So far, I’d say that the hardest one is the first. Stopping my work means trusting that the time will given later (or earlier) to do whatever needs to be done. Since I probably work at least half of my weekends, the notion of stopping work on Sunday borders on the radical. I did it today, though. I have work that I could (and maybe should) have done, and I took the day off from work.

That said, I didn’t take the day off completely. I got up at 5:45 a.m. because I had to feed a friend’s cats (she and her husband are in Hawaii) before getting to church for rehearsal at 7:00 a.m. because I was on this morning’s worship team, which means that I sang three services. During the sermon time of the second service, I had to run home and get my inhaler because I was getting short of breath—it’s that time of the year. So, by the time I got home, it was nearly 12:30 p.m., and I fell into bed without even bothering with lunch.

When I got up two hours later, I was ready for my Sabbath rest. After lunch, I had lunch and puttered around on a couple of websites, exchanging e-mails with friends. Hovering in the back of my mind were a few things on my to-do list—not work things, but things I’d feel better if I did. So, I made a crockpot of chili, I dug up my rosemary and potted it to bring it in for the winter just in case we had frost again tonight, and I harvested my basil and made pesto. I emptied and filled the dishwasher. Nice, mindless things, all of them. I stopped, I rested. Good for me.

Except—did I? Because as I sat down to my chili, it occurred to me that I felt very satisfied about these little things I’d accomplished and the ones I would accomplish tonight, such as taking out the garbage and making space in the freezer for the chili. I may even fold the mountain of laundry while watching Drop Dead Diva and Army Wives tonight. Certainly, these aren’t taxing jobs; they barely rise to the level of chores. But they’re also not restful. And when I’m crossing items off a to-do list, can it truly be said that I’ve stopped and rested?

Not that I’m a fan of all those legalistic rules and regulations about what people are permitted to do on the Sabbath—worrying about compliance with rules hardly strikes me as restful. On the other hand, without some clear ideas about what will and won’t be proper Sabbath activities, it’s too easy to get to the end of the night with the same sense of “what have I accomplished” that I have on any other day. On the other other hand, just hanging out and playing solitaire on the laptop while watching television feels like a waste of an opportunity—I could be writing a story, taking a bubble bath, or putting some aspect of my life in order (back to the laundry folding).

Bottom line: this whole stopping and resting thing is a lot harder than it looks.

Back in November, I signed up for the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), which challenges you to write a novel of 50,000 words in one month. Since you couldn’t use a story you’d already started, I worked on something else for about a week and a half before abandoning it. While this round of the “Fugue” sequel has taken longer than a month and, due to some work deadlines, will probably take longer than two months, I’m sort of tickled that I’ve basically done what the NaNoWriMo program challenges a person to do. Shows I’m not completely hopeless.

One of the things that’s proven interesting about this draft is how certain characters have grown and developed. The villain has ended up being a real person, with his own history and motives. In the earlier draft, I tried to make him work simply from the mindset that he’s evil and thus does evil things, and I’d forgotten a major truth: when a person acts, he does so for a reason that makes sense to him. His reasons may not wash with anybody else, but whatever motivates him—in Marcus Tucker’s case, resentment, a sense of entitlement, guilt, and a love-hate relationship with his brother—takes him from being a stick figure to being someone that my beta reader has called “creepy, but sympathetic.” And since I now know why he’s doing what he’s doing, my sense of what he will ultimately do—and why—is much stronger this time.

Another thing that’s been interesting in this round is seeing how much of the old material is incorporated and how much is being discarded. Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch advocated being willing to “murder your darlings” when you edit, and I can vouch for that approach. There are scenes that I wrote before that just don’t fit this time, and even though I really liked them, they won’t be in the final version. Fortunately, they do exist in the last draft, and they may end up being resurrected in a different form in a different story, but for this one—sorry, darlings, but you’re dead.

I can’t say that the final version will end up being a lean greyhound of a story. I’m sure that there’s language that a ruthless editor would cut but that I’ll end up keeping just because I like it. Hopefully, though, I’ll end up with a story that makes sense, that satisfies, that draws the reader in and gets her involved in the lives of these people and keeps her turning pages or scrolling down even when real life is calling. I recall describing Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones to someone as a story that takes you on a wild ride, but sets you down gently at the end. With a little luck, maybe somebody will be able to say the same about my story.

Slightly more than two years ago, I posted a Bonanza story entitled, “Fugue.”  It was a lengthy story involving post-traumatic stress disorder, dissociative fugues, romantic travails, and a very tense murder trial.  Interestingly, I knew none of this when I began: all I had was the nightmare in the opening scene.  It would be facile to say that the story wrote itself, but the truth is that in parts, it surprised me as much as it ultimately did some of the readers.  (One reader told me later, “I didn’t see the Chinese aspect coming.”  Neither did I until one of the witnesses mentioned seeing the Chinese girl on the street just before the murder.  That the girl was Chinese became significant when the lawyer and the Cartwrights began to search for witnesses.) 

In any event, it was a story that drew me in when I was writing it.  Judging from the comments it’s received, it had a similar effect on the readers.  And because I’d left it with an open question, it was clear that a sequel was going to be necessary.

So, a few months after I’d posted “Fugue,” I began the sequel.  Actually, it was part three of the trilogy; “Fugue” was the second part, coming after “The Lady Lawyer.”  I had some ideas, and I wrote a few scenes here and there.  Some of the scenes were very strong and others . . . well, others got you from A to B and that’s pretty much all they did.  So, I worked on it and tightened and edited, and I edited some more to avoid having to work on the biggest hole of all, the scenes leading up to the big climax which I’d written early on.  But finally, even though I still didn’t know what it would say, I drafted the fill-in stuff.

And it wasn’t good.

Well, I told myself, I knew I’d have to edit.  I sent it off to my cherished beta reader, hoping that She Whose Opinion I Trust would tell me that (a) it wasn’t that bad, and (b) the idea worked.  Unfortunately, my beta reader is also honest.  (This is one of the reasons that I ask her opinion.)  And what I heard in her carefully-phrased questions was the truth that I already knew—it was bad, and it didn’t work.

So, I tried again.  By this time, the story was close to 60,000 words long.  The filled-in stuff was much better.  This time, I was almost convinced that I had it. 

Missed again.

The behemoth was in danger of crashing under its own weight when I realized what I needed to do.  And so, this morning, I did it.

First, I got out Anne Lamott’s classic writing tome, Bird by Bird.  Anyone who wants to come anywhere near to being a writer should run, not walk, to their nearest bookstore or library and snatch up a copy.  (Although I am a major fan of libraries, I recommend that you purchase this book, because once you’ve realized how valuable it is, there is an excellent chance that you’re going to want to steal it from the library, and I’d prefer not to be responsible for your life of crime.)  In the chapter entitled, “Plot Treatments,” she tells of how she wrote a book and her kind editor told her that it didn’t work.  Then, she worked on it some more, and it still didn’t work.  And then, she went over it one more time and basically re-did it, and this time, it worked.

So, this morning, I started over on the sequel to “Fugue.”  The beginning is completely different—more action, less explanation.  I don’t know how much of the prior version will make it into the rewrite.  For all I know now, the story may be entirely new this time.  All I know is that even before I heard back from my beta reader (who loved the first scene), I knew that the opening worked this time.  It was alive.  It created questions to draw a reader in.  It revealed how the characters responded to a situation.  I liked it.

Sometimes, you have to stick with something and see it through, no matter how flawed it is.  But other times, starting over may be the best choice.  It can be tough to know the difference, but it’s worth figuring it out.

I just had lunch.  Last summer, as I scraped by, waiting for my deadbeat client to cough up, my lunch was generally one of two things.  Either I toasted a couple pieces of homemade bread (white) and slathered them with peanut butter and raspberry preserves, or I boiled a hot dog, tossed it into a regular white-bread bun with ketchup, and had it with a side of canned baked beans.  Dessert was something along the lines of a few double-stuff Oreos or homemade chocolate chip cookies, depending on how much time I’d had.

Fast forward to today.  Last night, I went out to dinner with a friend, and we went to my current favorite Japanese restaurant.  Lunch today was my leftovers:  seared tuna steak (of which I ate half, because even the remaining slab was 6 oz.), drizzled with about teaspoon of teriyaki sauce, brown rice, and seaweed salad.  For dessert, sugar-free, fat-free chocolate pudding (which constitutes a milk serving).

Huh?

Granted, today’s lunch was more expensive than the hot dogs and PB&J, but there are still leftovers.  The remaining tuna, sauce and brown rice will be lunch tomorrow.  Seaweed salad is all gone.  So, the cost of last night’s dinner–which included a couple of items that weren’t left over–can be amortized over three meals.  Not bad, if I do say so myself.  Of course, more impressive from a WW standpoint is the fact that the fat and calories in all three meals combined probably doesn’t equal one of last summer’s lunches. 

Can’t wait until summer, when eating fresh and healthy will be cheaper. . . .

This morning, as I was driving over to the shelter to serve breakfast, I saw a van parked along a city street.  On the side, it said:

Pepe’s Furniture

The Safe Place to Shop

Am I missing something?  Are there unsafe places to shop for furniture?  (Sally Lou’s Sofa City–Shop at Your Own Risk.  Or maybe Rick’s Recliners–Security Guards on Premises at All Times.) 

The things people say. . . . 

The temperatures have been dropping all day.  Before dawn, it was in the thirties.  I know.  I was up and out of the house well before sunrise, because this is the fourth Saturday of the month, and for the past several years, the sunrise on the fourth Saturday of the month has occurred as I flip pancakes, pour orange juice, slice bananas, wrap plasticware in napkins, and generally oversee the preparation and service of breakfast to approximately one hundred eighty-five men, women and children who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless. 

It’s been nearly five years since the first time I went to serve breakfast.  Back then, the missions committee at my church designated several projects as “missionary for a day” projects.  One of them included going to an urban soup kitchen to serve breakfast.  The notion of volunteering at a soup kitchen was something I’d been thinking about for a while at that point—being a huge fan of food, and feeling the need to reach the end of the day with the sense that I’d accomplished something, I’d tried to find such a place.  A number of things slowed me down, though, including concerns about how often they would require me to come in.  So, this one-day wonder sounded just right.

When we arrived, Joe, who headed up the soup kitchen in those days, sat us down and did a quick orientation of sorts.  Among the things he mentioned was that we were likely to encounter people who hadn’t slept in a bed last night.  I knew, of course, that this happened—May in Connecticut is often mild enough to sleep outdoors—but somehow, the notion of it being so immediate was startling. 

Over the past several years, more startling notions have presented themselves.  Some of them would startle anybody:  one of the most helpful residents went after the chef with a carving knife, and a staff member was fired for dealing drugs.  Other truths are less noteworthy to the outside world, such as the artist who brought his drawings with him when he came for breakfast.  His work was lovely—delicate, precise drawings.  Pencil, because that was all he had.  Living on the street and in shelters does not lend itself to oils and an easel.  One weekday morning, when I was serving breakfast with a man who was there as part of his court-ordered community service, my colleague turned to me and asked, “Isn’t that Doug?”  I allowed as how it was, and he said, “He did a drawing of my daughter sixteen years ago.  I had a little wallet-sized photo, and he did a great big two-by-three drawing from it.  I still have it.”  He called out to the artist and reminded him of this story as I watched, overcome by the reality that the artist, who appeared to be in his late thirties or early forties, had been living this way for at least sixteen years—and, in all likelihood, would continue to do so for another sixteen years, or longer.

Perhaps the most surprising reality was one I observed on my first day.  Joe had told us that people might not be interested in conversation, coming as they did from any number of circumstances—sleeping in doorways or on benches, not having gotten the first cigarette or drink or fix of the day, struggling with illnesses or issues which affect their way of dealing with people, or simply being worn down by the stress of living in the worst kind of poverty.  So, to be honest, I didn’t expect much.  And yet, time after time, I heard the words that often go unsaid by those in much more comfortable circumstances:  “please” and “thank you.”  Sugar in your coffee, sir?  Yes, please.  How many?  Three, please.  Here you go.  Thank you.  Again and again, from people whose lifestyles are far rougher than I could ever imagine, I heard genuine expressions of appreciation.  Some of the people came back up to the counter after breakfast to thank us for coming in.  More than one added, “God bless you.”

It wasn’t just that one time, either.  I went back on my own a few weeks later, and it was the same way even though weekday breakfasts are cooked and managed by staff rather than by volunteers.  Still, “please” and “thank you.”  I could tell that most of them didn’t know what to make of the little white woman in the green apron, but they tend not to ask questions.  One woman beckoned me over and asked in a loud whisper, “What did the judge give you?”  She’d assumed I was there for community service, as I suspect others did. 

Slowly, I came to know faces.  Being dreadful with names and sensitive to privacy, I didn’t worry about introductions.  To this day, I doubt most of them know my name.  The regulars know my face and my green apron.  I know a few names.  George, who came in one day with a tiny black and white kitten that needed a home—the kitten who became my Olivia and who sleeps on my bed as I write.  Buckwheat, although I can never bring myself to call him that for fear of that it’s a nickname that only certain people use and that if I use it, it’ll be insulting.  Andrew, who used to know who I was but lately seems to have forgotten.  Richard, who sometimes helps out.  Ricardo, whose features suggest a Native American ancestry.  José, who was banned after the incident with the carving knife but who occasionally slips in anyway and who always has a hug for me. 

Sometimes, I come home after serving breakfast, and I open my refrigerator and marvel.  All that food, and it belongs to me.  My eggs.  My milk.  My leftover chicken.  My fat-free red wine vinaigrette.  The entire kitchen is mine, and so is the living room, and the bedroom and the office and the bathroom and the front hall.  The soft, warm four-poster bed is mine, and so is the computer on the desk.  I sit now in front of the fire, listening to Joshua Bell playing Bernstein as my sweet Jennie cat dozes in the recliner.  Not only did I eat well tonight, but so did Jennie and Olivia.  The temperatures are dropping, and we are safe and warm.  We have quiet and privacy—no paper-thin walls through which to hear a neighbor talking or snoring, nobody tramping down the hall with their backpacks banging against my door, no cold linoleum beneath my feet as I stand in line for a shower. 

It’s not anything they did wrong or I did right.  It’s grace, pure and simple.  Even in such an affluent land, more and more people are finding themselves one paycheck away from catastrophe.  Layoffs, illnesses, car troubles—any of them can push a person over the edge, spiraling down into financial disaster, until they’re forced to take their children out to a soup kitchen on a Saturday morning to get them breakfast.  It’s so close.  Sometimes, I’d swear I can hear it breathing.

Jennie has hopped down from the recliner.  She’s rubbing her face on the round basket with a pillow inside, the basket where she sometimes naps.  My cat has a bed to call her own.  This morning, I poured orange juice for people who can’t say as much.  There’s only one response to such a fact on this cold January night.

Thank You.

Last weekend, as I was flipping channels, I happened upon the last part of a PBS special about John Denver.  Intrigued, I sat down to watch.  I found myself singing along with songs whose lyrics I thought I’d forgotten, songs that evoked images of a different world where a person could stand on a mountaintop and see nothing for miles except trees and lakes and astonishingly blue skies, where the only sounds were breezes rustling the leaves, crystal brooks spilling over rocks, and the swift, light gallop of a deer in the woods.

When the special was over, I opened the bottom of the hutch and rooted through my old LPs to find all my John Denver albums.  As little Olivia watched, white kitten whiskers quivering with curiosity, I drew out half a dozen albums.  I took them into the bedroom, where I have a stereo with a turntable, and I put on “Rocky Mountain High.”

It was a bit of a shock:  I’d forgotten how little bass folk musicians used in the early seventies.  John Denver was quite young when he recorded that album, and he was a high tenor singing a high song.  It took the better part of the record to get used to that unrelieved treble; in fact, I found myself wondering if the speed of the turntable was a tad off and if it might be playing a bit too fast, making the music sharp.  As I listened to the tempo, though, I was forced to conclude that the speed was probably correct, and likely I’d just been accustomed to hearing this kind of music when I was in high school.

As I folded laundry, I listened to side after side.  I remembered how, when I was fourteen, I’d once had a fight with my mother, after which I went into my room, put on “Rocky Mountain High” and “Poems, Prayers and Promises,” and turned out the light.  I lay on my bed in the dark, just listening to these songs, and somehow, they soothed me.  I listened, I smiled, and when “Thank God I’m a Country Boy” came on, I even danced and clapped.  Jennie didn’t pay much attention, but Livy seemed fascinated by my odd behavior, since I’m not generally much for dancing and clapping around the house.

This evening, another musical flashback occurred.  The other night, at rehearsal for Sunday morning, mention was made of how the accompaniment to my solo would be enhanced if they could persuade the woman who will be playing a violin solo for the prelude to play a particular phrase.  It’s not difficult, and when someone suggested that she might be uncomfortable just picking it up, I volunteered the opinion that I was certain a classically trained violinist could handle it with no problem. 

The thought stayed with me as I rehearsed this evening.  Driven by I’m not sure what, I took out my old violin.  The three-quarter-sized instrument hearkens back to the fifth grade, and I played it through college.  I was competent, but definitely not brilliant.  I tightened the bow and tuned the strings, and then I tried to play.  “Tried” is the operative word—you simply can’t be away from a violin for this long without a serious deterioration of technique.  Still, the things we learn in childhood stay with us, and within an hour, my bowing was much less awful and some of the sounds bore more of a resemblance to music than to a cat whose tail was caught in a vacuum cleaner.

Eventually, I tucked the violin away and returned to the piano, where I played through one of the hymnals.  Some of those old hymns, such as “Onward, Christian Soldiers,” never seem to see the light of day any more; others, like “A Mighty Fortress is Our God,” have been arranged for worship bands and modern congregations.  Even though I do enjoy some of the contemporary arrangements, though, my heart still belongs with the old hymns.  The lyrics are often much more direct and powerful than today’s worship choruses, and if the melodies are not as singable, their very distinctiveness evokes memories of standing in church pews with my parents. 

Perhaps it’s the busyness of life, but there are few songs that I’ve learned in recent years that I actually know by heart.  I may know the melody, or even the harmony, but I usually seem to need the words.  The old ones, though—those, I remember.  Whether it’s John Denver or Finlandia or Bach’s Double Violin Concerto in D minor, the music from years gone by resonates much more deeply in my heart.  I’m much more likely to recall where I was when I heard or sang or played one of those songs, as compared to the songs I sing as part of the worship team or as a soloist. 

I’ve heard it said that if you want to memorize something—a Bible verse, a poem, or even facts for a test—one of the most effective methods is to put it to music.  I’ve never actually tried this, but I’d bet it works.  After all, if I can sing along with “This Old Guitar” more than thirty years since I last listened to it, it certainly suggests that there’s something to the notion.  Then again, it’s possible that I remember the words, not because of the melody, but because of how the song made me feel.  Back then, there was all the time in the world, and possibilities for living were endless.  Now, as I’m breathing down the neck of my forty-ninth birthday, I find myself wondering what I could say to the child who practiced Bach or the teen who sang about poems, prayers and promises with a young blond folk singer.  Maybe I’d tell her to keep listening.  Maybe I’d say that, no matter what, she needed to hang on to the part of her heart that heard this music and recognized when it was true and real.  Maybe I would warn her that other things would try to drown out the music and that she would have to work to keep from losing it altogether.  Maybe I’d tell her that she would hear a lot more music in her life, but that she shouldn’t worry—there’s room for a lot of music in a person’s life.

And maybe after that, I’d tell her to get out more of the old records.  There’s some good stuff there.  She can lay back in the darkness, and she can listen and remember it all.

Time for my confession:  at the beginning of September, I started WeightWatchers.  My weight was at my all-time high, but I’d gotten used to it.  I just didn’t look at pictures of myself, and I tried to avoid those glimpses you get in the reflection of a plate-glass window.  I probably wouldn’t have thought much about it if I hadn’t received a call from my mother, announcing that my cousin has been diagnosed with diabetes due to obesity and high blood pressure.  It was the second time in a month that I’d been told of someone who was diagnosed as diabetic or borderline due to weight problems, and the thought finally came to me:  how much longer could I pretend that these problems only happened to other people?  And how foolish would I have to be to contract—or even die of—an entirely preventable disease?

So, I decided to do something, and that something was WeightWatchers.  Meetings, points, flex, core–you name it.  The first Thursday in September, there I was, weighing in and collecting all sorts of information to learn my new way of eating.

What was off was my planning.  You see, one of the disadvantages of starting WeightWatchers in September was that I missed most of the fresh vegetable season here in southern New England.  For a couple weeks, I could stop at the local farm stand and pick up wonderful, locally grown produce to make into fabulous salads and soups.  Then, the weather began to cool, and the crops began to change.  Now, the farmers’ markets are full of mums in vibrant, rich colors, winter squashes in a myriad of sizes and shapes, and baskets of apples and pears for those who haven’t the inclination to go out and pick their own. 

Just when I was about to resign myself to supermarket produce that left its flavor thousands of miles away, I discovered Delicata squash.  The oblong squash is yellow with green stripes.  Preparing it couldn’t be easier—prick it with a paring knife in several spots, put it on a plate and microwave it on high for seven to ten minutes.  Slit it open, spoon out the seeds and fibers, and scoop out the flesh.  It’s so sweet that you barely need to do anything to it—a bit of butter, maybe, but that’s it.  I wouldn’t have thought it last summer when I was surrounded by bunches of fresh basil and bins of local tomatoes, but there it was—sweet and fresh and wholly unexpected.

Mind you, autumn is the reason we all live in New England.  We tolerate the hot, humid summers and frigid, damp winters for the crisp, cool air and dazzling colors.  October makes up for all the rest.  A drive down a local road is a journey through a Monet landscape.  Almost every weekend, there are harvest festivals, complete with booths and rides and fried dough.  The leaves rustle and crackle underfoot as you walk down the road.  The sky is a clear, deep blue, and the bright red of the Japanese maple stands out against it.

So, the bottom line is that change happens.  We move from one season to another, from one stage to another.  We can either stand with our backs to the new, looking back and longing for what is gone, or we can look forward to see what new offerings lie ahead.  Some losses are permanent; others are only temporary, and they’ll cycle around again and again, familiar and yet different each time.  Some of the changes are marvelous, some are neutral, and some are just plain wretched.  The one thing they all share is that they are inevitable.  Our lives don’t stay the same.  For better or worse, the seasons change, bringing their own unique moments. 

And sometimes, the best surprises can be the little ones that we never saw coming.

Q:  There’s a little mystery in your newest story that is still tantalizing me. I wonder what it was that passed between Glory and Adam and Hoss, when they took her home after she and Joe were discovered. Adam told Joe that there wasn’t much to say, and when Joe asked her later, Glory told him his brothers were “gentlemen” and seemed about to add something else, but apparently thought better of it.

A:  There truly wasn’t much conversation among them on the way back into VC that night. Poor Glory was understandably embarrassed, and so were Adam and Hoss. Also, Adam was worried about who she was (i.e., had Joe gotten himself involved with a girl who had a houseful of gun-totin’ brothers and a big, mean pa who would demand that Joe protect her honor by marrying her, or was the girl some manipulative wench who would try to hold them up for money by claiming that she’d been an innocent maiden and Joe had seduced her, etc.). Once he found out that none of these were the case, he could relax on the latter score, especially since he knew the madam of her house. (Yes, that way. Pa doesn’t know everything about his boys.)

Glory referred to them as “gentlemen” in large part because of the way they behaved that night–they treated her the way they would any other girl they were driving home, and there was no comment, “off” look or anything else when she told them where to take her.

As far as what she was about to say and didn’t–that night, she did tell Lucia all about Joe and what had happened, which was why Lucia knew who he was when he showed up the next night. Lucia, in turn, reassured her that, in her experience as both the madam of the house and from seeing them around town, Adam and Hoss were indeed kind, decent men who would always treat a woman well and would not judge her for being “of this profession.” So, Glory was discreet in not revealing to Joe that his brothers were known to Lucia, as that would have raised questions about whether and to what extent they frequented the Gilded Rose; one of the things she had learned early was that discretion was necessary in this business and you never disclosed who had come to the house, regardless of the circumstances.

Q:  Thanks! This makes a lot of sense. It’s characteristic for Adam to be thinking ahead to the next potential problem to try to defuse it before it happens, and both Adam and Hoss are too kind and decent to make Glory feel badly about where she works. And Glory, however young, would have learned quickly not to volunteer information that might diminish a person in someone else’s eyes.

A:  Glory had also learned from Lucia that, as a business matter, you simply didn’t disclose who your clients were, because it was quite likely your clients didn’t want that information publicized. Thus, if word got out that you would reveal their identities, people would be less likely to frequent your establishment, and it would be bad for your business.

I agree that Adam would have been the one to think ahead–Pa was too angry at Joe to be looking at the bigger picture, and Hoss was worried about Joe and was also too innocent to be thinking about such things right away. Joe, of course, was most concerned about “catching up”–one second, he’s making love to this girl, and the next second, the world is crashing down around him in the form of coitus interruptus and an irate father, and he needed to get from the first part to the second and try to deal with Pa’s fury. (And that, by the way, is why it took Joe until the next day to ask about what his brothers had said to Glory. When they came home that night, he was still focused on his own experiences–his time with her and then his time with Pa.)

The mice come in every year as soon as the weather starts to turn cold.  This isn’t the first house I’ve lived in where field mice have felt some sort of right to occupy.  My first apartment was the mother-in-law unit in a ranch-style house on a dirt road in another rural suburb, and the mice came in under the baseboard heater in the bathroom.  My landlady, understanding my lack of enthusiasm for dealing with the critters, informed me that her husband would handle the matter.  After that, I would enter the bathroom in the morning and look out of the corner of my eye to see whether the trap had been sprung.  If it had, I draped it with a tissue without actually looking at the trespasser, and I went about my business.  Once I was showered, dressed and ready to leave for work, I would tap on the door of the laundry room which separated my home from theirs and would tell them simply, “The trap’s full.”  Dave would do his manly duty, and soon there would be a freshly emptied and baited trap awaiting another interloper.

Now, of course, there is no Dave.  One of the downsides of home ownership, I guess–no landlord or super to fix things.  Still, it shouldn’t have been a big deal.  I’ve set these traps for the past several years, and I know the drill.  I use the spring-loaded ones on the theory that death will be swift.  The glue traps, though easier to set, seem unfairly cruel, and the Hav-A-Heart traps are just ridiculous since dumping the mouse outside in the morning doesn’t teach it not to come inside at night. 

Tonight, a mouse sprang the trap in the basement, and I had to dispose of the remains and set a new trap.  (This, by the way, is the second mouse in three days.  Not a good sign.)  I gathered my equipment–peanut butter, broom and dustpan (for removal of the decedent), butter knife (for application of peanut butter), but somehow, I found myself nervous.  Granted, I get frustrated when I can’t get it set, and the snap of the death bar always startles me.  Still, this was different.

I told myself to shake it off, and I went downstairs, prepared to do what needed to be done.  Fortunately, the trap set easily.  I disposed of my newly-deceased guest and decided to set a trap in the linen closet because I’ve seen Gabriel sitting in front of it, and last winter, they came up there from the basement.  Again, though, I found myself nervous about the simple task of setting a mousetrap, and even though it went smoothly, I was still mildly agitated when I opened the bathroom door.

Then, I figured it out.

It wasn’t about the mousetraps–not much, anyway.  It was about the date.  A year ago today, a dear friend of mine died of ovarian cancer.  I’ve been feeling fragile for the past several days, remembering last year when four of us took turns doing overnight care so that her husband could get some sleep.  My best friend, knowing this was the anniversary, called this evening to see how I was, and I told her honestly that I was fine. 

And I might have remained fine, but for one thing.  At eight o’clock, just as I was ready to fix dinner, the phone rang.  I looked at the caller ID, and I picked up the phone without so much as a tremble.   Her husband said, “I was thinking about you today.”

Today.  This day.  This unremarkable day, exactly one year after that other day.

I should have expected it.  I should have known that today of all days, he would want to talk to someone else who had loved her.  One of the friends who had been there in those last days and nights, who sat on the bed in their bedroom with her while he got some much-needed sleep down the hall in their son’s room.  Who watched HGTV and the Red Sox with her, fetched her another Sprite with filtered ice cubes, listened to her hallucinations, walked her and her IV stand to the bathroom, adjusted the thermostat, held her hand. 

Somebody else who knew that the cancer wing doesn’t have limits on visiting hours.  Who knew that you could get a pitcher of ice chips in that little kitchen by the nurse’s station or that if you slept in the high-backed leatherette chair with your feet on the bed, resting against her leg, you’d be awakened if she tried to get out of bed.  

Somebody else who was in that room on her last morning as her children saw their dying mother and wept, but bless their hearts, they didn’t run away–they cried, but they stayed.

I told him the truth:  “I was thinking about you, too.”  About him, and about her, and about calendars that can’t be turned back no matter how much you want to.

I couldn’t tell you what else we said.  Small talk, mainly.  How are you, how’s work, how has your summer been.  When do the kids start school, can you believe he’s starting high school already, my friend’s sons went there and loved it.  It was all so surface, so safe.  The kind of conversation you have when you run into someone at the supermarket, before you head in opposite directions to finish your important errands.  I felt as though I was rambling, trying to figure out the right thing to say, but I never did get there.   The only reference to the anniversary was the first thing we said:  “I thought about you today.” 

We never mentioned her name, not because we couldn’t, but because it was all too enormous.  If we had, what could have followed?  Marveling that a year had passed already, recalling all that happened in those final days, maybe going back in time to better days, brighter memories?  I couldn’t, and I suspect he couldn’t either.  So, I told him about my kitten and he told me about sorting out carpools for the kids’ church activities, and neither of us ever got any closer to the real reason he’d called.

We talked for about fifteen minutes.  Someone had beeped in on his end, and he needed to call the person back.  After we hung up, I realized that I never asked a generic “How are the kids?”  I hadn’t asked after her parents, her brother, his family, anyone else.  I wished that I’d known he would call so that I could have been ready.  I know that he’d think I was being silly if he knew what I was thinking, but she’d have understood.  “Oh, Jo, don’t worry about it,” she’d have said.  “Really, it’s fine.” 

I haven’t seen him in months–he’s been ferrying the kids all over the place this summer, to camp and grandparents and his folks’ place in the Adirondacks.  Maybe that’s why his call caught me so far off guard.  I asked another of our friends recently if she’d seen him, and she said she thought the family had been away.  Now, the wound feels almost as fresh as it did a year ago.  The tears well up and fade.  The memo that needs to be written seems impossible tonight.  Just setting a mousetrap is a major accomplishment.   

Some days are like that.

But my dear Jennie, the furry gray angel who normally curls up in a basket to sleep the evening away, is lying on the back of the sofa tonight.  Ignoring the kitten who sleeps less than an arm’s length away, she has carefully placed herself close enough for me to pet her.  She’s nearly 21 years old, and she’s never caught a mouse, but that’s fine.  What counts tonight is that when I reach for her, she’s here.