II

II.

When her father called it was the first time I had spoken to him on the phone but despite our distance and differences, there was a fellowship of shared grief. He spoke to me of her doctor's visit. She had insisted on going alone. The news was bad and now she was home sleeping. Can I go see her? I asked. He said no, that tomorrow would be better and then his voice cracked and I was silent.

Finally I asked if he was alright and he said yes, that he was going to take a drive. Collect his thoughts. So I hung up and sat in my room next to my window. It was late but I couldn't sleep so I thought about the wedding and how nice she had looked. How soft the skin of her bare arms felt around my neck as we danced and watched the bride and groom. I wondered about marriage and about love and happines and all the things your hear in songs and see on screens.

There is value in fiction and if an artist can look at life and see the good that should have been and write it or paint it then perhaps one day our hopeful expressions will begin to look more like reality. Those were my hopes and I thought on them until the sun began to brighten my room and the dried flowers outside. Then I dressed and walked to her house.

She answered the door in her nightdress with her hair straight as if she hadn't moved once during her sleep. There was nothing in her face or her walk that suggested that she would be dead by spring. That deep in her bones something was spreading that even her smiles wouldn't be able to stop.

We need to find my dad, she said. So I followed her to her truck and sat behind the wheel. She sat next to me, still and quiet. The morning was gray but as we drove through the woods and over the bridge, we witnessed the rest of the world subtly awakening with short flights from limbs and shivering bushes along the road. We drove and drove. Through town and the industrial plants, until we came to the shipyard where he worked and there we found his car, parked at the end of the road, overlooking the water.

We stopped and got out. I stood by the truck and watched her walk slowly to the car, wondering what she was thinking. She tapped on the glass and I saw her dad sit up in the back seat. His thick black hair disheveled. She stepped back as he opened the door and I heard her ask what he was doing. Why he was out there. He said he had slept there. That he didn't know what else to do. She hugged him as she asked him why. He wrapped his thick arms around her and said, "because I'm so so sorry."