One

Near the end of it he woke in the night on the leather sofa in the front room. There was the light of the moon, and it was hot, and the backs of his naked legs stuck to the couch. Suddenly lucid, he blinked his blue-silver eyes and said, calmly, Sweetheart. Sweetheart, I think I’m dying here.

Two

Near the end of it she finally understood the clear force and intelligence of the term “with child,” for she was with this insistent stranger, this little ice-cream tyrant, as she had been no one else. She knew her husband, the lawyer, was jealous. For he dealt with split decisions and percentage of rewards and things of that nature every day. And now he could only watch and catalogue (but never know) this gap-mouthed dreaminess, their blood mumble of love.

Three

Near the end of it he headed west on Highway 12 and jacked the truck up to a hundred. Years later he would forget nearly everything that seemed so important at the time—the sunrise of her hair and its smell of earth and apples, the cruel words he said, her astonished and broken eyes—but remember with knee-buckling clarity coming over the last hill into town, when, for a moment, his old truck left the highway, and he flew.

Four

Near the end of it she often had to blink the world back into being a dozen times throughout the day. When this quit working, she began throwing whole plates of good food away, speeding for no reason, swearing at her children. She broke things just to feel the give and scatter of them: sticks, plastic cups and dishes, a glass bottle of vinegar. She felt terrible about it all. And she couldn’t explain herself beyond the fact that her young husband was dying.

Five

Near the end of it he opened his eyes and for a moment could not believe the awful softness of the light on her breasts as she moved above him.

Six

Near the end of it there is the hill of a fresh grave. Near the end of it there is as well that next wet-lipped, lung-hungry breath: After my father’s funeral, while the adults ate potato salad and did adult things, I ran in circles and wrestled in the church lawn with all the other boys—our clip-on ties askew, our shirttails flapping in the February breeze. When my turn came, I pinned Cotton Pinkerton to the cold earth in seconds. He said I was lucky. I was so happy.

Call this day necessary: No, call it sacrament— the slow walk to Beards Hollow, wind that cools our sun-washed faces, spray of river and the river running out to sea. Those birds, I know, were sent by God, even though by God I don’t know what I mean. I mean, maybe we can blame this blessing on right choices, lives lived mostly well—the dog who loves us, those few good friends, our happy tragedy of ordinary lovers. But even in this joy, I know enough of pain and shame to say that’s all wrong: No one deserves this world. The old degraded fisherman—his good nets eaten by the turtles, the fish always flat and stinking, that one mean as spit to children—he may beat us yet to heaven. So I call it spiritual when seabirds fill the sky with wings, and you claim beach grass dances with the water but water chooses sky. The hollow smells of wood and tar, the rocks a shrine of barnacles and salt— no matter the reason, it is given: This wind, the way you laugh your dark eyes closed.