A tall, gainly young man dressed in a black, double-breasted suit walked, at a moderate, inexorable pace, an unerringly straight stretch of dirt road cleaving the brushlands twenty miles outside Austin, Texas. Saffron-colored dust settled on the legs of black trousers as he walked; he would have seemed to be levitating over the scrub to an observer more than ten feet distant. Aside from the dust he was immaculate; collar points of a white silk shirt blinding against black lapels; dyed-to-match silk tie, handkerchief and socks a vibrant scarlet that matched the single teardrop ruby nestled in the lobe of his left ear. His hair fell in a smooth, expertly-cut mahogany curve to the line joining the tops of his shoulder blades. He could have been a traveling salesman whose Buick Regal had broken down at the end of this unpaved, godforsaken road.

He stopped, finally, at the end of a narrow, white-graveled drive. Cottonwood trees, bent an almost precise ten degrees to the north-northeast, lined the shimmering river of jagged white stones. A small pecan orchard on the west side of the house, like the cottonwoods, leaned to northeast in the constantly soughing wind.

The temperature was one hundred degrees. No 'humidity index' here — the wind, constant and practically unbroken from the Sonoran desert six hundred miles away, kept the climate dry. The sky was a cornea-clashing blue. He continued up the narrow drive, passing a hand unconsciously over the trunk lid of a faded red Toyota Corolla sedan before stepping up on the porch. The house was three-inch white clapboard; the shutters on the windows — real shutters and frequently useful in central Texas — were painted the same shade of scarlet as the ruby in his ear. A wedge of gingerbread just under the front eaves blocked the glaring of the sun from his eyes as he stared back over the road just traveled. The house was at least three times as old as he. It would probably outlive him by at least twice his own lifespan.

He opened the white wooden screen door by its antique brass, finger-shaped hook; let the old, painted-over steel spring slam it shut behind him. 'No child of mine will ever slam that door,' he thought absently. The heels of his shoes clicked hollowly over the dark-stained, urethaned pine slats.

It was cool inside, like a springhouse. Jay Fayden had never encountered a springhouse until he'd moved to Austin. Sun glinted off the metal ring around the top of a morphine bottle on the end table before the nearest window. That had been Lauren's last act in this life. She had picked up the bottle two nights ago and injected most of its contents into a vein in her left arm. Jay had held her hand steady while she did it. There was no point, at that point, emotionally blackmailing her to go on.

He picked up the bottle and suspended it between his eyes and the early afternoon sunlight. Only terminal patients and those whose pain could be alleviated no other way were given morphine by injection anymore. He reached down and picked a disposable B-D syringe from the box under the table where Lauren had kept them; slipped off its orange plastic protective cap and pulled back the plunger experimentally. He gritted his teeth, set aside both needle and bottle, flipped the ruby cufflink out of his sleeve. He was already overheated — finding a vein in his arm would be no trick. He picked up bottle and needle again, pushed the needle through the rubber stopper and filled it. No need to prime the bottle —this was the last dose that would ever come out of it. It wasn't even a lethal dose. It didn't matter. This qualified as a pain nothing else would alleviate.

He clenched his fist, plunged the needle into his flesh and, in the end, whimpered a little. Jay had always hated needles. She should have used it all up...since it didn't matter anyway.

It was a week short of their first anniversary. One year ago, nearly a year after having confirmed her last lover was HIV-positive, Lauren's AIDS had taken her down for the first time. She had spent two weeks convincing Jay the bruises on her arms and legs weren't serious. As much as he'd wanted to believe it Jay had known.

He emptied the syringe, plucked it from his arm and dropped it on the floor. As he flexed his hand, the morphine burned up through his shoulder; across his chest. His eyes rolled up and he gasped in a breath. He'd never injected a drug into himself. He didn't care. For all he cared today, it would have been just as well if it had been cyanide as morphine.

Jay closed his eyes and the god of dreams presented him with two pictures of his lost wife; the first one, the first time they had gone out together — Lauren wearing a black velvet dress, silk hose, black, high-heeled shoes that accentuated the curve of the muscle, taut across her calves. Her hair, a shade an earlier generation had called raven, shined a sort of blue reflection back to his eyes. The sheen of her skin, and the angle where her shoulder pinioned, and a splatter, like cinnamon powder on cream, of freckles across the bridge of her nose. He heard, again, her alto voice with its Northern accent — the voice she'd lost in the last three weeks as she more and more vehemently refused to go to the hospital with the pneumonia Jay assumed would take her. Independent, finally, at last — the only decision she'd had the power to make had been taking her own life.

Not the only decision. She'd decided to marry him, even knowing this would be the inevitable end of it. They'd lived together in Myrtle Beach for six months, then Tom and Catherine had married and moved to Austin. In the interim six months before Jay married her and they followed, the story he'd started about his grandmother's life had reached publication. 'Ten Thousand Southern Threads' had netted him an advance more than sufficient to make a down-payment on this house a mile up the road from Tom and Catherine, on Tom's Uncle Robert's property, and to keep him and Lauren supplied for the time that followed.

The other picture was of Lauren's body slumped in this chair at the moment the odyssey ended. He'd checked her pulse several times before lifting her into his arms and rocking her. It was an hour before he'd finally called the ambulance. Lauren had instructed him to leave the bottle in plain sight and tell them he'd been in another part of the house. He'd told as much of the truth as he could stand, instead — he'd helped her prepare for the injection but hadn't realized she'd dispensed a lethal amount of narcotic into the needle. The morphine hadn't come to her by prescription but there was no way of tracing its origin. AIDS patients, Jay had learned, supported each other — and there was seldom any question from the outside about things like painkillers or marijuana, both of which apparently relieved some of the worst symptoms of disease and side-effects of other drugs. Many had, after all, been intravenous drug users. It wasn't at all unusual for a bottle containing a deadly dose of narcotic to be found at the bedside of a critical AIDS hospice patient waiting the black watch.

When it came down to black on white the Austin DPS ruled it was accidental overdose. Jay had admitted he suspected the same to the officer from the Department of Public Safety who'd shown up at the house three hours after he'd called the hospital in Austin where Lauren had been treated when she’d permitted it. She'd only allowed him to take her there once when she was in so much pain she couldn't stand it, but knew she wouldn’t die soon enough.

Jay knew Lauren refused medical treatment at times he doubted her wisdom because she wanted to die in the house instead of the hospital. Neither was willing, in the end, to trade away the little and late autonomy Lauren had developed by allowing her to enter the morass, however well-meaning, of any hospital’s system. The danger of allowing Lauren to be hospitalized had been that Jay wouldn’t have been able to remove her, even if she’d wanted to leave; the thought of dying in the antiseptic cube of a hospital room, however private, whether Jay was there or not, was a nightmare that had brought Lauren erect from sleep, sweating and shivering, every night of her last month. She needed to die in her bed, she had whispered one night, one of the few coherent sentiments she’d expressed through bouts of late-night incoherence that became more common as the days went. She needed to die hearing the wind talking through the pecan trees, his breathing beside her, the frame creaking under his back proving he’d still be alive after she was gone.

Jay couldn't take it away from her. She'd had her way. Blackness clawed at his brain now, pinned under the boulder of the narcotic; smashed flat on his spine on the razorblade carpet of images his brain had filed from her last hours, images he’d never have had to see framed in familiar surroundings that could do nothing but remind him as long as he stayed in the house ...still, he knew it had been the right way. He'd believed death was her decision if it came to the point she couldn't live any longer. Neither of them had expected her to live more than another week, two nights before when he'd helped her end her life. They'd had almost two years together. It was more than either of them would have had if they'd never met.

The officer had been polite, and courtly, and had known what had happened, and hadn't raised an eyebrow. Neither had the ambulance attendant, nor the funeral home director in Austin. She'd asked to be cremated, for her remains to return to St. Thomas, Ontario where her family lived. Jay had followed her wishes but when he'd called her parents and offered to bring her ashes to Canada, they had ordered him to stay in Austin. Her ashes were going back to St. Thomas with Jack and Jennifer except for six ounces, which rested in Jay's left breast pocket sealed in a platinum container in the shape of a heart. The heart dragged at his shoulder as he slumped back in the rocking chair and stared at the ceiling, feeling her brittle body limp in his arms as it had been two nights before. He had died with her that night and gone on, too. There had been little flesh left on her bones; little life left in her. She hadn't closed her eyes; their still-vibrant emerald green had burned into him for an hour before he had been able to know she was dead and call the hospital and the police.

And damn the morphine... for all it shoved away the reality of this moment, all he could feel was the doppelganger of her dead body in his arms. No dream of her touching him, vital and alive, laughing... No emerald eyes compressed into a squint as they studied panoramic sunsets on the Texas plains, her arms draped over his shoulders... No regretful morning smile when she woke him, the palm of her warm hand pressed to his collarbone... only the brittle, cold weight of her body as he rocked it that last night, wishing he believed there was a heaven for her to go to.

His hooded eyes opened wider as a cloud of dust started to settle outside; a vehicle turned in at the end of the road. Jay couldn't move now — the morphine had paralyzed him. It was probably Tom and Catherine, or Lauren's parents. He closed his eyes, pushed himself up from the chair and shuffled toward the front door. He made it as far as the living room doorway before he had to prop himself against the wall. The profile that pulled open the front door was Tom's. Jay stared at him as he held the door for Catherine and entered the house.

"Jay..." Tom said, and he rested a hand on Jay's shoulder and squinted across the room. Like he'd been waiting for it, Jay thought, he blinked at the morphine bottle and back at Jay.

"Tom..." Jay sighed.

"You didn't. You did."

Jay stared into Tom’s eyes for the length of a breath, shrugged and nodded.

"Wasn't enough in it to kill me. Could you give me a hand upstairs? I need to get out of this suit..."

Tom had tried to talk him into waiting for a ride back to the house from the chapel five miles away. Jay had refused. Now he knew he'd been right. If he hadn't walked the five miles back in the blazing heat; if he'd come back here too quickly; faced the echoing house without her too soon after he'd consecrated her to infinity he'd have found something in the house more potent and less temporary than a small dose of narcotics to alleviate his pain. The five miles had been just enough to convince him he was still alive. It felt like a kick in his gut but he knew he'd survive this, now. It wasn't in him today to end his life.

"Cat, get a pitcher of water or juice or something, if there's anything in the refrigerator. I'm gonna get him upstairs..."

"Are you okay, Jay?" Catherine asked. Her voice was the same smooth, slightly accented, slightly exotic northern alto Lauren's had been. It, too, clawed the back of his mind with black talons. He closed his eyes and shook his head, the room and the light like a golden blanket over his pain.

"'I god, Catherine. No, I'm not okay..."

She slipped her arms around him and rested her head on his shoulder. The tips of her fingers, still cold from the A/C in the truck, felt icy under the back of his damp hair where they sifted it idly, absently.

"I know, Jason. I'm not okay either."

Jay knew if he let his grip on his feelings go as Catherine seemed to do so gracefully, there'd be no brave face left to show Jack and Jennifer when they finally arrived at the house.

"I'll be okay. Make it a pot of coffee, I'll get a shower and get out of this suit. It's for the rag pile now, I've ruined it."

"Let's hope you don't need a black suit for a while, sweetheart," Catherine said, stepping back to blot tears from her face. "I'll make a pot of coffee. Can you eat something?"

"If it's got a lot of sugar in it. I think somebody brought out a coffee cake... that'll be okay."

Tom slipped an arm around his waist and started him away from the wall. Jay sucked a breath deep into his lungs, dropped his head for a moment then raised it and started toward the stairs.

"What did you think you were doing, Jay?"

"Getting as close to her as I could before I let her go. Thomas. You're pretty wise about medical stuff but let me tell you about morphine. It was named after Morpheus — the god of dreams. All I wanted was one last dream of her Tom, that's all. One I wouldn't have to go to sleep to have..."

Tom tipped his head against Jay's and sighed.

"I can't fault you for that, old buddy."

Jay stopped at the doorway to the bedroom he and Lauren had shared — celibate, of course — for the past year. Their marriage had never been consummated, at Lauren's insistence. He'd spent over three hundred nights staring at that ceiling wishing he could make love to her again. It had only happened three times, in fact, in the two years he'd known her. Not long after the last, she'd heard about her ex-lover's HIV exposure. It hadn't happened again. He couldn't go in, not yet.

"Thomas, please. Get a pair of jeans and a shirt out of my dresser... I can't go in there..."

"Yeah, okay. Jay, I know you're not all right... is there anything I can do for you? Well, maybe I know there's nothing I can do, either but..."

"Come in and talk to me if you don't mind doing it."

"Yeah, sure."

Jay dropped the suit in a pile in the corner of the bathroom. Each one-inch by one-inch robins-egg blue tile, he'd pressed into place with his own hands. He'd done the bathroom to Lauren's specifications. Everything in the house had been to her specifications. It had been the one dream she'd admitted to him, in the whole two years they'd had together. It had been more than enough to keep him occupied and prevent his falling into the reality of losing her. If he'd fallen into it before she was gone, he might have preceded her to the kiln.

He was in the shower, standing under water hot enough to poach an egg, when Tom came back in. Jay heard the door close; heard the wooden clothes hamper creak as Tom lowered his weight on it.

"Is there something you want to talk about?"

"Not really. I just need somebody around right now. I'm afraid I'm gonna fall off the face of the earth. 'I god, Thomas... she's gone."

The tears he'd staved off for five hours came now. He leaned over until his temple touched the window and water pounded his shoulder. Not in anything he'd ever dreamed would it have ended like this. Lauren hadn't been cruel to anybody. She'd lived her life, until she'd met Jay, opening the entirety of herself -- emotional, physical, social -- to one man after another who'd had no sense of her value. He only wished he'd found her a year earlier. Six months earlier, even — before Joey had injected his ticking biological bomb.

The sickest part was Catherine had seen Joey in Toronto, during a visit to her parents a few months before. His HIV status was still holding — he hadn't yet developed AIDS Related Complex. It was possible he'd live another eight or nine years before pneumocystis or some other septic infection took him. For a few seconds, now and then, Jay thought he couldn't stand to let the selfish, careless bastard live that long. But knowing he had the same death sentence, had passed the virus to Lauren — killed her — and had been dropped from his job and his insurance, Jay knew Joey was living out a kind of hell death could do nothing to intensify. Assassination might well be doing Joey a favor. AIDS wasn't something you wished on anybody. Even if he'd been capable of it before, Jay couldn't think that way now, having nursed Lauren. He even pitied the man who'd passed it along to her.

"Jay?"

"It's okay, Thomas. It's okay..." he called, pushing his face into the stream of water.

"What is it?"

"What do you think it is?"

"Well, you just dosed yourself with morphine and you're standing in a tub with water running... you might think somebody who works the job I do would be concerned..."

Jay laughed. He was so shocked he was capable of it he pulled the shower curtain back and stared at Tom.

"Look what you did! You made me laugh..."

Tom had taken a job in Austin as an emergency medical technician at a privately-funded hospice. The morphine had come through him, though they'd taken great pains to make sure no trace of it would ever be discovered. As with everything else, nobody had asked. Jay suspected they felt if they knew too many details about a group so cursed, they might be in line to "catch death" themselves. It was a logical, if uneducated, assumption. Like Lauren's assumption, as soon as ARC set in, that she'd only live another year. Like many people's assumptions, forty years ago, that as soon as they were diagnosed with cancer they'd die immediately. The hospice kept the morphine for just that purpose — elective euthanasia. Suicide, actually — but AIDS had changed the meanings of many words in Jay's internal vocabulary.

"You need to laugh! For Christ's sake, Jay — we both know you've mourned her every minute of every day of the past two years. You started the day she heard Joey had it. Two weeks before she even knew for sure, you were already picking out that suit you just ruined."

Jay nodded somberly and returned his head to the scalding water.

"I had to. I hope it didn't make it too unpleasant for anybody — everybody — else..."

"You've been a positive saint, Jay. I don't know how..."

"I know — I was a jerk, before. It was Lauren and we both know it."

She'd been tough. Halting their sexual activities had been the only thing Lauren had allowed — they'd stopped nothing else until she was physically unable, including many nights they'd gone dancing. Even after Lauren had proclaimed herself too pathetic to be seen in public, there were nights she and Jay danced in the living room downstairs, bare feet scuffing over the pine slats, her weight almost entirely supported by his arms.

He'd discovered a strength in himself through Lauren's long death and the telling of Callie McMasters's story he'd thought had died in his father — never to return to his family. Callie had been a tough woman. She'd embroidered ten thousand pearls on the bodice of the wedding dress for a South Carolina governor's wife. Ten thousand tiny stitches; ten thousand tiny mother-of-pearl beads. Callie had lost a good man over the dress. Jay had lost a good woman through no fault of his own. He supposed his grandmother would have counted that for something.

"I think I'm going to go back to M.B. for a week or two, Tom. Mom's been at me to do it, I think this would be a good time. Is it going to be a problem for you guys to sit the house?"

Jay squeezed shampoo from his hair. It had grown six inches since his last trip back to see Carol. His mother wouldn't know him. He'd gardened, harvested pecans, mowed; his shoulders and legs and face were dark with auburn freckles from exposure to the wind and the glass-pure sunshine. Lauren had liked to sit on the porch and watch him manipulate their little square of the natural world. Right up to four days ago she'd sat ten feet away in a chair, wrapped in a blanket, and made faces at him while he climbed up into the pecan trees to check for caterpillars. That memory, like no other, cheered him. Right up to the last, she'd insisted he smile. It wasn’t something he’d done exceptionally often or well before he’d known her.

"Would you like some company?" Tom asked. Jay couldn’t see Tom. Over the sound of the water, he wasn’t even sure he’d heard right.

"What do you mean?"

The water ran dark off Jay’s chest as he soaped his skin. The dust had even penetrated the suit to lodge in his armpits.

"Cat's going back up with Jack and Jennifer. She's going to stay with them for a few days, then go to Toronto and see her folks again. She quit her job, Jay. She... thinks she might be pregnant."

"No kidding?"

Jay's head popped through the curtain again; this time, sprinkling Tom with water. Tom shook his head, then nodded up at Jay.

"Well, yeah. I can't get two weeks off, she wants to stay up there that long. I was just going to spend it kicking around here with you. But..."

"I'd love it, Thomas. It's been too long for either of us."

"You're right. If nothing else, it'll make us appreciate Austin that much more."

Jay loved Texas. The bright, dry, eye-squinting morning sunlight; the whispers in the night of leaves and branches. Even in the winter, with the oil furnace turned up, it hadn't felt like he was closed up in a cocoon. He'd grown to love being outside. It was something his first twenty-six years in Myrtle Beach had never managed to teach him.

"I don't think I could appreciate Austin much more, Tom. I'm really glad we came out here. I don't think I'd have survived losing Lauren, back home."

"I don't think Cat would have either. It's hoping she's pregnant that's getting her through this now."

"Do you hope she is?"

Jay cut the water, pulled a towel down from the rack on the wall over Tom's head, sprinkling him with water again and cinched it around his waist. His feet rested on a rag rug. He sat and stared at Tom.

"If it's that or lose her, then yeah. Otherwise, I'm not so sure I'm ready for it. I'm not making that much money."

"But Robert gave you the house. You paid off the Blazer. What expenses do you have that require that much?"

Tom bumped his head smartly against the wall and closed his eyes.

"None, I guess. I'm just trying to find excuses for the fact I'm not ready for it emotionally... you know."

"I do know. Just wanted to see if you did."

While Jay was pulling on the T-shirt Tom had carried in for him, a car door slammed out front. That would be Jack and Jennifer.

Lauren's passing had crushed her father as surely and as thoroughly as a hammer. They'd been close, and while Jack hadn't approved of several of her choices, through Jay's efforts that wound had begun to heal between them even before she'd known she was dying. As Jay dragged himself back down the stairs, he heard Jack's voice in the kitchen. It didn't even sound the same as it had the first time they'd met in the McDonald family farmhouse in St. Thomas. He'd aged more than the ten years Jay could claim, in the past two.

Tom waited at the bottom of the stairs; slipped an arm over Jay's shoulders as Jay halted and propped himself on the banister.

"You don't have to do this, you know. I can run you up to the house, you can lie down for a few hours. I know you haven't slept for at least a week."

It was true. Ten days, to be precise. Until her death, Jay had been afraid of losing her without knowing she was gone, in her sleep; after, he'd thoroughly dreaded the moment he'd roll over in his sleep, reach for her and have to realize she wasn't there. It might be ten more days before he closed his eyes.

"I need to talk to Jack, Thomas. Maybe we'll go for a walk..."

Tom turned his head away momentarily.

"Just — okay, Jay, if you have to. Just drink a couple glasses of water before you go back out in the heat. It would be stupid for me to sit by and let you die of heat stroke..."

"I — look, you know I can't think to take care of myself right now. All I've done the past six months, every second of every day, is take care of Lauren. You've taken care of me, you and Cat. I can't ask you to keep doing it. But if you still want to I'll listen when you tell me..."

Tom nodded and steered Jay toward the kitchen.

"You know I'll keep on doing it. God knows you did enough for us when we moved out here."

Jay had given — not loaned — Tom the money to pay off his Blazer and set up housekeeping in Austin while he and Lauren had still been living in Tom's old trailer in South Carolina. He'd told Tom, and it was true, he felt it was due for his having shoved aside Tom's insistence he start writing again so long. Appropriate it had been exactly a quarter of the 'Southern Threads' advance money.

He'd been writing a syndicated Southern living column for Knight-Ridder since the publication of the book. There just hadn't been the time or energy to devote to another book yet. His agent in New York had agreed to wait him out — not happily, but she'd agreed. Jay had told nobody outside Lauren's immediate circle precisely what his wife's condition was — only that it was acute and terminal. Now it wouldn't matter as much who knew.

Jay stopped behind Jack's chair. Jack was staring out the window over the sink at the wind-scoured sky while Jennifer and Catherine made low-toned conversation.

"Do you have some jeans out in your car?" Jay asked him.

"Yeah. Thought we'd probably want to change."

"Why don't you? We can go for a walk..."

Jack nodded, pushed the chair back and stood up. They hadn't spoken since two nights before. Jay had called, said only, 'she's gone', and hung up the phone. There had been so much unconsidered talking both men had needed time to think. Jack was the managing editor of the London, Ontario daily newspaper — like Jay, the right words were crucial to his absorbing the concept of losing his only daughter.

"Jay, I know you're gonna be paying for living the last two years out for her the way she wanted them like you did for a long time... I guess I want you to know I can't think of any better way, either for her to live out her last two years or for her to die..."

Jay closed his eyes and clutched at the back of the chair. So many sad, broken people and days — pain and depression had been the center of his life for so long. Tom stepped toward him too late — Jay hit the floor on his knees, his hand still closed over the back of the chair. Jennifer was nearer — she crouched beside him, one arm around his waist.

"When's the last time you ate something, Jason?"

Jay shook his head; shrugged. Part of his brain hadn't even comprehended the question.

"That's one of two things we couldn't force him to do for himself..." Tom sighed. The muscles in Jay's arm solidified about the same time as his brain. Jennifer helped him up as he tugged at the chair.

"I'm sorry, Mom McDonald..."

All he could say. It meant far more than an apology for his present weakness. She seemed to know it.

"Why don't you sit down and let Cat get something in your stomach while Jack and I change?" she suggested, burrowing a hand through the back of his hair to rest her cool fingers on his neck. The comfort of her touch was immeasurable; he couldn't have found the will to refuse. He nodded and lowered himself into the chair.

"'I god, Catherine. What are you doing? You shouldn't have to... your life should have been better than this. You oughtta have better to do than babysit me. You and Tom deserve better than this..."

His eyes leaked as she settled a sandwich on a plate and filled an oversized glass with orange juice. She set both down in front of him then bent over to clasp his face between her palms, staring into his eyes.

"Stop that. I loved Lauren, Jay. And I love you. Everything I've done for both of you I've chosen to do. You didn't ask."

She kissed him on the mouth. For Jay, like the touch of his mother-in-law's hand the kiss was like a little bit of oxygen.

"Thank you," he said, feeling a smile tug at the unwilling corner of his mouth.

"You're still alive in there. You kissed back..." she teased, tapping an index finger on the end of his nose.

"Jesus Christ, Catherine. The Pope would have to kiss you back."

She laughed and sat down across from him again.

"Only if I was Catholic. I don't know if this is appropriate Jay, but..."

From the pocket of her black silk blouse Cat removed a silver cigarette case and matching lighter. He'd made her take them three months before, when Lauren's pneumonia had been its worst and he'd quit smoking. They'd been Christmas gifts from Cat the first winter they spent in Austin. He hadn't had a cigarette since he'd handed them over to her. She'd kept them for him.

"Oh yes, you do. You know exactly how appropriate. Thank you, Catherine. It's a very nice way of pulling me forward, telling me 'life goes on' without being too cruel about it. You're a sweet woman..."

He flicked the case open.

"I refilled it for you on the way out," Tom said. Jay nodded.

"Thanks, Tom."

He flipped the top up on the lighter before even looking at his food; slipped a cigarette slowly from the case and lit it. Three months. This he had missed, bad for him or not; reason for quitting or not.

"Am I a bastard," he asked, a few moments later, pointing the cigarette back over his shoulder, "for enjoying this?" He didn't turn around to look at Tom. When Tom answered his voice was rough.

"No more than I'm a bastard for being glad she doesn't have to suffer, and we don't have to watch her die anymore..."

Jay turned then to look at Tom. Tom's face was hidden under a hand; the tears were darkening the cuff of his black linen shirt.

"What is it, Tom?"

"I'm relieved. I can see you making it. I guess I wasn't too sure for a while..."

Jay closed his eyes and dragged on the cigarette again. Tom was right.

"I wasn't either. But I can see ahead of me now..."

Jennifer reached for his hand.

"I'm going to change. Is there anything you need?"

He stared at her dumbly for almost ten seconds.

"Jen, Jack needs everything you've got to give a hell of a lot more than me right now. Just make sure he takes it..."

She nodded and left the kitchen. Tom took her seat.

"Here, I found this in the cabinet."

He slid an amber glass ashtray to the center of the table. Jay nodded.

"Thanks. Listen, why don't you two go down and get out of your buryin' clothes? You'll feel a hell of a lot better once you're out of them. I do..."

Tom's eyes were still leaking though his expression was calmer.

"You're right. Anything at the house you need?"

Jay listed the things besides his smoking supplies he'd secreted at Cat and Tom's house. "My acoustic... that bottle of DeWar's I never got to open... the old typewriter..."

He'd leased a home computer, printer and modem when Knight-Ridder had contracted his weekly column. The old Remington Standard had been too noisy. Though she'd never complained, and never would have complained, Jay felt the noise would be an imposition on Lauren. Again he felt black panic claw at the back of his brain. Every second of every day of the last six months it had been his sole mission to make Lauren's last days as perfect as possible. Of a sudden he was on his own in the world again — no idea what to do with the next ten minutes without her there, let alone the rest of his life. He wasn't even sure who he was anymore. He hadn't been sure who he was when he'd met Lauren. Nothing that had happened since had donated any clues to that mystery.

"How about if I ride the Kawasaki back up here tonight or tomorrow? You and I can go for a ride, maybe."

Catherine's 750 motorcycle had become a hobby he and she shared. They'd taught each other how to fix it on Tom's overnight shifts at the hospice, sometimes heralding in the sunrise while Lauren slept away another six of the twelve to sixteen hours she averaged each day of the last half year.

"If you want to. We could at least give it a listen, see if it needs any work. God, Tom... we are such lucky men, you and me..."

Tom gnawed at his lower lip and lit a cigarette for himself. Jay crushed his out, dispatched half the glass of orange juice in one lengthy breath and picked up the sandwich.

"I guess we are, Jason. Are you going to be okay while Cat and me run up to the house?"

Jay nodded, reaching again for his glass. His body, once offered a little motivation, craved more food and couldn't consume what was available fast enough. It had been two days, he recalled. Since his last supper with Lauren.

"I'll follow you out and wait on the porch. I think I need to be outside right now."

He finished the sandwich and the juice, lit another cigarette and slipped the case and lighter into his shirt pocket. The second one was even more gratifying, coming as it had after he'd eaten. He'd craved a cigarette every waking moment since quitting.

While the Blazer stirred up dust on its way back the road another vehicle approached on the farm trail from the highway. There were no accidental visitors this far out. He suspected it was his younger brother Jon.

Jon Fayden, Jay's brother, was starting his third year at Texas A&M. Though his football scholarship was paying his way through the schooling it was pretty well recognized, by his junior year, Jon wasn't professional football material. It would have been excruciating for everyone who loved him if Jon hadn't tripped into a pursuit he seemed to find equally rewarding; at which he seemed to be equally talented.

On a lark, Jon had auditioned for the male lead in the Aggie Drama Club's production of 'Streetcar Named Desire' the previous August. To his shock, he'd been first choice for the role. Jay had sat in the college auditorium in Austin watching his younger brother, an amused Lauren at his elbow and wept through the entire performance. Jon had been good. Perhaps not exceptional but considering he'd never performed before, not so very bad either. It had pleased Jay to the point of pain.

The switch — or attenuation, at least — in desires had changed Jon profoundly. It was late for a Southern boy, but he'd developed an appetite for classic literature, music that wasn't on the radio every day and a haircut that didn't match this week's famous NFL hero. He'd never found it a challenge to love Jon, but for the first time in twenty years Jay really liked his younger brother.

Jon's asthmatic old Datsun truck wheezed up the gravel drive. It hadn't run properly since he'd bought it the previous spring. It died just short of halfway to the house. Jay watched Jon smack the steering wheel with his palms several times, frown slamming curses against the inside of the windscreen, until he slammed out of the cab, running full-tilt toward the house. His face was red; his shaggy blonde hair plastered his cheeks and his forehead. His pale blue eyes, too, were damp.

"Goddammit, Jason — I tried to get here in time. Honest, I did..."

His lower lip writhed as he halted and tried to catch his breath at the bottom of the cement porch steps. Jay stepped down to the grass and embraced him.

"It's okay, Jon. I know you didn't forget about it..."

"I really wanted to be there, though..."

Jay knew. Like everyone else available, Lauren had drawn Jon close into her circle; tutored him through three quarters of French the previous year. Jay had helped him with his English comp courses. They'd shared so many terrific nights in this house, the three of them, huddled around a mesquite fire, slouching over the books, drinking Irish coffee, cozy, away from the wind and the outside world. The image injured Jay and he lost his legs for a moment. Jon held him up effortlessly until he recovered.

"Really..." Jay whispered. "It's okay."

"The truck —"

"I knew it. Come on in with me, Jon... Come in the house."

Jon followed. Jay led him, clasping his hand tightly, into the house, up the stairs and into his and Lauren's bedroom. He closed the door behind them for the first time since two days before; picked up the remains of his dusty black mourning jacket and reached into the breast pocket. The platinum heart emerged. Jay had told no one about it before the memorial service. It was an arrangement he'd made, with Lauren's approval, six months before. Who knew it, he chose now. He carried the heart to Jon between his palms; clasped Jon's palms over it, giving it up to him.

"You didn't completely miss her, little brother. I plan to carry a little bit of her around for the rest of my life. If you want to pay your respects, Jonathan it'll never be too late..."

Jon lifted the case to his mouth, pressed his lips to its handwarmed surface and extended his open palms back toward Jay. His hands were trembling; sweat beaded on his forehead.

"Jay, I want to say something... to you. I guess it... well, it doesn't have a whole lot to do with Lauren really. I behaved like a selfish bastard for such a long time, big brother. You never said so, or tried to make me feel that way. Watching you with Lauren the past two years... I want to be more like you. I want... even if it ends the way it did for you I want to care enough about something or somebody just once in my life to be the kind of man you were, for her..."

Jay retrieved the case from Jon's hands and sat down on the bed. Jon joined him, lying on his side, head propped on one arm. Jay thought, not for the first time, 'my God, I did help raise a good man after all.'

"Jon, I can't tell you it isn't worth it 'cause you've been around enough to know better... but it's something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. I'm twenty-nine years old, I don't see how I can start my life over. I was already gone over Lauren before either of us knew she was dying but... it's impossible to get up every morning and be strong, knowing everything's just going to keep getting worse. Knowing there's no hope to be had but pretending like there is because being hopeless would kill you in an hour... but I did that every single day. I'm not the only one who's done it, unfortunately... and I won't be the last. It wasn't what I intended for Lauren and me. I wanted babies, anniversaries, car payments, joint income tax returns. All the stuff Dad said bored him for thirty years... and the truth of it all is if Lauren had insisted on a condom, I might not be holding this right now. If she'd insisted a man be more careful I might not be holding this right now. If... 'I god, Jon. If she'd waited for me to come along she might still be alive..."

Jon blinked at him, frowning.

"If this is none of my damned business tell me so, but... did you ever get to make love to her?"

Jay was startled by the question. He felt his face redden slightly as he stared at the image of her face, etched on the top surface of the platinum heart.

"You... don't really know what that means, Jon. No offense — not many people do know. We had sex three times before she heard about Joey. We used condoms and I was totally paranoid, incredibly careful. We — I did all that 'cause I didn't want to make her pregnant. Funny now, looking back... every day, carrying her down the stairs in the morning... cooking her meals... counting her pills... was making love to her. I mean, don't be stupid, little brother... I never was any monk. My water usage got to be pretty high this past few months. I spent a lot of time sitting down in the shower..."

Jon lowered his head, grinning.

"I guess I know what you mean. It's one of the questions I've asked myself most often lately — 'hot or cold?'"

Jay punched at Jon's shoulder gently.

"Surely not you, sport? All the girls you had in high school..."

"I didn't 'have' them, Jay. I went out a lot, played around a lot... didn't have sex half as many times as I let on. It's different, these days. And I'm different now..."

"I know you are. Funny how giving it up makes it both more and less important at the same time. How long has it been?"

Jon blinked at him then responded, with apparent pride, "six months."

"That's longer than I ever held out when I was in college. Six weeks was more like it."

"Yeah, but you didn't have to worry about getting —"

Jon didn't say it but they both knew. They blinked at each other in silence for several seconds then Jay nodded agreement.

"That was a few years down the road for the whole world yet, when I was in school. You're right. I know a hell of a lot more about the human immune system than most family doctors. Jon, how would you feel about it if I wrote about some of it?"

"About Lauren, you mean?"

"Well yeah, but... not just that. All of it. The way people think of it, and act about it, and... try to reach some people our age and some younger. I think a lot of time's been wasted on the wrong things. We're not... nobody's going back far enough. It's not a question of whether you wear a rubber or not. It's more fundamental than that. It's having the kind of consideration it takes to say 'okay, I'll wear it, give it here', or 'okay, we won't do it yet' instead of always having your way..."

"We didn't always get our way, growing up. Maybe you can't convince people who always did there's any other way to be, Jay..."

"I know it. But I'll be damned if I can sit here after what we've all been through, and know there's kids out there who are laughing while they kill each other. While they volunteer to die the way Lauren died. It makes me so sick I just wanna shoot myself and get it over with..."

A gentle rap on the door interrupted him. Jay rose and went to open it.

"Hello, Jon," Jack said, stepping into the room. "Still up for that walk, Jay?" He seemed to be in more even spirits. Jay was relieved.

"Sure. Wanna go with us, Jon?"

"No. I need to push the truck on up the driveway and see if I can do anything with it."

"Look... why don't you go ahead and push it into the garage, just take the Toyota? Tom and I are going back East for a little while I think, after the weekend. In fact if you want, just stay out here. Cat's going back up with Jack and Jennifer — you can keep an eye on both houses, just use my car."

"Wow. Thanks, Jay..."

"Don't thank me, Jon -- we need somebody we can trust to house sit. I trust you more than anybody else I know around here."

Jay turned the heart over between his hands. 'And thank you, love. You gave me this with Jon.' Jack reached out to touch the platinum case, shaking his head.

"That's a beautiful idea, son..."

Jay closed his eyes and felt the weight of the object in his hand. He was ready, suddenly, to put it down for a while. He settled it in its holder on the shelves beside the door, in front of his and Lauren's wedding photo.

"It was. Let's go..."

Jay stopped in the kitchen to load a thermos of ice water and six apples into a small knapsack. As he was closing the zipper Tom banged through the front door and stepped into the kitchen.

"Hey. You asked for this?"

He handed Jay the fifth of DeWar's scotch. Jay nodded down at the label then back up at Tom.

"Thanks. You staying?"

"Sorry -- can't right now. Robert's sheep got through the fence again, Cat and I have to take the Blazer out and help him round them up and fix the fence. I see Jon's here."

Jay smiled slightly.

"Yeah. His truck broke down, it's why he wasn't at the service. Like we wouldn't have automatically assumed that."

Tom rolled his eyes and rested a hand on Jay's shoulder.

"Next two grand I see, I swear I'm gonna buy the boy something that runs."

"I'll... I'll probably... give him the Corolla. I can't stand to drive it anymore. There's too much debris caught in the upholstery, if you know what I mean..."

Tom squeezed his shoulder and his smile widened.

"I wouldn't blame you. You know my pager number if anything urgent comes up, Jason."

"I know it. It won't, now. Go on, catch sheep."

"Take care, Jay. I love you."

Jay's eyes fogged. Tom seldom said it in private let alone aloud, in front of another man, in broad daylight. He almost thought he'd hallucinated it.

"Me too, Thomas. Be careful."

Tom leaned forward to press his cheek against Jay's, then he was gone. Jay stared after him for a time, turned around for the flask he'd secreted well back in the cabinet.

"There... there was so much she and I loved to do together that we... couldn't do anymore, that last few months," Jay muttered, pouring from the fifth of liquor into the pewter flask. "Now, I guess I'd better go back for them. I still love them, Jack..."

Jay capped the flask and swallowed from the neck of the whiskey bottle, dropping the smaller container into the knapsack.

"Hey. At least it's the good stuff..." Jack grinned.

Jay held out the bottle. Jack took it, looked back toward the stairs, sipped from the bottle and handed it back.

"Jen would rather I didn't," he sighed. "But today..."

"I know."

Jay returned the bottle to the place it had previously occupied in the cabinet, before Lauren had been on so many interacting medications. When she'd quit so had he.

He led Jack from the house out into the pecan orchard. The wind sighed through, rustling the flat leaves into a lake of green whispers. Jay dragged his palm across the smooth boles of the trees as they passed along. The trees were young -- less than ten years old. They hadn't borne heavily either autumn Jay had seen them. Perhaps they never would. It was sometimes that way. At least Jay knew this year it wasn't for lack of care.

There was an open strip of saffron soil at the end of the small grove of trees before the fenced-back prairie grass started. Jay dropped in the dirt, propping his back against the nearest tree. Jack dropped against the nearest fence post, a few feet left, mirroring Jay's posture with his knees propped before him.

"It's so hard to know how to let go of your own children. I mean, they grow up and away from you but... that's not the same. Your kids are supposed to outlive you."

"By all statistics, so is a man's wife. They carry on so much better than we do when this happens..."

"Jay, I know this is really her business and yours, but I have to ask. She killed herself, didn't she..."

"I told you she did, Jack."

"Did you help her?"

Jay closed his eyes and turned his face up to the rich, yellow sunlight. The heat felt like an enormous drumhead vibrating against his brow.

"Yes. I held her wrist so she could find the vein. She was so sick, I'd spent all day knowing she was going to do it, trying not to beg her to give it one more... to give me one more day. Me -- she didn't want any more. She was nervous about it of course..."

It came back to him like a movie as he described it to Jack. She'd been wearing the purple terry robe Jen and Jack had sent her the previous Christmas. Jay had helped her make up her face for the first time in six weeks. She'd said she wanted her face to be as attractive as possible in his memory, because this was to be her last day. She didn't want him to remember the haggard little stick woman whose flesh had been sucked off her bones. Jay's mind had never allowed that version. Always, he'd looked at her eyes and seen the same slim young woman he'd met that first night in the music store.

'Jay, promise me if you meet another woman after I'm gone you know it's okay. I'd never ask you to stay alone. I know you were willing to love me forever, if you were willing to go through this with me. I don't care if you love somebody afterwards. Don't think being unhappy and lonely for the rest of your life means you're being true to my memory. You're too young. I love you, Jay. I couldn't have asked for anything more than...'

She'd blinked, opened her eyes wide, clutched at his hand and slumped back in the chair. He went on with the story though Jack knew the rest, stopping with the sealing of the platinum container. When he finally opened his eyes again, Jack's head hung between his shoulders. Tears dropped to the yellowish soil to evaporate almost instantly in the blazing heat.

"Jesus Christ, Jay. You let her be beautiful. You let her be brave and strong. It would have scared me so much to have had to watch her slipping away every day like that... she was never really very brave, very strong. She relied on her looks to protect her and on her intelligence. But down inside her..."

"She... she wouldn't let me go to sleep at night unless she'd made me smile, Dad McDonald," Jay said, as if in answer. "She made me, every day."

Jack lifted his head, one brow quirked in question. "You?"

Jay laughed gently, bumping the crown of his head against the bole of the tree.

"So tell me she didn't develop some strength and courage. Jack, she couldn't have been better about any of it. Never once did she sit there and feel sorry for herself or ask 'why me?'... or tell me to leave her... or get us both depressed over what we couldn't have. And because she didn't, as much right as she had to do all of that, I couldn't."

"How do you know she never did that, Jay?"

"Because every second she was awake, every day of the last year and a half, I was there. I quit drinking because she couldn't... quit smoking because she couldn't..."

Jack leaned forward to clasp a hand over Jay's left knee.

"Son, you know that was a dangerous thing to do. Shutting the doors and nailing up the windows on your life beside a dying person can make you think your life is over, too."

"I know that. I knew it when I started it. Tell me -- what choice did I have, Jack? I was already in love with her beyond all reason when you met me. Do you think I could've just dumped her on you? Or on Catherine? Or on some public hospice up in Canada somewhere?"

Jack met Jay's eyes. He seemed to measure Jay for a moment.

"You really couldn't have. Not for five minutes."

"Not for five seconds. I couldn't do it because unlike her, I did spend a lot of time thinking what it could have been like if she wasn't dying. We couldn't have that but I could give us more than she needed, and almost what we wanted, until she was gone. Like Tom said -- I was ready to lose her before I even had her. I started mourning as soon as she found out about Joey."

Jack stared up at the fidgeting leaves on the nearest tree. Their human stillness made a weird counterpoint against the trembling of the greenery.

"I've... done some writing. It's been a million years since I did any that meant anything to me but -- Lauren used to call me at the office early every morning, while you were making her breakfast and beg me to. Every day she called and told me about little things she'd noticed -- it made her sad, how only dying brought them into focus for her. The way sunlight slanted across a room, the way you made even cooking her breakfast seem like a Nobel Laureate ceremony, the sounds of the birds in the morning -- the way one would start at five-thirty and then they'd all follow it like an orchestra. She said she knew those were things you and I noticed out of habit, because we were writers. And she said she thought you were the perfect person to lead her through the end of her life because you noticed things without judging them, mourned them without shame. She considered herself fortunate to have you, Jay. I considered her fortunate to have you too, if for a different reason. I thought so because you were able to walk through it with her and be gentle, and good, and brave, and full of her even knowing it would be over too soon. You were able to be her husband completely even knowing... to give yourself to her completely without being concerned for yourself when it was all over..."

"Jack, do you understand -- because I was able to do that all along I can think about tomorrow now? If I'd held back the slightest bit I'd feel guilty now. I can handle loss okay. Guilt erodes me. It sucks all the courage out of me. I couldn't live her short time by a half measure. Every person who dies like that needs somebody to love them like they're not dying but know, down inside, they are. And let's not forget -- Lauren was intelligent and curious and a great dancer and a hell of a talker. None of that really changed much. We couldn't dance anymore at the end, but... she never stopped being Lauren until she stopped living."

Jack pushed himself to his feet, stretched his arms over his head and turned his face up to the sun. As the first time he'd seen Lauren's father it struck Jay how much he and Jack physically resembled each other. He rose, as well.

"You never worried what you'd get out of it. You never held back. Christ, Jay -- I wish so much you'd had a chance at the rest of your lives. You'd have been terrific together."

Jay blinked tears from his eyes and reached into the knapsack for the flask.

"I think we were... terrific together. It could have lasted longer, or she could have been rearended on the highway by a truck coming home to visit you and died alone. She didn't have to do that, at least. She hated to be alone, did you know that about her?"

Jay dropped his arm over Jack's shoulders, tipping the flask to his lips. He handed it to Jack.

"She... was never really any different, all her life. But you told her you loved to be alone."

"I do. But it's because when I'm alone, I can't do anything wrong to anybody else. I knew if I spent every waking second with her and devoted my whole... whole life to making it easier for her, I couldn't do anything wrong with her either. I couldn't do anything wrong. She had no faith in people. I don't know where that came from -- you and Jen are so good, you were so good to her..."

Jack took a second drink from the flask before handing it back to Jay.

"She was our first child. It was a long time between her and Rob. We were new to it, we were both working and didn't have the time to give her. It seemed like a lot of times we promised her things we really wanted to give her and then couldn't. Eventually she stopped acting disappointed when we couldn't, and we thought that meant it was okay. It wasn't until she was a grown-up and it was too late, we realized how much that had affected her. She never asked for anything from us after she was about twelve. She took what we gave her, always said 'thank you' and never seemed jealous when Robbie and Brad had something she hadn't gotten when she was a kid. Then she started dating and Jen and I realized what we'd done to her..."

It explained many things to Jay. How pain had meant little to her, how she'd never seemed disappointed the men who'd preceded him in her life had never given back as much as she'd given them. He doubted it was the whole story, Jack's admission, but it made sense as a starting point.

"Jack, some people just don't value themselves. It takes a lot more to make them do it. Don't blame yourself for what happened to her in her life. She didn't have to do what she did to herself, we both know it. That doesn't explain everything. She did some things to herself you didn't have anything to do with."

Jack dropped his head and let Jay lead him along the packed soil, stepping as Jay stepped. Admitting it had injured him.

"My God, Jay. We started her on that road. I'll never forgive myself for doing that to her... we made her that way."

"Everybody gets to a point when they have to learn to overcome the things their parents don't know they've done wrong. Your God is a crueler one than mine if you think he'd let every mistake two young, naive people make follow their kids all their lives. I don't mean to be cold but don't you think what she let happen to her was easier in a lot of ways than making herself look at the truth, forgive you and herself and live her life better?"

Jack's eyes opened and he stared at Jay, stumbling. Jay stopped walking and Jack stepped back from him.

"What are you saying?"

Jay studied the ground.

"I'm saying I loved her with all my heart. I know she let herself keep devaluing what she had because she was afraid to let go of the things that made her that way. I never fooled myself she was a saint, Jack. She wasn't. She was a beautiful, bright, very human woman. I loved her shortcomings like I loved her superiorities, the same amount. I had to love her all the way but that didn't mean I had to be blind to the fact she found it easier to let men beat her up than insist they treat her well. I had to know she'd have found it easier for me to beat her up than tell me how to be good to her. And I don't think that was your fault. I think she let that happen because she was afraid if she insisted on a good man, she'd have to wait for him alone. She let something else get in her life, Jack. It wasn't anything you did to her that made her that needy."

It was apparent the words disturbed Lauren's father. Maybe, Jay realized, it was too soon for him to force Jack to see her as an adult, with adult responsibilities and adult debts to pay. He closed his eyes and shook his head. It was too late to take the words back; he wouldn't have even if it had been possible. Jack was trying so hard to extract the essence of his daughter as Jay had understood her. This was too large a part of that essence to hold back.

"You want me to give you what you didn't have of her, Jack. I know that's what you're trying to do. You'll never make your peace with her or yourself if you insist on seeing her as twelve years old..."

Jay steeled himself and exactly as he'd expected, Jack punched him. Jay had been waiting for it, knowing it would come. Knowing Lauren's father couldn't accept those words without hurting him for delivering them. They used to kill the messenger, Jay thought, stumbling back against one of the pecans, his hand clutching to preserve his balance. Jack stood, gasping for breath, glaring at Jay. Jay dropped his head, spit blood in the pale dirt and dabbed at the corner of his mouth. Two of his teeth felt loose. Two years of watching the man's daughter die had made Jay strong in more ways than one. He shook his head clear and closed his eyes, stepped over and embraced Jack.

"My God, Dad McDonald -- I love you. I didn't want to hurt you but you needed to know that..."

Jack sobbed once and pounded Jay's shoulder with an open palm.

"I'm so sorry, Jay. I don't know why I did that."

"I do. You can't stand that I understood your own daughter better than you did. I wish I didn't -- I wish you'd been the one. You don't want me to have been the one to have carried her through this. You want to have been the one, and I wish we could both have done it but it wasn't possible. She couldn't have it that way -- it was too much for her..."

Jack sobbed again, then lifted his head to stare at Jay.

"Are you okay, son? My God... I've never hit another person in my life... my God."

He brushed at Jay's mouth with the tips of his fingers gently, and it almost dissolved Jay's spine.

"I'll be okay. I'm more worried about you right now. I can tell you it never would even have occurred to her you'd shorted her a single thing in her life. I could tell you she worshipped the ground you walked on, and the reason she loved me was because she saw so much of you in me. But I doubt you'd understand it the way I do, I doubt it would fit in with what you've been thinking."

Jack tipped Jay's head forward, kissed his forehead and stepped away.

"You're wrong there, Son. I had her mother to tell me that much. Oh, God... I can't let go of her. Even you telling me things I don't want to know makes her seem closer than nothing at all. I'm sorry, I know that's what you were trying to do. You knew I couldn't handle this, you were trying to explain to me why she had to die that way. I know..."

Jack stepped away and started back the way they'd come. Jay spat on the ground again, saw no blood and followed Jack back along the hard, dusty path.

"I'm not actually trying to do that. Nothing explains it, Jack. It wasn't fair, no matter what happened, that she had to die that way. You and I both know the world isn't fair. We know we can't expect it to be. What is fair is you and I both loved her more than human beings should be allowed to love, and as hard as it is we can both live through letting go of her because we know that, and if we help each other."

"Some help I am. You lost her two days ago and I'm trying to kill you."

Jay clasped Jack's shoulder and stopped him, pulling him back around.

"Is that what you were really trying to do?"

Jack stared at him for a time then shook his head.

"No. You were right. I was punishing you for being there for her when I couldn't be. When she didn't want me to be. I was punishing you for being her partner in life because I always felt like I failed her as a parent. I'm not stupid."

"Because we both know that and I let you do it to me anyway, we know we're both worthy of her. You know she'd have looked scared for a few seconds, if I'd had her to tell what just happened between you and me, and then she'd have laughed her head off. Please, for God's sake, you have to tell me you know that. She'd sit down next to me with an ice cube wrapped up in a washrag and giggle about it. I dare you to tell me you don't know that's true..."

Jay's arms were still trembling; he was fortunate his balance was still there. Blackness, clawing at the back of his brain and his eyes flickered over the dissipating contrail of a jet passing overhead. He faltered a little, pressing the back of one hand to his cheek. Suddenly he was so tired. Jack stepped back, eased him down against the bole of a pecan and slipped the bag off his shoulder.

"Just ease up. I'm so sorry..."

Jay closed his eyes and felt cold. It was a hundred degrees and he felt cold. The ache in his middle that hadn't left him in a year flared. Jack's hands startled him when they pressed a handkerchief-wrapped ice cube to Jay's chin. There had been ice in the thermos, Jay realized, grimacing as the hardened water touched the knot in his flesh.

"Here, hold it there. I noticed it was starting to swell a little bit. I forget..."

"Forget. What?"

Jack shook his head, sat next to Jay and pulled Jay's head to rest on his shoulder.

"What you've been through. You're afraid to admit how torn up you are inside. You don't have to admit it to me Jason, I already know. But you can ask somebody to touch you when you need it. You didn't have to make me hit you -- you could have just asked..."

Jay whimpered a little; couldn't even manage to be embarrassed. Not even Tom had known he needed somebody's arm over his shoulders; somebody's hand on top of his head just like this for a year now. Lauren's had been no comfort, knowing he couldn't take from her without feeling a guilt he'd never be able to evade. There were no tears in him yet -- hadn't yet been for this. Not really. Not many. Just great, overwhelming blackness only touch could steel him through.

A steady hand stroked his shoulder as Lauren's father rocked Jay gently under the hissing of leaves. After all of it, Jack had found what he'd needed. Jay's gratitude was boundless -- as much as Jack had needed this, so had he. What was left of Lauren was in Jay and Jack merely wanted to comfort him as he hadn't been able to comfort his daughter. Jay's own father could never have done this for him. He allowed himself to appreciate that someone could.

"I didn't want to understand you when you said it was too much for her when I tried to do this for her. If it's too much for you don't let me force it on you..." Jack said. Jay lifted his head and blinked at him.

"Dad, nobody else could do this for me right now. I need it, and you need it, and that's as far as it has to go..."

"Just because Lauren's gone, promise me you won't make yourself a stranger, Jay. I want to think I'm your friend, too..."

Jay sighed and rested his head back on Jack's shoulder.

"You are, Dad McDonald. What I never had of Lauren still lives with you, just like most of what you never had of her still lives with me. If we're going to trade that back and forth, we sure can't be strangers..."

"Where were you when she was sixteen?" Jack whispered.

"The wrong summer vacation spot, I'm afraid. I wasn't who I am at sixteen. Things are the way they are, let's just leave them there..."

"Maybe soon I'll be able to."

By the time they returned to the house the ice cube had melted away and most of the water had evaporated from the handkerchief. Jay handed it back to Jack and touched at the corner of his mouth, smiling a little. The smile hurt.

"Hell of a right you got there, McDonald."

"Did I hurt you Jay? Seriously, now..."

The teeth seemed to be settling back into their sockets now.

"I don't think so. Can't say it wasn't worth it, even if you did. I'm starting to connect pain with lessons learned..."

His hand hesitated when he reached the door. It was as if his brain had locked like the computer sometimes did, running a simple program. He shook his head and tried again.

"How long has it been since you slept last, Jay?"

Jay stepped into the relative cool and dimness, blinded for a moment.

"I don't know. About ten days, I guess..."

"It's bad for you. Jen said I should at least offer this to you -- you can take it or leave it."

Jack slipped a blue and white capsule from his shirt pocket and folded it into Jay's palm. Jay opened his hand, blinked at it then dropped it into his mouth and swallowed without another thought.

"What was it?" he asked when Jack's slightly bemused expression sank in.

"Seconal. From my doctor..."

"Hey, at this point..."

Food was cooking in the kitchen. It made Jay's knees wobble a little just contemplating the smell. Jennifer McDonald had a serious rapport with food. Jay felt a bruised sort of amusement -- Lauren had never learned it. Even before she'd been ill, Jay had volunteered to do most of the cooking. She'd always teased him, whining like a stereotypical young husband, 'you don't make that like my mom does...' The smile on Jay's face flickered out and he struggled with a huge cyclone of blankness, staring at the empty rocker and the barely-used box of disposable syringes. He lost to the not-wind. The blankness felt no worse than the way he'd felt before it had come. Less in control of himself, perhaps. He'd trade that for a little lighter blanket of pain than the lead one he'd been bearing for two years. 'Come on, Jay. You knew it was going to be like this when you said "I will" -- was it worth it?'

"Of course it was," he reminded himself aloud. Jack touched his shoulder.

"Pardon?"

"Oh. Sorry. I was talking to myself..."

Jack clasped his elbow gently and eased him toward the living room.

"Proves you're a writer."

"Proves I'm damn near catatonic..."

Jack settled him on the sofa and crouched before him. Something ached inside Jay when he realized this was precisely what they both needed; he, her widower and Jack, her father. Jack to comfort as he couldn't comfort Lauren; Jay to be eased as he hadn't been able to allow Lauren to ease him.

Jon took a break from stacking books and papers and carrying empty soda cans and coffee cups to the kitchen from Jay's desk to drop on the sofa beside him.

"You don't look so hot."

"You're shivering, Jay -- are you okay?" Jack asked, at the same time.

Jay squeezed his eyes as tightly as possible behind his Southern schoolmaster glasses, rimed with white, oily thumbprints and the saline from evaporated sweat and tears. Too many questions; such a flood of concern -- he felt like he was suffocating.

"Stop it! Back off. C'mon, guys... please..."

Jon did. Jack didn't.

"I am sorry, Jason. I know we're smothering you. Whether you buy it or not right now, I think you need it."

It had been a knee-jerk reflex. If Jay had thought about it he wouldn't have done it. He turned to face Jon.

"I'm sorry, little brother... I didn't mean to -- crack on you like that. I am sorry..."

Jon shook his head.

"Stop it, Jay. If it was me there wouldn't be anything left of this house or the orchard. I'd have spent two days with a hatchet whacking everything in sight."

Jay nodded.

"Hey, don't think takin' a match to it ain't occurred to me about half a million times. Sometimes it just doesn't mean anything to me. Know what I'm sayin'?"

Jon reached into his pocket; slapped a book of matches in Jay's palm, his expression solemn.

"Just make sure you warn me so I can back the Toyota out."

Among other things, Jon was learning an endearingly black sense of humor. That was one thing, more than any other, for which Jay could take direct responsibility -- and credit when he found it appropriate.

"Well... I think I'll pass, this time. But thanks. Did..." he stared at his hands, reached out to clasp them over Jon's. "Jonathan, did I ever tell you I think you're a pretty good guy? That I feel like I can count on you..."

It was all cutting loose in his head now, like pack ice on a Minnesota river; feelings and words he'd locked up for so long waiting for the graceful time to say them; the appropriate time. What more appropriate time than just after the ultimate object lesson in the fragility of life?

Jon's expression was utterly blank -- the kind of blankness that belied an inability or unwillingness to comprehend.

"No..." Jay went on. "I really mean it. Jon, you're a good man. It's safe enough to say it now, but -- I was so afraid for you at one time. I was so afraid you'd lose something if you were left on your own. I can see you didn't now, and it makes me feel... God, Jon, I am proud of you."

"You gave me four years, without ever asking anything back..." Jon whispered, reaching up to clasp Jay's chin in one broad, sure hand. "And you gave Lauren two. When is Jay finally gonna get some time?"

"Who... is Jay?"

"Oh, Jesus. You really mean that too, don't you..."

"Jon... yeah, right now I do mean it. Don't worry, okay? Like you said -- the last six years of my life have belonged to other people. Odds are I'll live at least fifty more. I've got time to answer that question..."

Jon blinked tears from his eyes and looked away.

"God damn. I think the wrong one of us is trying to be the actor in the family..."

"Not to interrupt or anything," Jennifer said, leaning over to rest her hands on Jack's shoulders. "But dinner is ready. I think it might be a good idea if... holy shit, Jay -- what happened to your mouth?"

She touched the corner of his lip. Jay pulled away, grimacing.

"Fifth amendment, Mom McD."

She blinked down at Jack who shook his head.

"Fifth amendment, sweetheart," he echoed. "Maybe later. Right now it would be a very good idea if Jay ate something."

Jay remembered approximately the first ten minutes of the meal. His eyes went sandy and the next time he felt aware he was halfway up the stairs, one arm over Jon's shoulders; one arm over Jack's shoulders.

"I didn't fall over in my plate, did I?"

Jon frowned down at him.

"You finished, you smoked a cigarette and talked for five or ten minutes before you went over on your face on the table..."

"I... I don't... remember."

Jon looked over him at Jack; Jay could feel confusion and fear radiate at Jack over the back of his limp neck.

"It's okay, Jon. I gave him a sleeping pill a while ago. Even if he doesn't really sleep, he needs to be incapacitated enough he can't really get up or he won't even lie down and rest."

Jay heard Jon grunt in agreement.

"No two ways 'bout that one."

"Jon, could... you stay in the room with me a while? I'm afraid to... wake up alone right now."

"I'll be there, Jay."

Jay sat up in the bed. Relief strained at his synapses -- Lauren was gone but even his subliminal had finally accepted it. The light was strange -- he couldn't quite tell if it was evening or early morning or heavily overcast noon. Tom was sitting in the round wicker chair in the corner, arms folded across his stomach, legs crossed; a mustached, stick-figure Buddha.

Out the window, when he reached it, Jay determined it was early morning. A livid violet was draining out of the Western half of the cloudless sky. He felt weak; wondered how long he'd slept and when he'd last eaten, turning back from the window as Tom jerked awake in the chair.

"Sorry about the chair, Thomas..." Jay said, grinding at his eyes with his knuckles before he put on his glasses. Someone had had the good grace to clean them for him. Jay thanked the anonymous person a hundred times in three seconds.

"What about it, Jason?"

"It's got a groove worn in it from my ass. Probably doesn't fit yours too good. What happened -- what day is it?"

Tom groaned. The chair creaked as he pushed himself to his feet to join Jay at the window. He seemed calmer and better rested. Jay felt it himself.

"You nodded out Friday night. It's Sunday morning. Jack and Jen are leaving tonight."

"Did I sleep all that time?"

Tom's serene expression rippled into a frown for a moment. He pressed his palm to Jay's forehead as if testing his temperature, then shrugged.

"Can I take the fifth?"

"No Tom, I don't think so."

Tom sighed and lifted Jay's arm into the pale blue light; crossed his own wrist over it. A matched set of brownish bruises ringed both their arms.

"You tried to jump outta the attic window one time. I had to damn near break both our arms, keeping you from it. Jon showed up eventually. Took both of us to drag you back down here. Jen made you take another sleeping pill. That was yesterday morning. You were running a hell of a fever, talking off your head. Christ, you scared the bejesus outta me, I thought... Jay, you're not gonna --"

Jay smiled slightly, shaking his head.

"No, no. I'd say I'm sorry, Tom -- but I honest to god don't remember any of that. Last thing I knew Jon was sitting in the chair over there. Tom, it didn't -- Jon's okay, isn't he? I didn't... You're okay, aren't you?"

"I knew what was going on, Jay. That some of you was having an awful hard time accepting things. Jack broke his right index finger on you, you know that?"

"Oh, God... that I do remember. I asked for that. How bad do I look?"

He turned his chin toward Tom. Tom grinned.

"You got at least a four-day growth of beard over it. Won't know 'til you shave it."

"I just won't, not yet. Jack doesn't need it to hurt any worse. Oh, Jesus. I got an article due for K-R by nine."

"It's okay, Sandy took care of it. I talked to her last night. I just told her Lauren was gone. She says you need to call her but don't hurry."

"Thanks, Tom. How's Cat?"

"Not great. She needs to get away from Austin but she doesn't want to leave you alone here..."

Suddenly, the word 'alone' made something leap inside Jay. Now it was precisely what he needed. He needed a few hours completely to himself.

"'I god, Thomas... I think I need to be alone for a while right now."

"Tell you what. Get a shower, I'll fix us some breakfast then you can go off for a walk or lock yourself up in here, whatever you need."

"You understand, then."

"Yeah, I do. I kinda' need it myself right now, though God alone only knows how I'd manage it."

"So we'll pack up a knapsack and walk. And ignore each other..."

Tom laughed and rolled his forehead on Jay's shoulder in defeat.

"I wouldn't do that to you, Jason. I know you really mean to be by yourself."

Jay sighed.

"I am serious. Pack some Coors in the cooler, some sandwiches. We'll drive out on Robert's lower 80, I'll walk off by myself for a while and you can do the same for yourself."

Tom stared at him for a moment then nodded.

"If we hurry we can cut outta here. It just might work."