I'd not said a word. I was still digesting the events of that day three years later when I stood before a packed church waiting to know. By the time I stood up behind that pulpit, I was ready to tell the world of the last of his kind. By the time I finished my account of that day, there wasn't a dry face in the crowd. I cried unabashedly as I spilled the details. People wailed out loud, partially from sadness about their dear friend and partly because of the way they'd portrayed me in the years since. When I finished, my eyes were red and puffy from crying, but I needed to say one more thing, one more very important thing.

"Kimber had prepared to die, believing that I would take care of theKid for the rest of my life. He believed that God was going to protect theKid from harm because in his dream, Kimber heard his Father say, 'If you follow the path God has for your life, your son will be okay.' I was upset about that, and in the days after Kimber's death, I cursed God. I called him a liar and things far worse. A month after Kimber and theKid left me alone, I found out I was pregnant. I knew..." I stopped to wipe the tears, "I knew... it would be a boy. I knew that God was right and that Kimber wasn't meant to understand. I still don't think he did, but he followed God all the way to the end. I have struggled with..." I paused again, "the way you all felt about me afterward. I wanted to tell you all, so help me, I did, but how could I? Kimber had predicted his death and we, all of us, had laughed because in our little minds, God didn't exist, let alone play that way. He didn't give clues, He didn't make martyrs, and He didn't send prophets. He sent us Kimber Canavan as an example, and we watched him, wowed by his mind, with his caring and concern for people that he didn't even know and asked ourselves, 'Why?' I still don't know. I'll never heal from the loss of that day. I never will. I'd like to introduce you all to Abel James Canavan, the son born to me nine months after Kimber and theKid's death." I held Abel James up for everyone to see.

I closed the service by reading Kimber's last entry into his Death Diary, the one included in this book.

There was a standing ovation that seemed to shake the building. People screamed and whistled and clapped for my son.

Poppy had married me to help me raise Abel, a name we both agreed on. Abel's most notable features are a pair of perfectly clear blue eyes. I imagine that twenty years from now he will grow an atrocious beard and turn into exactly what theKid always wanted to be―his father.

God is merciful.

God, in his wisdom, knew that Kimber couldn't remain without theKid, nor could theKid remain without his father. They were that close, that connected. TheKid had a short, sad life. He'd been trapped in the room with his dead mother for days, three years old and able to understand she was gone. How could anyone have ever undone that? No one could have, except maybe Kimber Canavan. Kimber had lived that last year of his life counting down the days. He'd given me the moments of his life, and they've been crushing me ever since. Abel will soon start asking who his father was, and when he does, I anticipate that he'll sound a lot like that dream I had the night before Kimber and theKid were taken away from me. He'll ask me questions in a voice that sounds a little like theKid's, but younger and more naïve.

When Kimber died that day, I was as far from faith as I would ever be. I saw the gap. I saw what we thought were God's lies as theKid's eyes closed for the last time, just two minutes after Kimber preceded him into the light. I was angry at theKid when I climbed down to their bodies and saw that trace of a smile on JimmytheKid's face, the smile he'd been unable to resist when he knew his father was going with him. JimmytheKid was lying on his back, his belly button the highest point on his body as he lay broken on an oval-shaped, cold, grey rock. He was bleeding from everywhere, the rock red with his young, innocent blood. His blond hair was still blowing a bit in the breeze, and I'd touched him... I kissed him on his forehead but by that moment, he was already gone. TheKid was staring straight up as if he'd seen Jesus coming down for him from Heaven, but I know that's not why theKid smiled. He smiled when he saw his father coming down in lieu of Jesus, the way any scared and dying five-year-old boy would have.

I did inherit over seven million dollars, and I have used some of it. Poppy and I share a home in Maine, one in San Diego, and, of course, one here in Kittridge. I never went back to work after Kimber. I didn't have to. I took a page out of the Kimber Canavan way of life and opened a business of my own. I have a store-front with my business name on it, and underneath it are the words A CANAVAN COMPANY. My name is still Lai Canavan, and it always will be. I focus on my business, Poppy's job, and The Canavan Foundation, all while trying to raise Abel James. He and I spend our mornings and evenings walking the perimeter of our property. We do it once in the morning and again just before dark. This is my time to tell him about his father. This is my time to live up to the last promise I made Kimber, and I try to live up to it every day. I try to forget the pain but remember the happiness, though that always seems to come with mixed results. I feel that I cannot make Abel understand who his father was, mostly because I'm still a little confused myself. He was a man. I tell myself that, but sometimes that's too simple an answer. What I'd seen of him that day will forever haunt me. I know that God prepared Kimber for what was coming, but how could anyone really be prepared for that? They cannot. Kimber, as brave and selfless as he was, still feared what came next, even when he was staring it in the eyes. He said in a Death Diary entry that he wanted to be brave, to face his death, and in the end, he did more than that.

Godspeed, my sweet lover and friend. I am so profoundly proud of you, wherever you are. You did it, Kimber. You faced it with honor and unspeakable compassion. I didn't make it easy for you, did I? Will you ever be able to forgive me, Kimber? Will you ever understand that I'm just a girl who'd fallen in love with a man so beautiful, that nothing, not even the confines of love and life, could keep him?

I'll steal a lyric from Kimber's song for Joe, the one he played that first night at the Morrison Inn.

Hey Joe, are you listening?

You will chase her alone for the rest of your life.

Hey Joe, let her go on the wind.

All things beautiful float on the wind.

I spread Kimber and theKid's ashes along the bank of the Bear Creek behind Kanavan. I spent a few days inside Kimber's coffee shop reading cards and picking up flowers that had been left for him there. Painstakingly, I removed every single cup sleeve off the back porch of Kanavan and boxed them up. Sometimes I go down to the basement and read a few of them, but not very often. I just can't take it that often. I demolished Kanavan almost immediately as driving by it was too painful. I watched it bulldozed over and felt relief. I could have sold it as a coffee shop, but who could have made it what it once was? If Kimber wasn't the man behind the window, no one ever could be.

In the month before he died, I watched Kimber reading his Bible. I recall the way his mouth moved, either as he read aloud to himself or as he asked God to protect us. I remember him praying beside the creek at Vedauwoo, just before we embarked on our last trip together and know that he was asking for the same thing his hero did in the Garden that night before he was arrested and crucified. I know he asked God to spare him, if he could be spared. I know that Kimber wanted forever with me and theKid, and now, I look forward to having it. He will be there when I leave here, and I'll not look back at this place with envy. I'll take Kimber's right hand and theKid's left, and follow them wherever they lead me.

But for now I stay here with Abel James.

I believe that Kimber had faith great enough to believe he could fly if he was called to. Kimber believed that all things were possible through Christ, who strengthened him. In his final seconds, Kimber believed with all of his heart that I would come to understand the prophesy. Years later, I can say that I do. Though I understand, I'm still not sure it was worth their lives. Maybe God is at work in my life. I hope that wherever they are Kimber is holding theKid's hand. I picture Kimber in Heaven, lying beside his son as he puts him to sleep. It's selfish of me, but I wonder sometimes if they talk about me occasionally. I hope that there, all things are revealed to them, mostly so theKid knows that after all I've been through, I am finally glad that they are together.

I hope theKid knows that I loved him so much, and that my life would have been fulfilled had I gotten to keep him.

I still grow angry with God from time to time for giving and taking away, but then, as I lay in Abel James' bed with him, waiting for him to fall asleep, I am thankful to be here with him. It's hard for me still; jealousy's grip is unrelenting. I never got to see Kimber put theKid to sleep, but I believe I know now what that process was. I read Abel James the Bible every night. I read the New Testament to him, over and over again, emphasizing the words of Jesus of Nazareth.

I believe that Kimber put theKid to bed each night not because theKid couldn't sleep without Kimber, but because Kimber couldn't sleep without theKid.

Sleep now, sweet men.

As I've said, I've learned to respect people that stay true to their colors. I've learned that the difference between taking and taken is a split second. I cling to his last words to me. I cling to the idea that one day I will be dying, falling deeper and deeper into the canyon, and then just before impact, I'll hear a voice and know it. I'll hear a voice and see those blue eyes I've so missed.

I say it every night. "I will see you soon, Kimber. Godspeed."
CHAPTER 17

The Death of Kimber Canavan

In the second before my foot made contact with the submarine rock, I realized, not for the first time, how helpless we are as human beings. Soft bodies in a hard world, so penetrable, so susceptible to happenstance. It's just a matter of time. For all of us, our simplest survival technique is something we don't even pay attention to. It's what we do all day every day to take the next breath. We avoid sharp or hard objects. It's the means to our survival.

For other deadly materials that are not hard, the danger is less apparent. We believe that life is priceless and do all we can to prevent death. We believe that death should be under our control, passing laws that all but demand death become submissive. In the long run, rebelling against our death is absolutely pointless. When our time is up, we will find a way off this planet; some of us go peacefully, others will bleed and scream for all their worth until they are worth no more.

There I was, locked in a second, watching and examining that second as if I were capable of stopping time. I could see the future, feel which way theKid would fall backward almost so exactly that I could have told you how he was going to make contact with the rocks below six seconds later. My motion atop hardened rocks would be the catalyst for theKid's death, and as I floated through time and space, I realized that I was glad to be alive, glad to be the one who would survive. I hated myself for these feelings, but at their core they are the essential quality of human beings. Survivor's guilt is what they call it, but it's darker than that. It's a close-up look at death followed by an enduring silence. We always remember what we survived. We are at the same time glad to be alive and tortured by it. In this instance, theKid was going to pay my fare and I believed that I would hate myself for it forever, all in the matter of a one-second jump across a gap two hundred feet deep and with certain death waiting like hungry piranha below. How petty. How wasteful to send ourselves to our graves for one second of excitement.

The living become the dead in a fraction of a second. One breath leads to another... One beat of the heart leads to the next... until it doesn't. I remember the days in the well after Kimber died and hearing the Dave Matthews' song "Warehouse." I was listening to the lyric "My heart's numbered beat..." and I thought that it was so true. That our heartbeats are numbered, numbered and counting down. We should all be as aware as Kimber. We are all dying soon, be that next year or fifty years from now, from wherever you are, it's soon.

I crossed from horror into that strange, letting-go moment when you realize how small and helpless you are to stop things. You release your will and accept that of the events surrounding you. When the distance between you and disaster is separated by gravity alone, when fighting back is null and void, you will become submissive, not death. As you release, it swallows. It takes every ounce of your will to live and squeezes it between its finger and thumb, making nothing of you in the blink of an eye. You come to allow your death; some do so quickly, others struggle on longer. Thoughts and memories flooded over me as my brain tried desperately to distract itself from the horror before me with pleasantries from my past. My eyes flashed to Kimber who was already looking at theKid.

TheKid was smiling as he turned to face me, but it was evaporating from his face as I made contact with my right foot. It seemed like an eternity had passed as theKid realized the damage had already been done. When death is near we recognize it, whether we are two years old or a hundred, we all understand that in some situations, there is no other alternative. I saw it, I swear I did, like a flash across theKid's face; the realization that he was about to die registered as I watched. There was a tension in his jaw, but it quickly relaxed as he turned to take one last look at his father.

"I ain't lost a man yet."

I tried to override my instinct to save myself by leaning to my right. I was trying, just for an instant, to do what I knew couldn't be done. I was helplessly unable to throw myself off balance and plummet to the abyss. Instinct, the ability to react athletically, is as engrained in us as the reflex to breathe and keep breathing. I was incapable of martyrdom, at least right then when it counted. I could always throw myself from the rocks later, but not in that moment. My brain was going to survive, even when my heart chose theKid.

Instead of twisting out of balance and rolling off the point of the sub, I leaned left, toward theKid, and watched as he braced for impact. His facial expression was nervous and tight, the way you'd expect, but underneath it all I saw the resignation. I saw him letting it happen, just as I had. The moment was profound. TheKid's arms drew into his chest, blocking his organs from the trauma of the collision, as he began to spin and move in the direction I was about to send him. Instinctually, his mind was warning him that the results would be the same; that he might as well begin to move in the same direction I was headed, even if that meant plunging to his death. Why endure the impact if the fall will kill you, Kid?

He was as good as dead by the time my heel had made contact with the Submarine.

I waited for it. Already preparations were being made in my mind's anticipation department, and it was adjusting in order to help me regain my balance after contact. Contact never came. When theKid was suddenly jerked out of my way, I had to readjust again in order to keep from going over the back. In many ways, I was counting on theKid as a braking system for my own momentum. When I saw him fly backward off the rocks, his arms in front of him as he reached out for me, all I could think of was I have to stop. Now my brain was prepared to set me off balance. I fell forward, my right foot connecting with the surface of the rock but not moving any further. The result was that I crashed belly down onto the one o'clock position on the surface of the spherical stone, skidding on my belly and palms as I stopped facing head down. I stared into the abyss for a moment, expecting to see theKid making contact in another second or two, but he was nowhere to be seen.

The sound of roughly drawn footsteps and of bodies making contact with each other stirred me. I glanced sideways to see theKid falling backward again, but this time coming to an immediate halt as the leash around his back jolted him to a stop. Kimber had reconnected the carabineer in time enough to jerk theKid backward off the rocks and then reeled him in with just a few powerful pulls. TheKid dangled for a second or two before he began to climb the rock back to Kimber. Kimber pulled as theKid climbed. In a few seconds, just as I got to my feet, theKid burst into tears. Kimber pulled him into his chest and hugged him, saying over and over again, "I would never let you fall, buddy. Never! It's okay, Kid! You're okay! I still ain't lost a man!" TheKid wept aloud into his father's chest, his body shaking as Kimber began to cry as well. As I walked back toward them, just a few steps, I felt unwelcomed. I felt like they would hate me, that they were about to shun me and tell me that I was reckless and unwanted. They didn't. TheKid saw me coming and opened his arm to me, an offering I rarely got from him.

My own emotions, suddenly back on their feet, caught up with me and I wept. I fell into Kimber and theKid's hug, repeating over and over again how sorry I was, how scared I was. We embraced, huddled together on the submarine rock that had tried to kill us. We all cried and patted each other's backs as we repeated all the things we'd been thinking for the last six seconds.

When the reality of what had just happened began to hit us, we packed up our stuff and began to scramble off the rock as fast as we could. Kimber scooped up theKid as we hustled off to the ten-foot-wide, round boulder on the far side of the sub. I felt like I was going to be sick, not from the fear but from the guilt of almost killing JimmytheKid. When theKid saw my face, he climbed closer to me and patted me on the head. "It's okay, Lai. It's not your fault."

That wasn't true though, and we both knew it; we all knew it. We were different now, changed by the nearness of the accident we'd somehow avoided. We spent a few minutes in near silence, each person reflecting on the events and trying to control our knees knocking together from the residual energy of terrified nerves. We looked at each other a lot but said very little. We fidgeted with our gear, sipped water from our Nalgene bottles and shook uncontrollably. After a few minutes of silence and reflection, euphoria swept over all of us. Suddenly we felt alive, really alive. Frowns and tears dried up on our faces as the sun began to shine through us. We were alive and aware of what that really meant, maybe more than we'd ever been.

"Do you believe in miracles?" Kimber asked.

"I damn sure do now," I said, waiting for the sermon that was sure to follow.

"You know the story of Abraham and Isaac?" he asked.

"You know I don't, Kimber. Was it worth hearing me say no? Is that what you wanted?" I asked, tired of his constant badgering me about the Bible. It was fine to me that he submerged himself in his faith, but for the rest of us, it was sometimes grueling. It was annoying to be asked over and over again if you knew parts of a book you'd never read because you'd never wanted to read it. If he'd asked me about Stephen King, I would have been able to answer, but it was always the Bible.

"Tell Lai the story of Abraham and Isaac," Kimber said to JimmytheKid in a very even, metered sort of way. We were only a hundred vertical feet below the summit, but our path took us diagonally to the right and then back to the left. The remaining route, however, didn't have any pitfalls or gaps to jump. It was just trail, just time.

"Well... Abraham had to kill Isaac 'cuz God told him to, but when he went to do it, God told him he didn't have to."

"Exactly. Good work, Buddy. So Abraham was told to sacrifice his son to God. When Abraham built the altar and prepared his son to die, God stopped him."

"You think that's cool?" I asked. How could anyone think that was a great story? Why would a God, especially one that calls Himself merciful, put a father and son through that sort of trauma? Why would God care about the trivial fears of mankind? Even if He did, why would He entertain himself by watching us in terror and misery? "Imagine God told you to kill theKid. Would you do it?" I asked.

Kimber smirked, deflecting my hostile tone. "God's not gonna ask me to kill theKid."

"No... don't be one of those people. You hate when people answer you like that... Okay, I'll make it easier. If God asked you to sacrifice me, would you?"

This time he didn't smile. "I have been asked to sacrifice you. TheKid too, in a way."

"So... what exactly does today's Bible lesson have to do with you or us?" I asked.

He stopped walking in order to look us in the eyes. JimmytheKid and I stopped to look back at him. I wanted to scream at him, maybe even hit him. I wasn't in the mood for a Bible lesson. I just wanted to walk and enjoy the day. When I spun to look at Kimber though, he wasn't returning my hostile posture. "I think I understand now... I think I was being tested."

I looked at theKid, who looked at me and shrugged his shoulders.

"You wanna expand on that or leave it up to me and theKid's creative interpretation?" I asked. Truthfully, I was hoping he was about to say what I'd been waiting to hear for eleven months. I was hoping this was his way of telling us that he wasn't going to die after all, that God was playing games with him in order to test him.

He stepped closer to us. "What if I'm not going to die? What if it was a test, me being here today? What if instead of dying, I was meant to save lives here, risking my own to save lives?"

"Wait... what are you talking about? You think that was the test? You think your year or whatever was supposed to end on the sub?"

"What if it was?" he asked.

"I'm missing something here... obviously. Why are you thinking that rock in particular was the test? You can have close calls anywhere, but you're... you're fixated on this place; why that rock in particular?"

He nodded. "I never told you the whole truth about my dream that night, Lai. It's not that I didn't want to; I was told not to. I was told that telling you would complicate things for us when we got here."

"Here?" I asked, trying desperately to understand what he was talking about. "What do you mean, here?"

"I was told that I would die here," he said eyeing theKid, making sure the boy didn't flip out. "Today."

"What?"

"What?" theKid asked, his tone harsher than mine.

"What the hell are you talking about, Kimber? You're telling me that you believed you would die here today, but you still took us with you? Is that it? Is that why for a year now you've refused to take me here? If you knew the date... Wait! You knew the date?"

He looked at theKid, who was looking back and forth between Kimber and me. "Yes. I did. Dreams come to us in pictures, and somehow I saw the date or heard it or something... I knew it was today, and I knew it was here. That's pretty much all I knew. I swear. Honestly, I wasn't sure until we woke up this morning and I saw the sky."

JimmytheKid looked at his father incredulously, but seemed too scared to comment on what he'd just heard. I was in shock, my eyes also drifting to theKid in hopes of finding calm. I was mad at Kimber, really mad, not only for withholding that information from me for so long, but for bringing me and theKid despite his premonitions of death here. In my mind, as I scrambled to make sense of what he'd said, I concocted awful scenarios that would lead Kimber to his death, all of which seemed to implicate the idea of a long, hard fall to the rocks below. Then it crossed my mind that maybe he was right. Maybe this was a test. Maybe this was God checking the faith of His most loyal servant, but somehow, even if that had been the answer, I wondered why Kimber would have been so reckless as to bring us with him. That episode on the rocks had shaken me. The idea that I could have been responsible for theKid dying was too much, and the lingering and haunting feeling that if I had knocked JimmytheKid from those rocks, Kimber would have never forgiven me.

"You are quite the narcissist, Kimber. You believed you were going to die here today, and yet you brought your girlfriend and your son? Are you twisted?"

He said, "I knew that one way or another I will have to give you up, Lai."

"Stop!" I said, not wanting to talk about this again. "We're not talking about this. We had an agreement. You just told me it was a test, Kimber! Ten seconds ago it was a test. Now I'm going to lose you one way or the other. You know what the problem here is, Kimber Canavan? I'll tell ya. You don't understand God and you never will! No one does! Everyone like you wants to believe that there is organization in the chaos, but there isn't. There's dumb luck, similar to what we just experienced, and there's the unlucky. That's it. Two groups with no say over what becomes of them. You are devoted, but that doesn't mean you understand God. Don't pretend to figure shit out, Kimber. You're guessing. That's all it is, all it ever was."

"You asked," he added quietly.

"I didn't ask for the Gospel of Kimber Canavan."

"This isn't my choice. How many times do I have to reiterate to you that this wasn't my choice? Am I a psychopath? Do I seem like a sadist to you, Lai? You seem to think that I make all the decisions here, but I don't. You know what I do? You know what makes me different than you? I believe in something! You know why I believe in God? Because He speaks to me. All the pastors in the world, all the retreats or rallies, all the Billy Grahams that will come and go couldn't turn me on to God. Only God could have turned me on to God. I'm analytical. I'm calculated. I'm intelligent! I think about what I believe or don't believe. I'm not a puppet. I am a tool of God's first; I'm a father and a boyfriend or husband second. Do you hear me? I am doing what I believe I have to do to save my son! I will save my son no matter what the cost. No one should dispute that fact at this point in the day!" Kimber was yelling at us now. His face was red and splotchy, his spit bursting from his lips with every word. Kimber paused and took a deep breath. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm scared to death, Lai." Kimber looked at theKid. "I'm so scared, buddy."

Seeing the fear finally unleashed and allowed to roam in the muscles and shadows of his face, I saw for the first time what Kimber had been carrying and hiding for the last eleven months. At seeing the cost of his "knowledge," I realized that this wasn't something Kimber carried around as an "I'm special" badge, but rather a burden, a cancer. He started to shake and his voice got quieter. "I don't know if God was just testing me... or... if... maybe... I won't be going back... to... home..." he barely managed.

TheKid stopped his father from continuing with a hug and pleading, "Stop it, Dad! You're scaring me!"

As soon as Kimber saw his son's fear, he pulled himself back into form, the truth hidden again behind the fake smiles he'd learned to slip in and out of. "No, buddy, don't be afraid. That's the whole point. It's okay! We're okay. We made it off the sub, buddy, and we're okay! I'll tell you what, we've had a few scares out here before, but not like that, huh?"

TheKid smiled, but it was weak; it was pretend. "Yeah."

"So we're okay!" Kimber said with enthusiasm, but it was as false as theKid's last statement. "We're gonna be okay." Kimber tried to reassure us.

"I don't believe you, Dad. I don't think you're telling us the truth now," TheKid said in defiance of his father.

Kimber knelt before his son. "Jimmy, there is nothing more important to me than you and your safety. I'm sorry for the things you've already had to deal with. They're not fair and it's not fair that you had to go through all of that; but Buddy, Daddy has a calling. I have a commitment to God, a covenant with God, son. God doesn't make covenants very often. He doesn't barter. I'm here with you now and I'll do my best to always be here, but our lives are fragile things, and I trust mine and yours into the hands of God. He loves you buddy, and he's promised me that you'll be okay no matter what. You're invincible, JimmytheKid! Invincible!"

I watched, almost ill with the way Kimber refused to lie and just say he was going to be okay. He referred back to the sub as if he believed that was it, all there was waiting for him on the rocks that day, but we could see through it. He didn't believe he was off the hook. He was suggesting that he was, without declaring it, and he wasn't fooling either of us. He didn't say that his prophesies were just hallucinations. He just danced around it as craftily as he could. Kimber refused to discredit God.

"Ain't lost a man yet. Right, Dad?" JimmytheKid finally replied after much contemplation.

"That's exactly right, Buddy. That was about as close as I ever want to come again. Okay with you?"

TheKid smiled again, ready to face the last piece of our ascent. We'd be on top of the Lai route in about five minutes, putting us there ahead of schedule. We'd reach the summit just before noon, and less than half an hour later, Kimber would move away from me, into the afterlife. Two minutes or thereabouts later, JimmytheKid Canavan would follow his father.

When we finished our ascent, we stepped out of the shadows and into the sunshine. Being on top, I couldn't help but feel as if the climb had all been worth it, even the submarine that hadn't killed us but somehow made us feel more alive. It added to the euphoria of making it, leading me to wonder if proximity to death makes us all feel more alive as a species. It seemed to me in that second that being there meant having survived what should have killed us, and somehow I couldn't escape the reality that for those reasons, I was more elated, more awakened and alive than I had felt in a long time.

For what seems like the briefest of moments now, we three stood as three kings among the rocks; the crowned kings of Wyoming and as far as one could see from the lofty bluffs. Where the sun made routine contact with the gray rocks, they'd whitened, making the top of the mountain feel like a different place entirely. A hard earned, bleached-white color reflected from the rocks, reflecting light back to the sky as we strained against the glare to take in our surroundings. The top of the mountain was unusually flat, appearing at first glance level enough to build a house atop it. I stared out across the expanse of the mountain top, noticing one exception to the flatness―a giant round boulder thirty feet tall and damn near perfectly round. It sat precariously perched at the far side of the expanse. How it remained where it was for as long as it did, I have no idea, but we called it the "bowling ball" for a reason. Except for its massive size, it appeared that if someone were to really push it, it might roll right off the far cliff and tumble and smash its way to the ground, some hundreds of feet below.

Long fissures spanned the distance of a couple football fields, separating one giant rock from the next under our feet by fewer than eight inches in most spots. From this, I knew that I wasn't walking on one massive rock top. The summit was really a collection of many similarly sized rocks, all lining up evenly. Where two fissures crossed each other in an X, water pooled making little puddles of water that probably never dried entirely. Inside these puddles, algae and bacteria of all sorts undoubtedly grew at alarming rates, so I immediately told JimmytheKid (unnecessarily I might add) "Don't drink any of the water up here, buddy."

"I can pump it," theKid said.

I looked at Kimber to correct theKid, but he didn't. He nodded in agreement with Jimmy. "That's right. You can pump it, but don't drink it straight from the source."

"You can drink that water if he pumps it?" I asked, not believing that was true.

"Absolutely," Kimber said without even a second of hesitation. "Once it goes through the filter, it's good."

"Yeah you say that, but would you want to try it?" I asked.

"Kid?" Kimber said. "Pump us some. I want to show, Lai."

Excitedly, theKid ran over to the puddle by my feet and stuck the tube end of his Katadyn filtration system into the water and began to pump. The yellow/green water came up through the tube, entered the filter canister, and came out the other tube crystal clear. "Wanna try some?" theKid asked with excitement.

"You first, dude," I said.

That's all he was waiting for. TheKid held the Nalgene he'd pumped the water into to his nose and smelled it. Then, satisfied it smelled okay, he placed the rim of the bottle to his lips and began to drink it. Naturally, when he was done with his sip he handed me the bottle and said, "Okay, your turn."

I took a swallow of the water cautiously and waited for the bitterness to hit me. It never did. The water was good, really good... well, considering it was just pumped from a mud puddle. I smiled and handed theKid back his Nalgene. "Not bad, JimmytheKid."

Other hikers were making it up on all sides as we stood there for a minute. Before too long, someone came up to theKid and looked at his mud puddle. He was an older guy, late sixties if he was a day, and peered into the mud puddle. "You see them's in there?" the old man asked, pointing into the puddle. "How you suppose them's fish got all the way up here, young fella?"

JimmytheKid looked into the puddle and saw what the man was talking about. "They aren't fish. They're tadpoles. They're frogs." TheKid beamed with pride at knowing the answer.

The old man nodded and patted JimmytheKid on the top of the head. "You's smarter than them adults o'er there," the man said as he pointed across the top of the summit to the far side where a group of twenty-somethings were smoking cigarettes and taking selfies. "I just heard them askin' theyselves how all them blasted fish got all the way up here!"

"I didn't used to know that. My dad told me. We've been here a lot," theKid said.

"Well, good for you, youngster. It's good to get out here and get some fresh air in ya. Lots a' kids these days just sit in they houses, playing them video games and whatnot. Your daddy's got to be real proud of a good young fella like yourself."

"I guess so." TheKid shrugged, quickly losing interest in the old man.

The old man waived to Kimber and me as he headed off across the rocks toward the group of fifteen at the other side of the expanse. I wondered if he was one of their fathers that they'd brought along, probably out of guilt. I wondered if the rest of the group was ready to kill the guy who brought his old-fashioned father with him.

As I looked around taking in the scenery, I removed my sweatshirt, despite the fact that I only wore a sports bra beneath it. I allowed the sunshine to soak into my skin, warming my bones that had been freezing since waking up in the tent that morning after suffering such profoundly sad dreams. It was warm if not hot, and to my cold skin and bones, it felt glorious to be absorbing rays of sunshine as I took in the magnificent views from atop Vedauwoo. We pointed to far off ranges in the Rockies, theKid asking tirelessly if we thought it was possible that we were looking at Colorado mountains and not at Wyoming hills. Of course no one knew for sure, so we agreed that it could possibly be Colorado we were seeing way out there. That blew theKid's mind. Our attention shifted to our campsite that looked like a matchbox car campground. Kimber's rusty-red Honda sat parked where we left it beside the smoldering campfire we'd cooked our breakfast on just a few hours earlier.

I just kept marveling at the perfectness of such a clear day, unable to believe I'd ever seen any day quite like it. We were having our perfect day, the one we so deserved. "Look, Lai!" theKid exclaimed. "Even after me and dad peed on the fire, it's still smokin!" theKid exclaimed.

"Yeah, sure is, buddy," I said, thinking that I now understood what it was about Vedauwoo theKid and Kimber liked so much. It was a break from the ordinary. It was a place where peace and danger lived so closely together that people sometimes forgot about one aspect or the other. It was easy to get to the top of the rocks and relax, forgetting the inherent dangers of being exposed and the thousands of ways to die. Up there, on unstable, timeless rocks that were always shifting and moving, it seemed like the safest place in the world. It was the most peaceful I can recall ever feeling, something like joy and family and love and adventure mixing with accomplishment, near-death experiences and the bond that comes from surviving together. It seemed like nothing could happen to us now. It seemed like we were as safe as we would ever be, and as happy.

Kimber joined me and theKid as we stared down onto our campsite. He smiled and put his strong arm around my back, squeezing me closer to him as we gazed down on his ugly little car. "Okay," Kimber said with a laugh. "I'm gonna buy a new car when we get home." He didn't add "if I get home," but we all waited for it.

"Kimber, that was incredibly close."

"It really was," Kimber agreed. "It's a miracle we're still alive." I nodded, not wanting to spark another sermon. Too late. "That's what miracles look like, Lai. They're subtle. Sometimes God parts the Red Sea, other times you have to look a little closer at the situation to see His fingerprints."

Obligatorily, I nodded again, turning to look a different direction and hoping that my changing gander would bring the change in conversation I was looking for.

"When I was a kid, I used to wonder why God didn't send prophets anymore. I wondered why all the miracles had stopped. It seemed to me that either these things never really happened in the past, or that God had abandoned us. In the Bible days, things were happening; God was working. By the time I was a kid, it seemed like God had all but abandoned us here."

"Does he still send prophets?" I asked Kimber, hoping I wouldn't regret the question.

"I don't know. Jesus was the last prophet. The Bible implies He was the last prophet. All of the prophets before Him had prophesized that He would come. I guess after him, God didn't need prophets anymore."

"So... what actually defines a prophet?" I asked.

Kimber eyed me suspiciously. "I don't know. Usually it's a figure with insight into the future."

"Like you?" I asked.

Kimber looked at me, guilt written across his face. "No. My case is different. I'm not a prophet. I know nothing of the things to come... only..."

"When your death will come?" I asked. "But if God told you to tell people, He did that as an example for them, right? It sounds like prophesy to me."

"I think that God did me the favor of warning me about what was going to happen. I don't know why, and I probably never will. I trust that God will reveal the answers in time, Lai. I guess that's gotta be good enough for me. I don't have anything else to work with."

"Are you afraid that if you don't die, they'll call you a liar, Kimber?"

He looked at me, his eyes on mine but his thoughts deeper than that. "No. Not really. I leave that to God. God told me to be here, so here I am. God told me to tell people I would die within a year, so I told them. I can't imagine that God would let people believe I was false, but maybe. We just can't understand His plan. I've tried too many times to count, and never once could I see the hand of God while it was moving me. Only looking back does it make any sense."

"But you came here, right? Even though you knew, or thought you knew, or whatever... You still came here today, Kimber. That's gotta count for something."

"It counts for faith, or I hope it does," Kimber said uneasily. A moment passed before he added, "He'll take me, Lai. He's going to. Well, unless I was just being tested. The creepy thing is that I saw parts of what you would see and feel. I might have even seen myself dead, through your eyes... I don't know."

"Yeah, but that could have just been the dream, Kimber."

"It could be. Believe me, I've hoped that was the case for a long time now. I guess we'll find out. Regardless, I am ready. Whenever He calls me home, I am ready."

"You have to stop now," I said, touching his sweat soaked T-shirt. "I just can't take it now, Kimber... I'm so worn down..."

"I know you are. I remind myself constantly how difficult this must be for you. It's worse for you, and I'm so sorry."

TheKid was back from exploring the top of the rocks. His face had returned to its soft paleness, the red and swelling from crying so violently after the sub had all but disappeared. JimmytheKid pointed out that there were more people than usual up on top of the rocks, especially for how early it still was. He was right about that. As we walked out into the center of the flat mountaintop, I noticed there were indeed a lot of people up there. Maybe even a hundred, all of which had come up their own way, facing the same obstacles we had, but not the sub... That was our rock, our near-death experience, and no one else had come up that way, at least that we'd seen. I was foolish enough to believe that our route had been the hardest route taken to the summit by anyone that morning; that our route was the only one with difficulties to overcome, but that wasn't the case.

Looking around at the people up there, I assumed that the first thing we were supposed to do was ask each other how the tadpoles that were being mistaken for fish had gotten on the top of the rocks. The second most predominantly done thing up there was taking selfies with cell phones. Every group of hikers up there had at one point or another all come together, arms around each other's backs, while one person stretched their arm as far forward as possible and snapped a few pictures.

We followed suit. We took a bunch, or I should say Kimber took a bunch, as he had the longest arms, but not the best coordination. Of the ten pictures he took, only one included all three of us in the shot with our mouths closed and our eyes open. It was the only picture he took that I could frame, and later I did. It was the last photograph ever taken of JimmytheKid and his father Kimber. It's part of the montage of photographs that hang in the living room of The Berkshire today. I gave a copy of it to Joe Frank for his birthday two years ago, sent anonymously as I still didn't have the words to say anything relevant.

Sometimes I stand right up close to that photograph in my living room and look at it. When I get close to it, I can almost smell the day, the lingering scent of campfire, sunbaked rocks, and suntan lotion, transporting me back to August 14th, just a few minutes before I was widowed. Even in the photograph, I can feel the twenty knot winds than never stopped, the 80 degree day and clear blue sky that seemed bigger than any other sky in the history of earth, like a sky-blue winter hat pulled down over my head too far.

It truly is a magical place.

Obviously, I have come to associate Vedauwoo with the deaths of the men I lost that day, but in the years since I have gone back to Vedauwoo a number of times. I have camped in the same spot we camped on the morning of August 14th, 2010 and woken up to make eggs, bacon, and campfire coffee before climbing the Lai Route by myself. Once, I even brought Poppy along so he could really know what happened, but that didn't have any therapeutic value for either of us. I think sometimes the mind creates the worst case scenario, and in Poppy's case, I brought him because I thought he'd been imagining the worst for all that time. It turned out, he hadn't. After he saw the place, the stains still visible to eyes looking for dried blood and brain matter, he didn't say much at all. Even to this day, he's never asked me another question about August 14th, 2010.

Before I could take Poppy there though, I had to brave the route myself. I'm not sure which stage of the healing process enticed me to go it alone, but I did it. When I came to the sub, I just jumped. No ropes, no thought, no reflection... I just saw that gap there and hopped it, unconcerned with whether I'd make it or not. I've made that jump twelve times now, twelve times up the Lai route and never again. I've done it alone, with company, with headphones on, in the silence, in the dark... I've jumped that gap so many times now that it doesn't even scare me. It never will again. I've never taken another picture of Vedauwoo. I never post my trips on my Facebook page, or bring home stones or other souvenirs. I just went and returned, usually without even telling Poppy where I was going. It was my place to go, my right to go, and if no one could understand why I would be drawn back to that place, they weren't worth explaining it to.

Initially, I think I went back to understand it all, but before long I knew I was going back over and over again for a simpler reason―I wanted to hear God talking to me. Eventually, the dampness and the rain washed the blood stains off of those two, oblong rocks that sat nearly side by side. Eventually, I couldn't see the physical remains of Kimber and James Canavan anymore, and I found myself with mixed emotions about that. Part of me wanted to see the blood, morbid as that sounds. It's not my job to explain loss to you, to make you think I'm sane and that what I did to get over the loss I suffered was logical. I didn't care in the moments after that chapter ended what people thought of me, and I have tried relentlessly to maintain that lack of concern since. I did what I felt like I needed to, and I survived over and over again.

TheKid started to get antsy after a few minutes of small talk and picture taking. He wanted to go explore some more, but just before he did, a beautiful woman in a red sweatshirt walked by us and smiled at JimmytheKid. "You climb up here all by yourself?" she asked softly, smiling.

"Yeah. Well... my dad helped me when it was scary, but I made it all by myself."

"That's impressive, little guy. You be safe now, okay?" she asked pleasantly. TheKid agreed and nodded to her as she turned to catch up with her friends. Before she did, she looked at Kimber and smiled uncomfortably. He saw her, and he stared back at the stranger in a red sweatshirt. I thought for a second he knew her, but his face was blank.

"You ready?" she asked in a serious tone.

Kimber replied intuitively, "Yeah."

"Ready for what?" I asked the woman, but she just looked at her feet and turned to catch up to her group. "What the hell was that?" I asked, my heart pounding for reasons I didn't understand.

"No idea," Kimber said with a shrug, but not a smile.

Kimber let theKid wander, but told him to stay close. TheKid wanted to climb on the giant bowling ball rock, but Kimber told him, "Not yet, buddy. Later." So instead, theKid wandered around, Kimber and I keeping our eyes on him at all times as he jumped puddles and walked the fissures like they were a tightrope. We laughed, watching theKid, admiring the imagination he was still blessed with. Time strips the magic away from life, yet at five years old, imagination rules the world. We watched him pretending to shoot "Indians" as he jumped and ducked behind rocks, Kimber and I smiling in that state of wonder and awe. He was a beautiful soul, that boy.

Kimber produced his joint box and pulled a long, white, cone-shaped joint from it. He held it up to the sky, as if he'd just pulled Excalibur from the stone and smiled, his eyes widening at the magnificence of the massive joint. "It's laced up with the Orient." He smiled.

I smiled. "I thought those were only for after shows."

"Performances! I just saved your life! I think I deserve a proper treat." He laughed out loud. "My mom used to call the roaches she'd find in my dad's car 'marijuana cigarette butts.' That still cracks me up."

"Puff, puff, give," I reminded him.

He didn't give it to me, but looked at me with playful sternness. "Lai, you need to cool it with the throwback jive. Puff, puff, give? Seriously? You gotta Kid 'n Play poster on your wall at home?"

I took a pretend swing at him and he handed me the joint. I had really learned to enjoy this combination of weed and opium, this mellow and sympathetic sort of high. I'd even gone so far as to steal them from Kimber when I'd find them around the house while I was doing laundry or straightening up. Sometimes I'd sit on the porch and smoke them while I made theKid read to me aloud from whatever book I was reading at the time. TheKid was so articulate and well spoken that he read faster and more eloquently than I did. Granted, theKid didn't understand everything he read, but phonetically, he was gifted. Kimber and I had agreed that he was going to grow up to write books. I'd commented to Kimber on a number of occasions that theKid would probably publish before me.

In the end, I published first.

While Kimber and I smoked our joint in the only way acceptable to Kimber, publicly and openly, people started to come up and ask for a puff. The first guy was a friend of the woman in the red sweatshirt, and despite Kimber's strange discomfort around her, her friend was a nice guy. Kimber made no small talk with the man; in fact, I don't know that he said anything at all to the guy. I spoke to the man. I asked questions of him, while the woman in red stayed out of earshot. The man, small and sort of dodgy, answered me with near one word answers, and evaded my questions more thoroughly than he answered them. When he was gone, I felt relieved. There was something sort of sinister about him lurking under the surface, though his disposition had been just friendly enough to not rub me the wrong way. When he was gone, I asked Kimber why he'd gotten so quiet. He just said, "Nah, it's nothing."

The second guy to ask for a puff of Kimber's opium laced joint recognized him from Sweat Stains of all places. "You're the cat that owns Sweat Stains, right?"

Now smiling wide, Kimber nodded. "Sure do."

It turned out that guy was from Denver and had dated a girl that used to talk about Kimber regularly. "Man, I gotta tell you bro, that club is a brilliant idea. Me and my friend TJ even talked about opening the same thing once. You make like millions of dollars, huh?"

At this, Kimber just smiled. "I do well. I'm blessed."

The guy handed me back the joint and turned to leave. He glanced at me once and said, "Yeah, you do," as he walked away. Kimber laughed at the flattery, if that's what that was supposed to be.

When we were alone again, I turned to look at theKid. I stared at the boy with a strange and satisfied smile on my face. He was playing all alone, shooting his thumb-and-index-finger pistol at invisible Indians that were apparently firing invisible arrows back at him as he ducked for cover and returned fire. He was a boy who'd gotten used to growing up without peers to play with; the kind of kid used to the company of adults more than that of kids his own age. Certainly, this was part of what made theKid so precocious. He was so alive, so full of life that it seemed impossible that he could ever die.

JimmytheKid saw me watching him and became suddenly self-conscious. He walked slowly back to us and asked if we could take some pictures of him jumping on the rocks. When I agreed, theKid and I down-climbed a few feet so he could jump from rock to rock for the camera in my phone. We were just playing and laughing as Kimber smoked the rest of his joint alone, still being strange. Something had upset him, and now he was doing his best to cover the anxiety he was riddled with. He used his fake smile when we'd call out to him, but beneath it there was unmistakable tightness.

"Hey, Dad, can we have lunch?" theKid asked when we'd taken enough photographs to satisfy his ego.

And so... the worst thing that could and will ever happen to me, began to take shape.

"Absolutely, buddy. You wanna pump a little water for us?" Kimber asked, pointing to a stagnant pool of water in a fissure-crack mud puddle.

"Sure. One Nalgene?" theKid asked.

"Yeah. That'll work." Kimber looked at me. "Can I talk to you for a second?" he asked, gesturing to a spot beside the cliff we'd come up just twenty minutes before.

"Sure." I followed Kimber to the very edge of the rocks, looking down onto our little campsite.

He looked at me again and took my hand. "I'm so sorry about this morning. I should have taken us up a different route."

"No, Kimber... it wasn't your fault..."

"I'm just glad I unclipped myself and not theKid. I should have known better," he said, watching theKid as he pumped water from the crusty, green pool in the rocks.

I was watching theKid. "You sure we can drink that?" I asked with a smile. "It looks like it's been growing algae for a century."

"Probably longer than that, but yeah, it's fine. Seriously, I've pumped straight pee before."

I looked at him astonished. "What? No way!"

He laughed a long hysterical laugh, the sort of laugh that comes from lunacy, from mixed emotions. "Oh, yeah. Comes out as crystal clear water."

"I love you dearly, but I will not drink your urine, Kimber. Ever! As much as I love you, I will not," I demanded.

"Got it, Dad," theKid said, coming back toward us with an open Nalgene bottle, spilling water from its open mouth as the kid heavy-footed his way across the rocks to us.

"Is it full?" Kimber asked theKid, even though he'd watched with me as the boy spilled better than a third out of the bottle as he crossed the flat rocks back to us at the side of the cliff.

"Well..." theKid said staring at his bottle and fearing that he was about to be told to refill it. "It's pretty full."

We both laughed. All we really needed for our dehydrated macaroni and cheese meal with hot dogs was about three cups of boiling water to dump into the meal-in-a-bag, but watching as theKid revealed to us that some of its contents had spilled out was priceless. I realized again, with a certain sort of ownership I guess, that for the rest of my life I was going to have this little boy to myself. When Kimber was gone from our lives, if Kimber was gone from our lives, I would bring theKid back here routinely and acknowledge his effort. I would right the wrongs, heal the boy and then myself just before we started a beautiful life together. Me, a single mom; the idea was as preposterous as it was exciting.

"My pack's over there. Set up the stove and the pot, Buddy. When it boils, let me know and we'll start the mac and cheese. I need to talk to Lai for a minute."

The boy's eyes widened. "You mean you have to really talk to her? That thing?"

Apparently, theKid knew what Kimber was going to do next. Apparently they'd discussed this before now, and watching theKid's eyes bulge gave me nervous-nausea that stemmed from what I knew that to mean. I'd seen the ring. I knew it was coming, and I guess I even assumed that when he asked me that question, it would be here.

"Yeah," Kimber said evenly, trying to undo the giveaway that theKid had just issued. "Just get the water bubbling. I won't do anything without you," Kimber said cryptically.

TheKid, apparently prepped for this, went back to the bag and began to assemble the stove. We watched as theKid went to work on the camping utensils as if he used them every day. Kimber turned to me. "Lai, there are things I have never told you. Things about what you bring to my life that I didn't even know I was without until you."

"I feel exactly the same way about you in my life, Kimber. I'm so sorry about how I acted on Wednesday... I'm so embarrassed."

"Don't be. I went about it all wrong. Forgive me."

"I do, Kimber," I said.

He smiled. "Easy now. I haven't asked you that question yet."

TheKid was back, the water cooking on the stove and theKid eager to explore some more. "Dad, can I snoop around a little bit?"

"Yeah, but you stay where I can see you. We'll be eating in a few minutes and 'that thing' will be before we eat, so stay close." Kimber winked at theKid.

"Okay. I just want to see what's on that rock there." He pointed at a larger rock nestled in beside the bowling ball rock, on the far side of the flat summit. It was a giant, dark grey and ominous looking rock, painted more pleasant by the sun's warm light.

Kimber eyed the rock, noticing the same things I noticed about it. There were cuts in the rock where people had used actual tools in order to build a rudimentary set of steps up it. Kimber glanced at theKid and said sternly, "Yeah, but you stay away from the edges. You hear me?"

"Yes, sir," theKid said somberly, as if he'd just been told he wasn't trustworthy.

"I'm not saying you can't snoop around, Kid. I'm just saying that it's dangerous up there, and I need you to be careful. 'Kay, Buddy?"

That brought theKid the happiness he'd been cheated of the first time. He smiled, looked at me, and asked, "When Dad's done talking to you, you wanna play Indians with me?"

I smiled, trying to imagine myself playing Cowboys and Indians. "Absolutely."

"No farther than that," Kimber warned, pointing to a spot on the rock.

"He'll be okay," I said, nodding at theKid. "He knows."

"I just want to say one last thing about... well, you know." He looked at me, waiting to see if I would protest. I didn't. "I made a covenant with God, Lai. I could have said no. I could have feuded with God in that dream, but I didn't. The most important thing to remember is that you can never go outside the will of God. It's all destined, preordained. We are simple things, people who feel and hurt and laugh and cry, but we are just specks of dirt in the universe. My death, whether it's here and now or not, doesn't matter in the long run. What matters is that I hold up my end of the deal with God. Just understand that."

"I liked it better when you were talking about this just being a test."

"I'm not sure about that now. I've seen this before―this conversation... You dressed the way you are... It makes me think that this isn't over yet."

"Okay, stop! We're done discussing this, Kimber. Done!" I yelled at him, wanting to slap him. I had to literally restrain myself from hitting him, from clawing at his eyes and screaming into the bloody holes.

Kimber smiled patiently and reached for his right, front pocket. He pulled out a Tiffany & Co. blue box and held it tentatively, showing it to me, but hiding it from me too as he called for theKid to come witness what came next. Kimber Canavan was going to ask me to marry him, and I was never so ready to answer with a resounding yes in all my life. I was going to keep Kimber forever, proving all the people who ever doubted us wrong, and believe me when I tell you that the vindictive woman in me was ready to rub it in faces when we got back to Kittridge.

"You should probably accept my proposal." He smiled at me. "You signed the marriage certificate last night!"

"What?" I asked incredulous. "We're married?"

"Kid!" Kimber yelled again, this time without taking his eyes off of me.

"Ask me, Kimber. Ask me now," I said. I was scared, though I didn't understand why. There was something screaming at me in my mind to get the hell out of there now! I was married; I was married to Kimber Canavan! I wanted to go, to get off that mountain immediately and go home to The Berkshire. I wanted to puke, but before any of that, I wanted that ring on my finger. "Ask me, damn you!"

He slid the ring onto my finger but paused to look for theKid. Finally, he dropped to one knee. "Lai Sarah, do you know that God has made you perfect for me? Do you know that since I was a boy I have been praying for you? I didn't know you. I didn't know who God would send me, but I asked repeatedly for God to touch my would-be wife, to make her strong and just, to make her beautiful and faithful... I prayed for you, Lai, over and over again. I have been scared for so long, scared of losing you, scared of losing theKid and until God sent you to me, I had no idea how He would put the pieces together for me. Now I ask you, now I beg you to join me for the rest of our long lives together, to marry me... Lai Sarah, will you―"

He was cut off by a terrible scream coming from the direction of the bowling ball rock we'd last seen theKid on. I didn't see the person whose terrifying scream had stirred that coldness in my blood, but I knew. I knew before the woman screamed again what had happened and what was yet to happen.

Kimber stood with the urgency of someone who'd just been hit by a bolt of lightning. Our eyes fixated on the tall rock theKid had just climbed a minute or two before. He'd been right there, in plain sight... We didn't see anything but a woman hunched over and facing away from us. She was looking somewhere below, somewhere down from where she stood. She erected herself and looked back toward us, all of us gathered on top of the mountain of rocks, and she screamed again, "Call 911! The little boy just fell! Oh my God! He fell, he fell! He's down there on the rocks!"

The pulsating of my heartbeat in my ears became deafening. I began to count them, one, two, three... We stood still, unable to move. It seemed to take me three beats just to look at Kimber whose face had turned pale, as in his mind God's plan began to take shape. We were running, the sound of our footsteps inaudible beneath the pumping of blood. We were running or floating; my brain somehow understanding what was happening and not. This isn't happening. This isn't happening... I followed Kimber as he sprinted ahead of me. I watched the muscles in his back flexing as he pumped his arms forward and back, his gait wider and stronger than mine. I'd never thought of him as an athlete, except for the first night I met him at London's. Before I'd gotten to know the artist and dreamer in Kimber, I remembered thinking of him as an injured quarterback, the sort of man that worked out in gyms all afternoon with one of those ridiculous Gold's Gym tank-tops on. But that wasn't the man I got to know, not in the least. However, as I tried to pace him, my mind drifted back to that night at London's over and over again. Time slipped back into that vortex where it slowed to a standstill. I remembered Kimber throwing that right handed punch and the sound of the connection it made on Marky-Mark's nose. I remember the sickening fascination I had with watching that bastard suffer, writhing in agony, and the gratitude I felt for what Kimber did on my behalf. I remember realizing as I told the story the first time how different and twisted that made me seem to people; how repulsed they were with me and my thrills. I remember thinking he was the bravest man I'd ever seen... I remember wishing he'd hit Mark again and then sighing in disbelief as he did... the tink-tink-tink of teeth bouncing off the wooden tables.

Now I was following him as he sprinted as fast as he could to the last place we'd seen theKid. It can't be JimmytheKid. It can't be! TheKid is more of an expert on these rocks than I am... TheKid is a little Kimber, flawless and beautiful, and articulate and protected by God... TheKid is staying with me. He's mine now.

The woman, in her late 50s with graying hair and premature crow's feet, turned to see who would run to her screams. This was her way of identifying the neglectful party, the parents that would let a five-year-old boy wander around unsupervised on the rocky bluffs of Vedauwoo. She saw Kimber first, and I watched as her screams went from panic to sheer anger and then, after seeing Kimber, fear. "Help him! Help him! Oh God, he's dying!" she screamed at Kimber and me as we closed the distance. She stepped back and screamed again, but this time Kimber turned to her and told her to stop.

"Shut your mouth!" he screamed into her face as she stepped aside and pointed.

Her finger pointed down, not just an angle, but straight down. "He's dying," she sobbed and turned. She walked past me and faced the group gathering behind us. "He's all the way at the bottom. There's blood everywhere."

We slowed to a stop. We were three feet from the edge. In order to see where anyone or anything would land after a fall from that particular spot, we would have to stand with our toes on the lip and look straight, almost backward, down. I couldn't move any closer. I didn't want to look down. I wanted to see theKid come over the bowling ball rock and find us there, wondering what all the screaming and yelling was about. He didn't. There was screaming, crying, and frantic talking, but it wasn't theKid. It was the group of people standing respectfully back from Kimber and me, waiting to see what a broken man looked like.

One, two, three... My heartbeat was pounding in my ears. The day went still, silence enveloping us as we stood, staring at each other. Suddenly, as if it were whispered in my ear, I knew what was coming next. The idea was so crazy, so beyond my own ability to comprehend that I didn't believe it could happen, but knew it would. It already had in so many ways. I ain't lost a man yet... Don't ever make me choose, Lai. He wins, every time... I didn't even know I was speaking, when I heard myself saying, "Kimber, don't." I heard the words as if they'd been spoken by someone else, someone in the group behind us.

The last thing I would have ever expected Kimber to do was exactly what he did. He stepped back from the ledge and motioned for me to look. I looked at the edge of the rock and saw the ground below, farther out than theKid would be laying, and I thought it looked like an eternity between me and the ground. I saw rocks, more severe and pitched at sharp angles than there were on the Lai route side. I didn't want to see... I didn't want to look, but if I didn't, I knew what would happen. "Kimber, you said that he would be... You told me..."

Kimber fell to his knees before me, as if awaiting a beheading. "Look," he said in the saddest, quietest voice I'd ever heard come out of his mouth. "You look, damnit!" he repeated.

"Kimber, please don't make me..." My face was wet; my voice lost inside of me somewhere. What escaped my mouth sounded like an echo, like the last of a full voice that had been ricocheted a million times before finding a way out. I dropped to my knees, the pounding back in my ears. One, two, three...

I crawled like an infant. When I reached the ledge, I looked down and saw nothing. I looked around and still, there was no one below. Suddenly, I heard a voice. It was theKid, almost the voice from my dreams...

"Lai... Help me, Lai..." And I saw him. He was almost below me. Not in front of me, but almost beneath where I was on all fours. When my eyes first found him, I didn't recognize him. Things weren't right. His little body was so broken and twisted and bloody that he didn't even look human. I wanted to tell Kimber that he was okay, that he was alive and that we could fix him, but I knew that wasn't the case. TheKid began to twitch and seize, his chest and stomach pointed up at me on the top of the rock, his face back at an odd angle. His legs kicked and as they did, blood rippled in waves down the rock. "Don't move, Kid! Jimmy, don't move please..." I tried to say, but I don't think anything I said was coherent. "I love you, Jimmy! I love you so much!" I yelled, and those words came through.

"Where's my dad? Help me, Lai. I need my daddy."

Never before had I heard him call Kimber daddy, and the word hit me like a hammer. He was just a little boy. He had the whole world before him two minutes ago, and now... "He's right here, Jimmy. He's coming down to help you," I said, knowing it wasn't true. There was no help for him now. I spun on Kimber, feeling as if I needed to keep him from looking down, but when I turned to face him he wasn't even looking at me. He sat on his knees, his hands outright, his fingers spread wide with wrath and pain, his head tilted back. His lips moved as he looked skyward, his beard blowing in the unrelenting breeze. My eyes drifted to the crowd behind Kimber. They were talking amongst themselves while everyone looked to their phones except for one man. He was walking toward Kimber, anger and disapproval on his face.

I jumped to the side to let the man see me as I said "Stop. Go away." The man had the look of an angry mother at a PTA meeting. My eyes glanced at Kimber, but he was paying me no attention. Tears were streaming from Kimber's eyes, off to the sides and around his cheek as his lips moved frantically. I already knew the outcome, how this was going to play out, but this man who was getting ready to take charge or chastise Kimber had to be stopped. If he came closer, I knew that Kimber would react with violence unlike anything the man could have ever expected. It was in Kimber's hands, the way his fingers ached to stretch longer as he prayed. Veins and muscles were as taut as they could be before they snapped; his eyes devoutly closed but his words fierce and unrelenting. I couldn't understand what Kimber was saying, but I knew what it would mean for this man if he stepped into the ring with Kimber, this Kimber.

"Is that the boy's father?" the man asked with anger and disapproval.

"Go back," I said. "I mean it! Go the fuck back!" I stepped toward him, my eyes back and forth between Kimber and the man. Kimber was a ticking time bomb and this slight man, all riled up by his friends and peers, was about to step into something he wouldn't understand until it was too late. "Call the police, call the ambulance, but go back!" I stepped one step closer to the man and pointed toward his friends. "Don't come any closer, please... please..." I was sobbing and shaking, my eyes afraid to leave Kimber behind me. I needed to stay between Kimber and the ledge for reasons I didn't entirely understand, but I did. Everything was so fast, and still, somehow so slow. Time wasn't like it had been before because now there was the pounding that seemed to drown out everything else... One, two, three...

Kimber's chanting was getting louder. There was cursing and choked sobs that sounded more like pauses in an angry rant than anything else, but as the man took in Kimber's back, kneeling and his head tilted skyward, he heard the sounds from Kimber and intuitively stepped back a step, then another. "You're gonna have a lot of explaining to do when the cops get here!" the man said as he turned back toward his friends who were sobbing. Some of them were already headed down the other side of the rocks to where theKid was, but I knew it didn't matter. I knew they wouldn't be the first to get there.

I walked back to Kimber and sat beside him. I was afraid to touch him. I was afraid to speak to him. As I listened, I understood Kimber for the first time. "So into your hands, Lord, I will commit myself." His eyes opened and his head rotated down to see me before him.

"No! No you son of a bitch! You are not leaving me!" I said with hopelessness dripping from every syllable. I screamed at him to stay with me, to choose me; I knew it was all but over. Kimber said nothing. He just stared at me; his eyes were red and swollen almost shut as he rocked on his knees, occasionally clutching his face with his hands. "You aren't leaving me, Kimber! We can do this! We can make it through this! Damn you, Kimber! Say it! Say that we can make it through this!"

He stood and took a deep breath, composing himself. "It's the error of men to think they understand Almighty God." He pushed his long hair back and looked at me for a long moment. "You already know that I can't let him go alone. You already know how this ends."

"He's alive, Kimber! Look at him! He can be fixed! We can fix him, but I need you. He needs you!"

"What a sad life I gave him," Kimber said as he hugged me.

I wanted to push him back and take a swing at him, but the events were overwhelming. I fell into his chest, my face against his collarbone, and wept. I smelled him, the smell of sweat and mountain air caught in the fibers of his shirt as I clung to him, my hands wrapping clumps of his shirt into my clenched fists and pulling him harder against me. He stroked my hair and kissed my forehead. People were scrambling down the rocks as fast as they could now to reach theKid, but because of where he'd landed, I knew as well as Kimber that no one would save him. It was over before I even laid eyes on him broken and bleeding below.

Kimber kissed me on my head, his tears leaving wet spots on my skin as he cupped my face and kissed me over and over again. "I don't understand, Lai. Was I not a good enough father? Did I not try my best for him? Oh God... why have you taken this from me? Why did you single me out and take from me the only thing that I was charged with protecting?" Kimber pushed me away from him, his hands on my shoulders, my fists still grabbing at his shirt. "Listen to me, Lai. Listen to me right now. I cannot leave him. I will not leave him. I cannot let him go without me. What am I without him?"

"What am I without you?" I countered, but he didn't reply.

"I want you to move on from this, to find happiness again. I want you to know that I loved you, Lai... that I will always love you, but I can't go on without him!"

"And I can't go on without you!" I screamed as loud as I could.

"You can and you will. You have to... You have to," he said, dropping his hands from my shoulders.

"No.... Kimber....please... This isn't God's plan! This is your plan, Kimber, not God's. You said he survived. That was the deal."

"I don't understand it either, but I believe we both will in time."

"No, you son of a bitch, no!" I grabbed his shirt as he faced away from me, toward the ledge. I jumped onto him, trying to pin him down, but I was broken, crying and shaking so violently that I couldn't hold on. He just stood there feeling sorry for me. I slapped him hard across the face, swearing and cursing him for entering my life in the first place.

When I was done, defeated, I collapsed onto him and cried. I kissed his neck and whispered that I loved him, that I understood him but told him that I would hate him forever for leaving me.

Kimber slowly took a deep breath while he watched me struggling to understand. "You have to close your eyes now, Lai. I don't want you to see this." It was what he told me so many months ago when he sent that injured deer into the afterlife. It was Kimber's way of distancing me from the violence, as if I lived in a world other than his.

"I just can't... Kimber, I can't. I need you, Kimber. Please... choose me."

My words had no effect on him. He'd made his decision. "Turn away, Lai. Move on from this. I will always love you..."

"Kimber, you don't understand God or his plans. Faith isn't enough! God wants you to live, Kimber. Please. I need you to live. I need you to choose life. Choose me. Kimber?" I pleaded, but he'd taken another step toward the ledge. Only three more remained between him and the end of everything.

"Into your hands I commit myself, Father. Into your perfect hands." Kimber looked back at me with one last longing look. "I will always love you. Please find it in your heart to forgive me... but I am nothing without him," he said.

Kimber looked straight out as if steadying himself. Lost in tears and the blurriness of colliding events and a breaking heart, I followed his gaze. Out there, across the expanse before us, standing on a rocky outcropping was a woman in red. Kimber's eyes found her and then he spread his arms. He took a step, and then another, faster. His arms remained spread out as Kimber jumped from the ledge as if he almost expected himself to fly.

When I looked back, the woman was gone.
EPILOGUE

From the Death Diaries, Volume 4:

August 13th, 2010

Dearest Lai, I have not been honest with you. I have withheld information from you that I fear you'll come to hate me for. Today is August 13th, and you are currently at work, getting ready to come back to me, to our home here in Kittridge. This is our home, The Berkshire, and it always will be.

We didn't build the house, but what we did build was built within the walls of this house. What I have found in you is more than what I was hoping for, more so than I would have even thought to ask God for. I know that you have loved me, Lai. I believe you know that I love you, but I wonder now if I loved you enough. I wonder if I gave you the kind of love that endures, even without me. What we're about to go through will dwarf the things in our past. Now we enter into the time of goodbyes, into loss and overwhelming sadness and what will feel like a terrible distance.

How cruel would a man have to be to lead the perfect woman his way, only to leave her alone for the next fifty-five years? What kind of monster risks hurting the people he loves most, in order to see his own plans through? How can I claim to love you and JimmytheKid the way I do and knowingly take you with me to the place where I will meet God? How can I ask you to trust me, when inside of me I know that you don't? How could you anyway? If you were to have believed me, you would have had to leave me. Funny, you know, all along I have been a little hurt at the fact that you and Joe and Billy didn't believe me, the people closest to me... But only now, hours before I go to my Father's house, I can finally see it for what it is. It's God's magnificent plan. You couldn't have believed me, not believed me and stuck around... That's true of Joe Frank too. I wanted you to believe so you would understand that this wasn't what I wanted, but what must be. God is good, Lai. He really is. He loves you and wants to step into your life and bless you. He wants you to love him and now, more than ever before, so do I.

So let me start this letter off with this―I know that you will not read these words for a long time. I never expected you to just dive into these books, not in the way you thought I expected. I wrote them for a number of reasons, some of them for personal stability while I tried to ready myself for what's coming tomorrow. It seemed like the thing to do, to stay busy, stay positive... I guess the books were like a goal within a time limit... I knew I was going to die and before I did, I wanted to accomplish that one thing... I needed to leave you reassurance. I needed to write this all down so I could comfort you when you came back to me, years later. I know Lai, as do you, what it's like to bury someone you love. I cannot imagine what's coming for you, the battles you'll have to fight and the thanklessness of being my survivor. I have tried to prepare you, to prepare theKid, but I swear I can hardly think of his face without tears bursting from my eyes... You have to take care of that boy now, Lai. If you ever loved me, you take care of that boy for me. He's endured too much already and tomorrow, what little platform of stability he has left will break away from beneath him as I go home, not to the Berkshire, but to the God that I have believed in.

Love him. Open your heart to him and cry with him. Tuck him in and stay with him until he's asleep. Tell him that you ain't lost a man yet, well maybe one... but tell him anyway. Walk him on the Berkshire. Walk him around the property and tell him of all we've done there. Remind him who his father was. Things he couldn't understand at five years old will become second nature to him as he grows into a man, so be sure to explain me. Don't pull punches. You tell him the good and the bad. You make sure he knows that the Church is full of assholes, but God is nothing like those that defile his name. You tell him that God is and always will be his friend, his first and most important friend. You tell him that everyone else, EVERYONE will fail him from time to time, but that when he feels like God is failing him, it's only because theKid is too close to God's work to recognize it for what it really is. In time, every instance where it seems God has failed him will be explained. God's ways are not mysterious. That's just the impatient nature of man. God's plans are timed, strategically placed, and designed for more than simple human gratification. You tell JimmytheKid to make himself available to God, to become a tool for Him and always maintain that relationship. God is not fooled by our decisions. He is not aghast at our sins. He understands what it means to be human and expects only that we come back, contrite and repentant.

So Lai, with the distance between us never so great as it will be soon, I tell you that this day was preordained. God told me to reveal little about my death. He told me to announce to my friends and family that I would be gone, but to be vague if not downright cryptic. He told me that if I followed His divine path to my own death, that theKid would be forever protected and loved. He told me that theKid would be among the most cherished in my Father's kingdom when his day came and that theKid and I would be forever united once again, in Heaven.

Other details that I haven't revealed to you were more specific to the how's and when's. They don't matter as much as I thought they would. Yes, I've known since before I met you that Saturday would be the day. I know that there will be a woman in red, a blue sky, and blood on the rocks below. I knew that I would die knowingly, and that when it happened there would be confusion and chaos. I knew there would be screaming and crying from strangers, and that I would see God's face before the clock struck one in the afternoon. These things and many more were granted to me. Perhaps the hardest thing for me to deal with was God's instructions about my "wife." He told me I'd be married to the woman that would see His divine plan through, and that for her service to God, she would live to see ninety years. He said that she would marry again, though not for love. He said that the devastation I left her with would nearly kill her, but that through it all, she would come to know God and spend eternity with me in Heaven.

I tried to make God's plans come true, and for it I lost you for two days. In that stack of papers that you didn't sign the other night was a marriage certificate. I'm not sure how you will come to sign it, but I wasn't above trying to trick you into it at the Morrison Inn. You didn't. Maybe you will come to. These words will not matter because I expect that it will be many years before you read this, but when you do, you too will know for sure that God is real, that I was real, and that what Almighty God revealed to me was exactly what I'd been telling you about. I was told to be faithful, to be a good man and live bearing real fruit. I was told that God's influence is weakening on this wicked world, but that He loved us as much today as He did in Moses' time. I was told that God isn't done here yet and that through my faith and devotion to His cause, many would come to know Him.

Now, for the sake of my own conscience, let me tell you my end in our destiny together. Meeting you wasn't happenstance, but I don't believe that anything really is. I believe that God's plan is big and complex. What He does to me affects you, what happens to you affects the rest and so on... The plan is complicated and our selfish modus operandi prevents us from being loyal to the entire plan. We ask, "What's in it for me, God?" and sometimes the answer is nothing more than selflessness. Take a look at Kanavan, Lai. Really, what is it? It's a business that for ten thousand dollars provided me with joy and freedom. It's inspired people to open up, to make a community and care about others. It's just a coffee shop, but it's been anointed by the hand of God. It was a success right from the get go. Sweat Stains was derived from the woman I met at Kanavan, and despite everyone telling me otherwise, it's become more than just a financial success. It's become a mission. God's work doesn't have to be handing out those stupid bible tracts on the corner of the 16th Street Mall. It doesn't have to be holding dinner hostage until the needy sit through Brother Billy's half-hour long sermon at the Denver Rescue Mission. If the church is so stoked about winning the needy over for God, why do they hold the food hostage until after they've sat through the service? What is it that we are called to do for God? What is the right way and what is the wrong way, Lai? I ask you, if Jesus were to come back to this planet, would He hold dinner hostage until after He forced the downtrodden to endure another selfish and purposeless message? No, I believe Jesus would feed the needy and love them. He would pray for them, He would tell them that they are loved and He would love them. People and God don't mix as well as we like to believe. God gave us logic for a reason―to USE IT! He didn't give us logic to ignore. He gave us the ability to read not only our own Bibles, but the Koran and the Torah. He wants us to understand why we believe in Him, to know that He wants us to love our neighbors, not hold their damned dinners hostage until they've met our requirements. Serving God means serving selflessly. Once we start looking for rewards, we are tainted. In Heaven, we will know what our acts produced. Only then will we know what we did mattered. Brother Billy might have one homeless man come forward one night a year for prayer, maybe even to accept Christ, but that's not what Brother Billy or anyone else was charged with. He was charged like the disciples, like me and you and theKid to go out into the world and tell them of the love of God. All I ever wanted was to love people.

Where I failed and where I feel like I have been dishonest is when it comes to you. You see, when God revealed to me that He was going to take my life away in August at Vedauwoo in the middle of the day, all I could think was how to protect theKid. The night after my dream, I was pumping gas at a gas station on Wadsworth. It's was about eight thirty at night and while I was pumping, you pulled in. I watched you, amazed at your beauty and your smile, though not at me. You were talking on your phone. I didn't know who you were talking to then, but now I know it was Gina. You were trying to resist the invitation to join her at a dating event, but she wasn't having it. I'd just asked God to reveal my wife to me, and there you were. I knew from the minute I saw you that you were the one for me, Lai.

You didn't even look at me, but I had a friend in the Morrison PD who owed me a favor, or five, so I scribbled down your license plate numbers and almost gasped when I saw what they were. Do you even know them? They are 685 JTK. JimmytheKid's birthday is June 8th, 2005. I knew for certain that I would love you better than anyone ever had, not because I was selfish enough to keep you as mine, but because God was sharing his love for you, with me. Twelve hours later, I had your information. I looked you up on Facebook and found that mostly, you seemed to hang out with Gina. God made you friends with Gina so that I could find you. She was so public on her Facebook page about these dating events. I knew you were single, but more so, I knew where you would be and when. I friended Gina, using a fake photograph of myself and, of course, she accepted my request. From there, I tracked your agenda until I knew you'd be at London's that night. I went early, had a beer, and waited for the woman God was sending me to arrive. When you did, I watched you, unable to take my eyes off of you. I heard what that guy was saying to you, and before I could stop myself, my temper was out of control and this man was bleeding and broken. I didn't feel bad about what I did, and I never once asked God to forgive me. I believe that what I did to him was what I needed to do to win your love, but when you left that night without me, I trusted God to bring you back. I wasn't sure how He could do that, but I KNEW that He would.

When you arrived at Kanavan eleven days later, I knew you were mine forever. I intentionally brought you home to meet theKid. This wasn't a date, this was getting to know the woman that I would love and marry, the woman that I would leave behind to protect the boy I love so dearly. All my life I had been waiting for you, Lai. I prayed for you when I was a kid, praying that wherever my wife was, she was making choices that would satisfy her, that would make her grow to be the sort of woman that could love me. I knew the minute you pulled into Kanavan why you were there and that God was good, not just good but that God truly loved me.

I don't know what you are supposed to say about my death, but I ask you not to say more than you have to. Honestly, without reading these books you will not understand fully, so maybe that's why I keep pressing upon you to read them. In the months after I die you will be angry, sad, and in denial. You will hurt in ways that I will not be able to fix. You will bear my cross, and for reasons I cannot explain, I fear you will feel as if you hold some of the blame. Understand that this too is a reason why I told everyone about my death. I didn't want them to point the finger at you, so I told them, prepared them for what was coming. I hope that my friends hold you up in the wake of my death. I pray that God supports you with friends loyal and true, but I fear otherwise. I fear this will be hard on you in many ways, both human and divine. I pray that you are strong enough. God knows I've done the best I could to prepare you, but I found that doing so only agitated you further... Be strong my sweet love and let God's all-encompassing hands assure you... I pray that for you now, through choked sobs and fear greater than I've ever known. I pray for you and theKid, my sweet and loving family...

God's work is often misinterpreted. There are fanatics out there speaking on behalf of Almighty God, false prophets, and I wish to not be lumped in with them. God gave me some very hard details about my death. As a man, I am scared, Lai. I sometimes wake up in the night and watch you sleeping so perfectly that I begin to cry. The realization that I will not be able to watch you sleeping as an old woman breaks my heart each time I consider it. So much of what we could have been, we will never be. Then again, some people spend their whole lives married to a stranger, someone they once loved but no longer love. You and I shall part in the apex of our commitment and desire for each other. I will die young and vibrant and beautiful, the way I always wanted. I never wanted to see old age. I never wanted to lose my passion for life―To be dead before that seems a blessing. I have lived such a wonderful existence, Lai. Burying my parents was the end of a long and somewhat disappointing chapter. The money they left me was enough to more than fuel my dreams. It was enough to see that my son be taken care of. That wasn't enough though. Money isn't enough to see him grown into a man. That's where you came in. The money, my parent's deaths... that was just half of what God was preparing for me. Saturday I will see Him and I will fall down at His feet and weep. I will thank Him for loving me when I was unlovable, for bringing this situation as much peace and self-assuredness as I could have ever hoped for. I wish now that I could have done more, lived even brighter and fuller in the time I had left, but here I am and it is perfect. The Berkshire, our little haven from the world, is more than a home―it's a sanctuary where all of God's wonderful plans have revealed themselves to me, and with any luck, when you get here tonight you will sign these papers without me having to beg you and unknowingly become Lai Canavan, the most beloved of women.

Matthew 26:39 is the verse where Jesus is praying at the Garden of Gethsemane before his arrest and crucifixion. In that prayer, he asks God that if there is a way to stop the events that are going to unfold, if stopping the crucifixion and torture can be used to God's purpose, to let it. "My Father, if it is possible to let this cup pass from me, yet not as I will, but as you will." This was the human side of Jesus the Christ. Scared and alone, sad and tormented by the knowledge that this was the end of his life... This is how I have been feeling for the last day and a half. Ever since you left me at the Morrison Inn, I have been praying that prayer. I do not believe it has been to any avail, yet I have prayed it and have felt comfort in knowing that God has heard me. The end will be the same. There is no escaping what comes next, so rather than trying, I walk boldly toward it, brave in the knowledge that nothing happens to me that is out of God's control. I am a flawed man, but in God's almighty and all-knowing plans, I am perfect. He takes me as I am, not brave, but devoted to His holy cause.

As far as how you two come back to Kittridge and face the friends we've made, I don't know. Until you read this book it may seem like just a tragic accident, but it wasn't, Lai. It's destiny, part of God's plan, and I will meet it. Your story is yours to tell, and for JimmytheKid, I just pray that he will survive the broken heart, the sleepless nights, and the anger he'll feel because of the abandonment. I pray that you will be there for him, Lai, that you will hold that little boy against you and whisper into his ear that I loved him... that I found it hard to write these pages as I wept into my sleeve at the thought of leaving you both behind. Our house in the mountains... our little life together...

My Heavenly Father told me a lot of things in that dream, a lot of which I forgot until recently. In that covenant I was told that if I followed the path of God Almighty, if I reached out to my fellow brothers and tried to convince them of God's work in my life, my son would live on. I was told that I needed to begin to make preparations for my death and was reminded that God was always faithfully watching me. I was told to pray for faith, to pray for the fortitude to do the impossible and if I did so, I would be rewarded with knowing that my son lived on, not just here on earth, but eternally. I was told that you and I would marry. I was told that you would be the wind that carried me to my death, and that I would be happy, unlike any happiness I'd ever known in the hours before.

I told you I would choose my son, Lai. I am a father, unable to choose otherwise.

Forgive me.

The money, Lai, spend it. It's all yours. I couldn't spend it because it was blood money to me, but not to you. You never got to meet my mother and father, but had you, or if they could speak to you now, they'd tell you that nothing would make them happier than knowing that the money they left behind for me went to raise that little boy. So go and show theKid the world. Love again, Lai. Be happy. Set yourself free of anything that wears you down. Be beautiful and brilliant and loving and kind. Be all the things you can be and touch as many lives as you can. God is moving through you. You are a tool, being used to do God's work while he waits for you to call on Him.

Please relay to Joe Frank my eternal love and gratitude. Tell him that I was not given a brother at birth, but I acquired one as an adult. Tell Joe that I love him and that I will wait for him in Heaven, beside my Holy Father. I will wait patiently for you all. I will be there when you come to your last breath and guide you to eternity. I'm afraid that's the best I can do for you now. I can watch over you as I always wished to do in life, but the living and the dead have never been good at acknowledging each other. I will be there, behind every breath, beneath every tear, and beside you in whatever you tell them. I will be in your corner and on your side from this day forward. You are my wife and you honor me.

You do not owe them an explanation for my death. They'll look under every rock for clues, for reasons. It was preordained, and when I stood before them and told them I would not last the year, they didn't believe.

Putting words on paper is profound. Tonight you will return to me whole, and yesterday I lost my life, both true as these words find your eyes in the distant future. Whatever my death is, whatever happens out there on those rocks, Lai, you put it behind you as fast as you can. I am so sorry.

You are my wife and the love of my life.

I will see you soon.

Godspeed.

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