It happened the weekend you drove south\nto help your son find a refuge for the\nnext semester in the big city, i.e., a one-bedroom apartment within walking\ndistance of campus with its own shower, kitchen and living room. He wanted an apartment without roommates, for\nthe sake of the solitude he needed, his version of peace that passeth all\nunderstanding. The day you left,\nhowever, heavy snows and high winds closed down the route you usually took. This\nforced you to take a long detour, one that first went east, then south, and\nfinally west; a large u-turn that did not completely evade the storm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The minvan\u2019s heater fogged the windows, and its intense warmth was stifling.\u00a0 Yet whenever you turned the heat off, you felt the cold seep through the floorboards and the thin soles of your shoes to benumb your toes. For long stretches of time, you were alone on the road fighting the storm, but you refused to turn on the radio.\u00a0 Instead, you decided to create a story in your head at that point in the highway where you turned south\u00a0 off the Thruway onto I-81.\u00a0 Just to test yourself, just for fun.\u00a0 You started with the first sentence that came to mind, \u201cThe men have vanished.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
*\n* *<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The men have vanished.\u00a0 They left last night by bus, by car, by train.\u00a0 They left by booking flights on the new discount airlines and the old ones in bankruptcy.\u00a0 Not one of them said a word.\u00a0 Strong and silent, most just walked out the door without any explanation.\u00a0 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
They gave us no hints; no lipstick smears on shirt collars, no maxed-out credit cards from losses incurred at local casinos.\u00a0 In the days leading up to their sudden departure, each of them kissed our lips or necks or foreheads in the same way they\u2019d always done before; with the same rough passions or the same bored expressions with which we had become accustomed. They left the toilet seats up as always. They grudgingly took out the garbage.\u00a0 They watched television in silence, drinking their cans of beer with one hand firmly grasped around the remote control. In short, they behaved as they had always behaved right up until the moment they departed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The squall found you seventy miles north of Binghamton.\u00a0 The snow, packed down by all the tires passing over it, made the road treacherous. Too cold for rock salt to be effective, not that you saw any salt trucks out on the road, for the storm had come on too quickly.\u00a0 The wind tossed flurries of large white flakes at you like a child shaking a snow globe, twirling and twisting them about as if gravity didn\u2019t exist.\u00a0 Soon, white-out conditions left only the right lane of I-81 South visible.\u00a0 The friction created by hundreds tires and hot gases emitted by hundreds of exhaust pipes had exposed two thin tracks. Those grey-smeared lines of asphalt delineated a path you could drive on without the rear of the van fish-tailing all over the place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
You pulled in line behind a long-haul\ntrailer, creeping along at speeds no higher than 35 miles per hour. Occasionally, four-wheel drive SUVs and pickup\ntrucks over in the left lane roared past, their wheels churning up great clumps\nof ice and snow that splattered the minivan\u2019s windshield, burdening its poor\nbeleaguered wipers with the heavy detritus of their arrogance. Unwilling to wait, disdainful of the slow\nslog of those who hugged the right side of the road, they sped past at high\nspeeds, reckless and impatient. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some of them you\u2019d see again later, their\nvehicles having spun out and slid off the road into ditches. Others smashed their powerful beauties into guardrails\nthat saved them from slipping over the edge and crashing down dangerous and\nprecipitous slopes. Seeing this, you practiced\nthat most difficult of virtues\u2014patience. \nWhen the worst of the blizzard started to lighten, and the winds no\nlonger slammed into the side of your van, you picked up your story again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not one of us noticed, of course.\u00a0 We were all busy making dinner or chasing after our children or shopping at the mall or dashing home from work or school.\u00a0 Most of us noticed their absence for the first time when we tried to call their cell phones and got a pre-recorded message informing us that the number we had just called was \u201c\u2026 out of order or has been disconnected and is no longer in service …\u201d\u00a0 Some women kept calling all night long, but I stopped after the third attempt.\u00a0 Further calls seemed futile.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
In the evening, the male actors were absent from your favorite TV shows: CSI <\/em>and Bone<\/em>s and NCIS<\/em> (even the reruns).\u00a0 The History Channel had programs about Queen Elizabeth and Cleopatra and Mary Magdalene but nothing about Alexander the Great or Ronald Reagan or their all-time favorite, Adolph Hitler.\u00a0 TNT ran a James Bond marathon, but the films now bored you .The Bond girls were the only characters in every scene \u2013 Pussy Galore<\/em> indeed. Without the requisite man candy of Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan or Daniel Craig to gaze upon, people lost interest.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
The morning after, the news anchors and reporters were exclusively females, their high-heels replaced by flats.\u00a0 They wore less make-up, too, as if they knew they no longer needed it. Not one of them said a word about the missing men, not even the investigative reporters.\u00a0 The weather girls (why do we call them girls when they\u2019re pushing thirty?) appeared distracted as they discussed the lingering effects of cold fronts.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
No one wore black, but by the end of the week, we recognized we effectively had become widows or worse: abandoned lovers and ex-wives, new converts to cult of abstinence.\u00a0 Sales of sex toys rose so rapidly that many adult entertainment stores exhausted their inventories within a fortnight.\u00a0\u00a0 By the end of the first month of their departure,<\/em> Amazon announced that all its dildos and vibrators were back-ordered indefinitely.\u00a0 Shocker, that.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The snow stopped just before you\ncrossed the border between New York and Pennsylvania and headed toward\nScranton. You exited at the first rest\nstop that presented itself to you; a shiny, well-maintained \u2018Welcome Center.\u2019 You slunk into the \u2018Family Rest Room\u2019 so you\ncould relieve yourself in privacy. There\nwere few people there when you came out. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the vending machines, you slid\nyour two $1 bills into the greedy little slot that accepted paper money and\npurchased a 20-oz. Pepsi in a plastic bottle because no Cokes were\navailable. You received a quarter back,\nbright and newly minted, which rattled and clinked until it finally came to\nrest in the change drawer. George\nWashington\u2019s regal profile with its aquiline nose and sternly-closed lips still\ndominated one side, but the reverse side depicted a grizzly bear in a stream\nbehind a small waterfall with a salmon in its jaws, and one large paw reaching\nmenacingly toward you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was one of the last of such coins issued under the 50 State Quarters Program.\u00a0 Above the Grizzly was imprinted \u201cAlaska\u201d and beneath that the date of its admission to the Union: 1959.\u00a0 To the right of the bear was Alaska\u2019s State Motto: \u201cThe Great Land.\u201d\u00a0 The year shown at the bottom of the coin was 2008.\u00a0 You picked it up and absently looked it over when a small boy, six or seven perhaps, came by to purchase candy from one of the other machines.\u00a0 When he was finished with his task, impulsively you offered the quarter to him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m not supposed to talk to\nstrangers,\u201d he said, but his eyes gave away his desire for the coin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s only a quarter,\u201d you said. \u201cSee, here on the back? There\u2019s a picture of a Grizzly bear.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cA Grizzly? Let me see.\u201d \nYou handed it over and he inspected it closely. \u201cCan I really have it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s yours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He offered you some of his candy, but\nyou declined. \u201cGo back to your parents\nnow. They\u2019re probably waiting. Go on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He ran away then, leaving you alone.\nOver at the counter by the information desk you asked for a road map of\nPennsylvania because your phone had no signal, but the woman sitting there said\nthey were out. She apologized, but you said\nit wasn\u2019t a big deal. Outside, you\nwalked briskly back to your car as a chill wind froze the tips of your ears and\nslipped its cold fingers right through your heavy fleece jacket. Only after you climbed into your car and\nturned the key, feeling the warmth of the heater\u2019s fan, did you screw the cap\noff the Pepsi, take a drink and think again of your story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Everyone refused, at first, to discuss this calamity whether in person, by phone or via email.\u00a0 Twitter and Face Book posts made no mention of the absence of men in our lives. No one spoke to her mother to ask if Dad was still puttering around in the garden or out playing golf.\u00a0 No one wanted to know their dads were gone with all the rest; and no mother dared to wonder aloud about the absence of her daughter\u2019s husband or boyfriend.\u00a0 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Where the State Troopers might be holed up playing endless rounds of poker, or to which Caribbean resort the underwear models had departed, was not a topic for discussion.\u00a0 One day, a female news anchor reported that anonymous sources claimed they saw the President at his ranch riding his bicycle; but, when questioned about the alleged sighting, a White House spokeswoman refused to respond to a \u201cmere hypothetical.\u201d\u00a0 A conspiracy of silence enveloped us all.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
All the dance clubs and bars (except for those that catered to lesbians) shut down, their strobe lights unlit, their dance floors draped in shabby solitude. We all drank at home, alone, after the kids were asleep, or if childless, maybe with a few close friends.\u00a0 Some of the younger crowd held \u201cdance parties,\u201d but the fad quickly faded.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You rolled past the outskirts of Scranton and onto I-80 West.\u00a0 Your story frustrated you.\u00a0 You couldn\u2019t think of an ending, and you were tired.\u00a0 Hungry from not eating anything all day, you kept drinking coffee, Pepsi and one 5-Hour Energy drink that left a bitter metallic taste on the back of your tongue.\u00a0 It was late afternoon now, and you didn\u2019t have the energy for making up stories in your head.\u00a0 Besides, the view was enchanting. The landscape outside your minivan cocoon, a series of tall, tree-laden hills, slowly dimmed as you chased the sunset for an hour, driving due west into that bright yellow eye, which turned the tops of bare trees bronze. You saw halos when your eyes fixed upon the dusk-filtered sky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But too soon, the fractal grace of\nthe trees\u2019 branches that flanked both sides of the road disturbed you. The\ntrees that blanketed the hills from the highest heights down to the highway, gave\nthe illusion that their branches hung directly overhead. Like the Wizard of Oz forest, they reached ever\ncloser, an intimidating sight as the sun drifted lower and they grew darker.\nTheir indistinct, tangled black branches hungered for your soul, or so you imagined. Yet when glancing to the side, you saw spaces\nbetween each bark-roughened trunk where traces of white snow appeared on bare\nground. It was almost invisible, that\nsnow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Having lost the thread of your story,\nyou turned on the radio eighty miles east of State College searching for music.\nHowever, all you heard was white noise, trapped as you were in a valley between\nparallel ridges of whatever part of the Appalachians you traversed. The only\nstation broadcasting a strong enough signal was a religious channel on the FM\ndial. An evangelical preacher on\nW-something-something-something was describing grace as a supernatural power\nthat gives relief from suffering and pain. \nRelief, he claimed, that will not be granted until after you submit to\nChrist, the Christ who hung bleeding on the cross, enduring his pain for your\nsake. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He was the great sacrifice for all of\nthe sins you carried, both the menial and venal ones you had committed. Only through him could those sins be wiped\naway and you become purified in the sight of the Lord, your father. But to\nreceive that gift first you must believe in the power of Jesus Christ\u2019s\ngrace. The preacher-man (for he was a\nman) spoke of how only faith in the Lord Jesus would answer all your needs; how\nit would instantly bring you blessings and shower your life with rewards. If only, you thought, if only that were true\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The preacher still admonished you,\nbut his words began to bleed one into the other until they were practically\nunintelligible. For no apparent reason, your thoughts strayed to Tom and Edie\nStall, the happy couple at the beginning of David Cronenberg\u2019s film A History of Violence<\/em>. They both wore silver crosses around their\nnecks throughout the film. They both believed in the life they had fashioned\ntogether, in their family, in the power of their love, in the small-town heaven\nthey created for themselves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
They embraced the divine mystery that\nemanated from within their mundane lives. His diner, her small-town law practice, the\nintimacy of knowing everyone and everyone knowing you, of still making love to\neach other after 16 years of marriage. \nYet that cross could not change the past that Tom tried to erase, a past\nof crime and murder and violence that is uncovered by his one act of heroism in\nthe film. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the opening scene of the movie, over\nthe opening credits two men at a run-down motel prepare to leave, a classic killer\nduo on a crime spree who already murdered the motel\u2019s proprietors, a husband\nand wife. You learn this about them when\nthe younger man walks into the office to fill a plastic container with water\nand the camera pans to the dead bodies: one slumped over the desk and one on\nthe floor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
A quivering, whimpering five-year-old\ngirl, with two long pig-tails that frame her traumatized face, surprises the\nyounger man as he is filling his bottle with water. She holds her dolly in her arms in front of\nher as a shield. The younger murderer puts a finger to his lips and gently\nshushes her as he reaches for the revolver stuffed in the back of his pants, hidden\nunder his shirt, before pulling it out and aiming at her head. The gun fires\nand the scene ends with a fade to black.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Later that night, the two killers\nenter Tom Stall\u2019s diner late at night just as he is about to close. Their intentions soon become apparent. Tom offers to give them all the money in his\ntill, but they want more. The older man\norders the younger to rape Tom\u2019s waitress while he holds a gun on Tom.\nMiraculously Tom manages to save them by splashing hot coffee on him, taking\nhis gun away and shooting the other who crashed through the window door as he\nfalls down dead. Tom then shoots the\nolder man in the face after he stabs Tom in the foot. The intense violence is over in an\ninstant. Tom, a quiet family man, saved\nhis workers, two customers (a girl and boy at a table prolonging their date\nwith a post-movie milkshake) and himself. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yet Tom\u2019s act of bloody salvation exposes\na past he believed dead and buried. His former self, Joey Cusack, was a thug, an\nIrish mobster who, after tearing out the eye of his nemesis, Carl Fogarty, with\nbarbed wire in a bar fight, fled Philadelphia to save his life. Years later, he\nwas reborn as \u201cTom Stall.\u201d Under this new identity, he met and fell in love\nwith Edie and married her. Together they\nhave two children, a farmhouse, his diner, a family. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
How did he create his new life out of\nthe bloody stains of his past? What\nstrange grace fell down upon him as he ran away from all he\u2019d once been? Did he burn away all traces of evil Joey\u2019s\nsoul and replace it with the good one named Tom? What mysterious transformation converted him\ninto a man of peace, soft spoken, eyes still astonished by the beauty of his\nwife and the happiness his daughter and his first-born son brought him? Did Jesus speak to him from the clouds as he\nspoke to Saul did on the road to Damascus? \nThe movie does not tell us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tom\u2019s moment of heroism changes everything.\u00a0 The publicity from his exploit in the diner exposes his face to the world; and Carl Fogarty, seeking vengeance, comes to Tom and Edie\u2019s small town to settle accounts with \u201cJoey.\u201d\u00a0 Fogarty even stalks Edie at the mall.\u00a0 He taunts her about \u201cJoey,\u201d this other man she knows nothing about, tormenting her with the reality about her husband she does not want to accept.\u00a0 Yet Fogarty refuses to let her off the hook:\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAsk him how come he’s so good at killing people?\u201d He tells Edie this in their last conversation. <\/em>A few scenes later, in a confrontation at the Stall\u2019s home Fogarty pushes Tom to the breaking point. When Fogarty dies, we finally witness the return of Joey, for Tom cannot save his family without him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why did God permit such violence back\ninto Tom\u2019s life? Why did he allow Joey\nto come out of hiding from whatever black pit imprisoned him? Was God testing Tom, like Job, as part of a\nbet with Satan? Or was Tom being\npunished for Joey\u2019s past sins? Did all the good Tom had done since transforming\nhimself into a good family man, one who built a new life over twenty years as a\nfaithful husband and loving father, who killed and buried the bad boy Joey,\ncount for nothing? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
No, this was the God of the Old\nTestament wanting his pound of flesh. Tom\u2019s\nson becomes a killer too, shooting Fogarty in the back before Fogarty can shoot\n\u201cJoey,\u201d thus visiting the sins of the father onto the son. Tom, his marriage in\nruins, his son lost to him, knows he must return to Philadelphia after he\nreceives a late night call from his older brother, the man who would be king of\nthe Philly underworld. His brother remains a threat to all the people Tom loves.\nSo Tom Stall must become Joey Cusack once more and relive the story of Cain and\nAbel, and with it a stain no Savior can ever wash away. For him, there is no\nredemption, not even from Baby Jesus on Christmas Day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As you drove that night, you wanted\nto ask the preacher about Tom\u2019s fate; but the radio would not allow you, a member\nof the preacher\u2019s unseen audience, a speaking part. Besides, Tom\nStall<\/em> was merely a fictional character written for a film directed by a\nperverse atheist filmmaker starring Hollywood actors. \u201c<\/em>It\u2019s all a lie,\u201d the preacher would have said about Croenenberg\u2019s\nmovie. \u201cEven the crosses they wore\naround their necks were a devilish trick\u2014 props to tempt the faithful.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The preacher also reminded you of\nsomeone else, this time not a character in a Hollywood movie, but one of your\nneighbors. A good Christian believer, faithful, a man devoted to his\nfamily. He also wears a cross around his\nneck. You\u2019ve seen it, touched it and\nheld it in the palm of your hand. Hearing\nthe preacher harangue you, alone in your car surrounded by a dark forest and a\ndark night on a dark road, you recalled the sorrows your unlikely friend has\nendured, the anguish he\u2019s buried.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You remember your many conversations\nwith him, but the painful ones more than the good. How his oldest son,\nhospitalized for psychiatric problems as a teenager, died under unknown and\nunexplained circumstance from a \u201cheart condition\u201d after joining the\nMarines. How his youngest daughter,\nemotionally disturbed and possibly bipolar, fell under the spell of a\nsadomasochistic sexual predator, appeared in amateur porn videos, and became a stripper at the\nlocal shithole \u201ctitty\u201d bar when she came of legal age, shattering his soul into\nshards of broken glass. How one day he lost\nhis white collar job and was forced to became a manual laborer again at the age\nof fifty. How his first wife developed incurable cancer after their son died and\ntheir daughter spiraled into sin. How she came to hate her husband with such\nfury she left him, left her other daughter and son, left her church, divorced\nhim, and blamed him for everything wrong with her life, for all the horrific\nthings that had been visited upon the two of them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
You recall his bitter tone of voice when\nhe spoke about her to you in his kitchen even as she was dying. You recall the despair in his voice and the\nhopelessness on his face when he told you about his prodigal daughter. You saw both the good and the bad in him, the\nkind words for you and your family and their problems, the appreciation for the\npoor words you offered to console him, to be the best friend you could to\nsomeone so unlike you. You remember\nsitting in his kitchen as he listened to your own tales of woe, offered his\nwords of sympathy, before, much like the radio preacher, he asked you to accept\nhis version of God, promising that a personal relationship with Jesus Christ\nwould save your life and would bless your family with riches. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
With all sincerity, he told you that faith in Jesus as your personal savior would not only save your soul but, through the power of prayer, bring rewards and blessings into your life and the lives of those you loved. The same promise the preacher on the radio offered as you listened to him speak, another member of his audience, just before he asked for donations to continue his radio ministry.\u00a0 Then you remember staring into your friend\u2019s eyes, knowing he believed what he told you to be true, despite all that had befallen him.\u00a0 Despite the despair in his voice, the bitter seed that grew in his heart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You turned off the radio, no longer\ninterested in the preacher\u2019s message. \nYou drove on in silence, the rough wind whistling past the van as it\nheaded west, prolonging the last glimmer of the sunset at 75 miles per hour,\nwatching until the last rusted lavender indigo blur of it slipped into a starry\nnight. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So much beauty is in this world.\u00a0 The sunset had accompanied you on your journey for well over an hour. You watched the narrow road ahead while the sun dissolved into the horizon, slowly evolving into a form of quietude, as if the very hills that hid its form and scattered its light were a giant sleeping animal, and their trees its newly washed fur. Soon enough the road was filled again with new companions, more semi-trailers and container trucks plowing in an endless stream inside the right lane of the road they owned even as you dashed past them on their the left, imagining the lives of the people behind the wheels of those leviathans.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Had they listened to the radio preacher? Did they have a personal relationship with\nJesus? Had they received blessings and\nrewards because he answered their prayers? \nOr were they strung out on meth, fueled by talk radio or country music\nor classic rock and roll or the bizarre perversity of Howard Stern on Satellite\nradio? Were they just helpless little\nants scurrying through their busy, but monotonous days waiting for the gods to\nstep on them and crush their bodies back into dust?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Your eyes darted back and forth,\nfearful of the power of the trucks should they veer into your lane, fearful of\nthe state police should they catch you speeding, fearful for your daughter sick\nat home without you. Tired and alone, you\nstruggled to erase these miserable thoughts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Through the windshield the first star appeared, bright on the horizon.\u00a0 Was it Venus perhaps, another ancient God who promised love, though different and more fleeting?\u00a0 Then, in that moment, all the racing electrical currents creating the anxiety in your brain stopped, for, as more stars appeared, it came to you\u2014the end of your story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Boys under the age of thirteen were spared the Exodus<\/em> (as the adult women have taken to calling it).\u00a0 They huddle together in school cafeterias and on playgrounds, just as they did before; but a certain look is in their eyes that you can see on occasion when they think no woman is watching them, one of confusion and anxiety that not even their tough-guy bravado can mask.\u00a0 They fill the monkey bars with tangled limbs and vacant stares.\u00a0 Out of fear, we don\u2019t ask them what they know about their fathers, or if they know anything, and they don\u2019t ask us about what we know, either.\u00a0 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Only the young girls spoke of the unspeakable.\u00a0 Every night my daughter insists on asking you where her father went and when was he going to return?\u00a0 I tell her that Daddy will call her as soon as he can, and not to worry, but her face lets me know I\u2019m a big fat liar.\u00a0 Often, after singing her a lullaby and putting her to bed, I hear her crying like a kitten, little mewling sounds that gradually diminish until fatigue conquers her.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Last night, I took my five year-old son to the \u2019big\u2019 bedroom.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been doing that more and more lately, just to have the scent of him nearby.\u00a0 I held him snuggled against me, his warm little-boy smell and soft hair a poor substitute for the touch of his father, my husband, but all the more precious for that.\u00a0 I held him, his head buried in my armpit, until the sound of his breathing was regular, until his eyes fluttered back and forth beneath closed eyelids.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s when I whispered to him. \u201cTimothy, Mommy still loves you and needs her big boy to stay home with her. And Mommy will do whatever she has to do to keep her boy with her forever.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Eyes still closed, he smiled, mumbled something indistinct, his syllables soft as overripe pears, before he rolled away and pulled the blankets to one side exposing half his tiny body to the chill air.\u00a0 His dog (Brown Dog he calls it, a stuffed animal he\u2019s had since he was two) was still nestled in his arms; they lay together nose to nose.\u00a0 I took the extra grey fleece blanket from the bottom of the bed, tossed it in the air and let it float over him for an instant before it descended. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Unable to sleep, I turned on the TV at 11:09 p.m., to watch the pregnant meteorologist dressed in maternity clothes say that tomorrow will be spectacular with lots of sunshine, warmer than usual temperatures and positively no chance of rain showers.\u00a0 In the morning, when I awoke, she was right.\u00a0 The sun shone upon my face. Immediately I looked to make sure my son had not vanished.\u00a0 He lay there still, his little chest rising and falling, filling the room with his breathing.\u00a0 For that small gift, I offered up a prayer.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It happened the weekend you drove south to help your son find a refuge for the next semester in the big city, i.e., a one-bedroom apartment within walking distance of…<\/p>\n