Port Judith in Winter: Part Three of Four

The free clinic is located in the basement of the hospital, four flights below the main entrance. Helping Hearts, Helping Hands, a sign reads. Deep underground, there are no windows. The light is entirely artificial—white bulbs, rather than blue, but equally sterile. They provide no shadows, no reprieve. The receptionist tells me they are meant to imitate natural light, but they are whiter than the winter sun, far more intense. Shadow-less, bathed in white, the waiting room appears alien and two-dimensional.

I take a seat with a clipboard and fill out my information. I sign my name at the bottom and wait, my hands folded in my lap, head tilted back. The room clock is unusually loud. I observe its awkward progression from my seat. The second hand jerks forward in an arrhythmic fashion, its gears damaged or rusty. Click. Pause. Click-click. Pause. Time stutters in the waiting room, its flow disrupted, made meaningless.

There are others. The waiting room is unusually crowded for seven in the morning. Across from me, two old women sit close, huddled together in harmless conspiracy. Near the doorway, a teenager holds her young child in her lap. They are playing peek-a-boo. The girl grins at her baby through spread fingers, and the infant laughs: a high, light sound. Not far from her, a young man hunches in his chair, half-collapsed. He holds his stomach tightly, kneading the flesh, his white shirt dirtied with blood and grime.

Behind a glass partition, there is a separate waiting room for children. The rectangular room is thickly carpeted, the walls papered with images of farm animals: cattle, goats, pigs. A toy chest occupies one corner, overflowing with dolls and wooden blocks. At first, the room appears empty, but then I see him: a clinic employee, distinguished by his blue scrubs. He sits sideways on the rocking horse, his feet planted firmly on the carpet. He has his face in his hands, and he is weeping.

***

"They found her body," the doctor tells me. He composes himself like a dentist, or a barber: all smiles and small talk. He is tall but slightly stooped, a few years past middle age. His black hair runs to gray over his ears, thinning out on top. "The girl who disappeared."

Taken aback: "What?"

"They found the girl," he repeats, cheerfully. "The one who was missing." He snaps on a pair of transparent rubber gloves. "Somewhere outside the city, I think it was. I read it this morning, in the paper. She was strangled, they said—or stabbed? I don't remember."

I don't reply. I sit arrow-straight, my legs hanging over the cot.

"Lie back now," he says. Touching my shoulder, he pushes me backward, easing me flat against the bed. The wax paper crinkles along its length as the cot receives my weight.

"Well now," he says, rolling the sock from my ankle. "Let's have a look, shall we?" He takes my foot in his gloved hands, pressing his thumbs through the flesh, feeling for the bones beneath the muscle. He is gentle, unbelievably so, but it hurts. I bite down on my lower lip until tears form at the corners of my eyes. Staring at the ceiling, I try to erase the memory of the nightmare: blue eyes stilled beneath a shattered moon. I try to bury it even as it rises, unbidden, through hot light, searing pain.

At last, the doctor releases my foot, replacing it carefully on the cot. "I have good news," he says, pulling the gloves from his fingers. "Nothing is broken. Very good news for a person your age. You must drink a lot of milk?" He chuckles at his own joke, but soon grows serious. "However, there is a small fracture here." He indicates a spot along the side of my foot. "But it's nothing serious. I'll wrap it for you, and we'll give you some crutches, but you need to let it heal itself. With any luck, you should be walking on it again by spring."

***

I take the elevator to the main floor. It lets me off in the main lobby. Hobbling on my crutches, I follow the green line down endless, twisting corridors. Proceeding slowly, I pass closed doors and nurses' stations, stepping to the side whenever a stretcher blows past, followed inevitably by doctors and family members, all sprinting to keep pace.

The cafeteria is serving breakfast: eggs, waffles, sausages. There are newspapers stacked at the counter, the Herald. MISSING GIRL FOUND, the oversized headline screams in red ink. EVIL STRIKES AGAIN. A color photo of the girl accompanies the article. Young and smiling: braces, blue eyes. In the picture, she wears her field hockey uniform. Deborah Rose.

I order a cup of coffee, taking a table near the exit. I sit that way for some time, rising only to order one refill, and then another. I drink four cups of coffee, five. An hour passes. When I step outside, I am shaking. Snow moves in arcs above the wind, careening wildly between the rooftops. My heart races.

***

I rummage around under the bed. The iron frame is propped up on four cinderblocks, creating a storage space beneath the mattress. Cramp, cluttered, it contains a lifetime's accumulation of faded photos and yellowed diaries, most of it stashed in fruit crates and shoeboxes. Shining a light between the boxes, I shuffle them aside until I find the one I'm after, a wooden chest with a bronze handle. Taking it in one hand, I drag it into the daylight, dust mounding before it like till before a glacier. I wipe the label clean. Millie's things, it reads. The handwriting is unfamiliar: precise, neatly ordered. My aunt's. I lift the lid. Inside, are my mother's few belongings: her jewelry box and wedding rings, her almanacs and magazines. It was all forwarded to me after her death—two years after my father, a lifetime ago now.

I find her cookbooks at the bottom. They are handwritten: heavy sheaves of family recipes, painstakingly transcribed by my mother and bound together with string. I open one at random. Granddad's Buttermilk Flapjacks. Under the instructions, my mother has sketched a steaming heap of pancakes, drizzled in syrup with a square of butter coasting the top. "Mm-mm," the steam spells out. I touch my finger to the paper, trailing the hand-drawn lines to the margin.

Turning the pages slowly, deliberately, I make my way through each of the cookbooks in turn. I handle them with an illuminator's special care: with reverence for history and the gone past, for memory and the absent dead. In the fourth and final book, I find my grandmother's recipe for marinara sauce. The ingredients call for red wine, but my mother has piously drawn a single line through the entry, adding the word "optional" beside it. I read the directions over. It is a simple recipe, easy but elegant. My dinner with Whitcomb is tomorrow. Setting the fourth cookbook aside, I replace the others in the chest and slide it under the bed. But I don't get up. Instead I sit on the floor, covered in dust, my back resting against the iron frame.

It is nearly dusk. Through the window, I watch the sky bleed and darken, black clouds bringing snow. I am exhausted: shattered, sleep-deprived. My foot aches.

Twilight. Shadows lengthen on the floor. Expanding, they grow darker, buoyant, rising to compass the room. I am drifting off, I realize, falling asleep with my eyes open. As the moments drag and lengthen, I watch my reflection materialize on the window.

Come on, night. I watch my eyes fall halfway shut. After that I'm dreaming.

***

Winter is coming. The autumn air holds a chill, and there are storms raging in the mountains. From the road, their ridgelines seem to vanish halfway up, swallowed by sleet and hail. The trees drip with rain. It must be nearly December.

I'm limping. Even dreaming, I drag my injured foot behind me. I resume my normal stride as soon as I notice, but not before Rosemary does too.

"What's wrong?" she inquires, sounding concerned.

"Nothing."

"You were limping."

I shrug.

She halts, wheeling on her left foot to face me. For a moment we stand eye-to-eye, unblinking. "Now," she says, patiently. "Tell me what happened."

Evasively: "I fell. On the stairs. I lost my balance."

"You're lying." She says it simply, with no sign of accusation.

"Okay," I concede. "I am."

"Well then?"

"I kicked a wall."

Her reaction surprises me. Instead of being shocked, she only looks bemused, as if to say: why would you do a thing like that?

I tell her about the couple next door, the way they woke me. The way it angered me to hear the two of them together, together when I was so alone. "I was upset," I say. "It was dumb—I know that—but I couldn't help it. It hurt me to hear them happy when I was so…" I trail off.

She pauses before finishing my thought. "Unhappy?"

I don't reply.

"It's alright," she says. She begins to walk again, pacing slowly, a reflective gait. "Nobody's truly happy. I have this theory that there's the same amount of happiness in everybody's life, no matter how long they live. But here's the thing: it's always a limited amount, spread out over years and years, portioned out moment by moment. Some people experience all their joy at once, in a handful of years, and then are left with nothing. Others learn to experience joy in small doses, spread out across a lifetime. They are the truly content ones, I think. I like to believe I'm one of them, but I've known too much pain in my life, too much despair."

"I don't know if I've ever been happy."

"But that's good," she says. "Don't you see? That's the best. That means it's all ahead of you."

"I don't know."

"The trick is to make it through the unhappy times while trying—" She smiles slyly before continuing. "While trying to incur as little damage to yourself as possible."

I laugh. "Right."

"And no matter what you think, the world is always a beautiful place. Always, always, always. It is completely indifferent to us. Watch this."

She scoops the air with her right hand, dragging her fingers through the dream tide. As I watch, she moves her hand in a tight circle. A fragment of air comes away in her grasp, a weightless ball suspended an inch above her palm. It shimmers at the edges: cold, translucent. She shapes it into a flawless orb, a sphere of liquid crystal. Bringing it close, she blows gently across it. Her breath turns to amber inside, swelling the orb with a warm, honey-colored glow. When she lets go, the ball rises rapidly through the air, riding upward on her breath. Clearing the elms, it begins to drift out to the storm-dark mountains. It is soon invisible, a lone speck in a swirl of snow and ice.

I look at Rosemary. She is grinning, equally pleased with herself and my gaping expression. Her eyes glitter.

I take a step closer.

She regards me blankly.

"Let's walk," she says, and turns away.

She begins to walk again. Side by side, we pass beneath the bare elms. Even leaf-stripped, the trees are implacable. From time to time, I glance up to the branches, noting their elegant forms, their vase-like profiles. After a while, I notice something else too. The rot is advancing. The disease has spread since my last dream. Dozens of trees are now beginning to show signs, their bark yellowing in patches, dropping away. Soon they will all be dead: even here, even in my dreams.

I don't say a word.

***

A mile past the last elm, the road diverges. The right fork leads south to Morning Hill. The left winds north, over the rail line to the woodlot. We take the left to the tracks, where a train has recently passed. The smell of its diesel exhaust lingers above the rails, thinning as it wafts among the aspen and birch. There is rime on the plank ties, dead weeds plastered to the gravel. "Watch your step," she says as we cross the first rail, and then the second.

Leaving the tracks behind, we find ourselves in a plantation of young trees. The road twists and weaves beneath the countless rows of red pine planted for pulping. Needles crackle underfoot: brittle, frost-hard. Somewhere far off, a crow calls.

"I remember now," I say. "It was early when I fell asleep. Just after nightfall."

"Mm," she murmurs. She is distracted by the pine plantation, by its rows of perfectly spaced saplings, rank on rank beneath a slate sky.

I try again. "Do you always go to bed so early?"

She shrugs. "Sometimes. Most of the time actually."

I chuckle. "You're like an old woman," I joke.

"Maybe," she says. "I just like to be up before dawn. It's the only time I can hear myself think. It's always quietest then—even in the city."

"The city?"

"Port Judith."

I stop. She continues for a few more paces before turning around. Her eyes narrow at me. Confused: "What is it?"

"I didn't know you lived in the city."

"All my life," she says. "Why does it matter?"

"It's just—" I take a breath. "I live there now."

Her expression is unreadable. A minute disappears in silence, neither of us breathing a word. By now, we are midway across the woodlot. I can make out the thunder of heavy equipment from up ahead: chainsaws, tractors, trucks. Behind us, a flock of wild turkeys beats a path beneath the trees.

Rosemary begins to walk. She moves quickly, her gaze fixed straight ahead. I have to hurry to catch up.

"We can meet up," I say, excited. "In the real world."

She doesn't respond.

"Where do you live?" I ask. "I'll come over. I'll meet you there. Tomorrow. Tonight."

She shakes her head. She appears panicked, almost frantic.

"What's wrong?"

She pauses. A crow bursts from a nearby pine. The slick branches tremble over our heads, loosing a shower. Raindrops gleam and dance in the space between us: spattering the earth, snaking down our faces.

"What's wrong?" I ask again.

"I just don't want you to be disappointed," she says at last. "The real world… it's so different."

Her green eyes regard me earnestly, burning with color despite the failing light. She is young and beautiful, more beautiful than I ever knew a woman could be. All at once, I remember my cracking joints and fingers, my broken and failing body.

My eyes find my feet.

We continue in silence.

***

We follow the hum of machinery to the woodlot. We can hear the buzz of chainsaws, the rattle of a wood chipper. Cold rain dances in sheets between the trees, wind-blown and gossamer. We even hear voices, the clipped tones of lumbermen, their hoarse laughter. The sounds come ghost-like through the driving rain, spectral and disembodied, eerie. When we finally arrive at the lot, the noises cease. All sound cuts off abruptly, leaving only the wind, the dripping rain.

The clearing is deserted, newly so. Trucks and tractors are strewn about at random, recently abandoned. Tools lie scattered: an unsheathed chainsaw, an orange pair of earphones. There are felled trees, planed logs, piles of boards and 2x4s. Through a gap in the trees, construction is visible in the cleared land beyond, skeletons of houses with plywood bones. It is starting, I think. Even here, the countryside is disappearing: first the elms and now the farm fields. Beyond the construction, the air is darkening. The storm is drawing near.

She sits herself on a fallen log, a hemlock. She crosses her legs, pulls her skirt to her knees. She is wearing the same cream-colored dress, the same denim jacket. I join her, taking a seat a few feet down.

"Have you ever wondered why we're here?" She asks me. "The two of us?"

"Of course," I say. "All the time."

She nods. "Tell me honestly, then: what do you think? Why are we here? Together. In a dream. In your memories. You said this place doesn't even exist anymore."

I think it over before responding. "I never believed in fate," I say after a time. "In destiny. Maybe time is a lie, maybe the future is already known, but the present is so cruel sometimes, so callously random, that I have to believe in chance. I have to believe it's all luck, the throw of the dice. Because when I think of the evil in this world, when I remember those murdered girls… the thought that it is all somehow fated is almost too terrible to believe."

She nods, reclining backward. Her legs lift off the ground, knees sliding free of her dress. She nibbles her lower lip, deep in thought. "So you think this is all luck?" she asks. "An incredible coincidence?"

"Something like that," I say.

"I understand what you're saying," she says. "About destiny. It can be a hard thing to believe in the abstract, in principle. It can be deeply troubling. But as soon as I start looking for specifics, I suddenly see it everywhere in my life: fate, destiny. Whatever you want to call it. And when I think about this—the two of us, complete strangers, meeting in dreams night after night… For me, that goes beyond coincidence."

I don't know how to respond. A minute passes and we are quiet. We sit together, less than a yard apart, not quite touching, and watch the storm come. Its black mass rotates slowly, its clouds turning inward, clockwise. Gradually it absorbs all light, all color. When the hail finally breaks over our heads, sleet spinning down wildly, I can no longer see Rosemary beside me, and I know the dream is over.

* * *

South Beach. It is located across the harbor from Port Judith. It is quiet here, untended in the winter. Drifted snow reaches to the slat boardwalk. Bands of ice join the railings to the ice below, icicles that have grown and thickened. Weak lights are spaced far apart, positioned every hundred feet. Darkness pours like water into every unlit gap, flooding the winter sky to reveal the stars. Even the city fades into the stars here. Glittering, its blue lights like gas fires, Port Judith is only a jumble of color, insignificant in a sea of shining points.

The stars are countless, innumerable, but there is only one darkness: one jagged howl, one black sweep to take in the planets and cities, the constantly circling night. It holds the stars in their places, lives cancer-like in the heart, ineradicable. Some nights, space appears to me as a tempest, a swirling maw with wind for teeth. The noise is always deafening, a huge roar, and I imagine the thunder of artillery, incendiary shells bursting in the air over my brother's head. Darkness, darkness: the last thing he saw was its open mouth.

***

The Sunflower Market occupies the first floor of a concrete tenement. Hand-lettered signs hang in the window, advertising specials on cold cuts, cucumbers, oranges. Inside, the floors are creaky, wooden, and bear a patina of black stains. On rainy days, the smell of mold is overpowering.

The cash register is an antique, forged from cast iron with a bike-bell drawer. There are no barcodes, no scanners. The owner's daughter enters each price manually, receipt paper collapsing in roles around the spool. The place is distinctly old-fashioned, a relic. It's why I come here.

Moving from aisle to aisle, I collect the ingredients for dinner. Using a single crutch for balance, I push a steel cart before me, hobbling after it, filling it with canned tomatoes, a bottle of olive oil, a block of cheese. It all takes less than fifteen minutes. I'm on my way to the register when I realize I've forgotten the wine. Leaving my cart, I take up my second crutch and limp to the back of the store. In the rear aisle, I pick out a bottle of cheap cooking wine and slip it into my canvas shopping bag.

In frozen foods, I see her. A young woman is standing at the ice cream fridge. I hobble past her at first, glancing back in recognition. It is my neighbor, one of the newly-weds. She is gorgeous: tall and blonde, regal. Today she appears sleepless, haggard. Her eyes are bloodshot, out of focus. She is gazing into the freezer. A mist of ice veils the door, a delicate spray of web and warping. Her hands dangle at her sides, balled into fists.

She doesn't see me. She doesn't even blink.

***

I get in line. Hot air rumbles through vents above the counter, causing the paper signs to flap and flutter: We do not sell cigarettes to minors. Picture ID required!! There are two women ahead of me. One looks to be in her early forties, the other less than half that, a teenager. They are well dressed and heavily made up, but their teeth are crooked, and I know that they are poor.

"I don't ever want children," the younger woman says.

"You say that now," the other retorts. "Wait another ten years."

"You don't understand," she insists. "If it's anything like me, I don't want it."

***

Whitcomb arrives early. I hear his knock at the door a few minutes before six. Setting down the wooden spoon, I go to let him in. He is wearing a beige blazer. It is tweed, the cuffs cut too short, barely reaching to his wrists. Under one arm he carries his trench coat. In his other hand, he holds a bottle of merlot: thick and arterial, nearly black. His eyes widen at the sight of the crutches.

"I fell," I explain, before he can ask. I shift my weight on the crutches, making room for him to enter. I repeat the same lie I told Rosemary, but Whitcomb doesn't question it.

"It smells wonderful," he says, slipping past me. He sets the merlot at the center of the small table. "Spaghetti?"

I nod.

"Can't wait."

"Give me a few minutes," I say. "In the meantime, I'll take your coat." I carry it across the room, hanging it from a hook above the bed.

"Is there anything I can do?" he asks when I return to the kitchen.

I hobble to the stove. "No," I say, turning off the heat. I carry the pasta to the sink. "Just hang tight. I'll only be a minute."

Behind me, I hear him stand up. He pushes the chair back, the legs screeching. He joins me at the sink. "You're injured," he says softly. "Let me help."

***

For dinner, I light two candles and switch off the electric bulb. The room veers into soft focus, sharp lines shrinking to shadows, to the corners of the room. "That's much better," Whitcomb comments as he takes his seat. We settle into our chairs, sip ice water from tumblers. Darkened, the glasses hold drops of candlelight, as delicate as the swirl inside a marble.

"This is great," Whitcomb remarks between bites of pasta.

"Thanks," I say. "But I'm no cook. I know that."

"No," he insists. "Really, it's good."

I thank him again. I explain: "I thought you could use a taste of home." Involuntarily, my eyes flicker to his naked ring finger. Grimacing, he folds it under his hand, making a fist on the tabletop. Candlelight thatches his pale skin, his receding hairline.

"I appreciate it," he says. "I do. But it doesn't remind me of home. Not of any home I've ever had, anyway. My wife never cooked."

"Never?"

"She was a scientist like me, a researcher. She was always working. You know how it is: she lived and died by her microwave."

"Ah."

He mouths another forkful, chews it slowly. Swallowing: "Were you ever married?"

"Me? No."

"Were you ever thinking about it?"

I shake my head. "Somehow I always knew I'd be alone."

"I wish I had. It might have been easier."

"In what way?"

"Well, when I was younger, when I was at the university, I was always alone. I had no one. My parents were long gone, and I was always reading, always absorbed in my studies. Nobody cared to know me, and you know what? That was okay. I was alone—but I was never lonely until she left me.

"I think it's like this: everything is relative. We dwell in darkness our entire lives. It is always there, whether we admit it or not. It lives inside of us: hatred, despair, doubt. And that's all okay until we get our first glimpse of light."

He looks down into his plate, twirls the last strands of pasta on his fork.

"Tell me about her."

He grimaces, shrugs. He smiles: first fondly, then sadly. He takes a drink of water, a smear of candlelight showing on the tumbler, lingering in his eyes.

"She was nice," he begins, speaking deliberately, haltingly. "I know, that's what people says when there's nothing else, but really, she was. And she was pretty. A hair short of beautiful, perhaps, but she had real drive, determination. I respected her. She was fiercely intelligent. A believer in truth: in what was right, in what could be proven. She wasn't afraid to challenge authority either, always pursuing new directions with her research." As he talks, the light grows weaker in his eyes, failing, leaving a glow behind like a light bulb's after burn. He shrugs. "She was everything I'd ever hoped to find in another person."

Gently: "You talk about her in the past tense."

"We don't talk anymore," he says. "Last year she moved across the country with her new husband, a ski instructor. There's nothing now but memories. Things half-remembered. Things I've tried to forget."

***

After dinner, Whitcomb clears the table, stacking the dishes in the sink. He begins to wash up, but I stop him, waving him back to the table. He opens the merlot. Pops the cork and sets it aside, vapors rising from the broken seal. He pours liberally, filling the tumblers, leaving the bottle half-empty. I sip mine, savoring the wine, its delicate taste. The candles flare and dribble. Beads of white wax harden on the tabletop.

"I go back there sometimes," he tells me. "To the old house."

"Where is it?"

"The south end. Over the bridge and into the suburbs. A family lives there now: a young couple and their two girls. I sit in my car across the street, the engine dead, and watch the light move from room to room inside as they flip switches: off, on, off, on. The light travels from the bedrooms to the dining room and then back until they all go out together at ten. It's pure clockwork. Once the lights are out, there's nothing to see, so I go home." He trails off, his breath lingering on the last word.

"You miss it," I tell him. "Not just your wife. All of it. Having a home. Having a place to come back to."

"You're probably right," he says. "But how do you know? You said you were never married. You don't know the feeling."

"I do, though," I say. "I do."

I tell him about the farmhouse, its creaking joists and beams. A childhood lived against a mixed landscape, a patchwork of field and forests. I talk about my parents: their quiet strength, their unwavering belief. And I describe the elms, their elegant procession along the macadam.

"You lost your home all at once," I say. "Mine was taken from me in pieces. First the elms died, and then my parents, and then the country. When they came for the house twenty-five years ago, I didn't care. I sold it and took the money, retired early. There was nothing left for me."

"What happened to it? The house."

"They tore it down."

"Sad," he says.

"Maybe."

"What's there now?"

"I don't know," I say. "I've never thought to wonder."

"You should go back."

I drain my glass. "Maybe I will," I say, leaning, bringing my watch into the candle's halo. It is early yet, ten o'clock. I nudge the tumbler closer to the wine bottle. Whitcomb grins and moves to refill our glasses.

***

The candles gutter. In the space of a moment, their light leaps upward, expanding in broad circles before falling back to itself, constricting to points of fire at the wick. This happens over and over as the wax runs low. Whitcomb's movements become jerky beyond the firelight, its edges shivering like 8 mm film, and I'm reminded of the dream tides, the way they distort movement, time. I glance down at my watch. After midnight.

We have reached the last of the wine. There is less than an inch of liquid in our glasses, the bottle standing empty at the table's center, drained. I tell Whitcomb about the doctor, the blithe, gossipy way he discussed the girl's death. "Like it was nothing," I say. "How long has this been going on? A month ago, nobody cared. Now it's become a media frenzy—just like with that actress, the one who killed herself. All I can think is: those poor girls."

"That's what everybody says," he replies. His wine finished, he rotates the glass between his thumb and forefinger, refracted light sweeping his blazer, bringing out the beige. "Everyone pities them, the children. It's sad, they say. Horrific. A tragedy. But I don't believe that. Sometimes I think I envy them. They'll never know the world for what it is. Not like you or me. The pain of their parents, their families—that must be indescribable. But the children are safe from that now: from this winter, this endless night." He pauses. "At least I like to think so."

"Me too," I say.

* * *

At one o'clock, he yawns. Joins his hands behind his head and stretches, drawing his back taut. The cuffs of his blazer slide to his elbows. "I should be off," he says through wine-stained lips. "It's late, and I want to make it to the lab on time tomorrow." He stands and pushes in his chair. I rise to my crutches and retrieve his coat.

"How is your work coming?" I ask, accompanying him to the door.

He grins boyishly, flushed with pride. "Great," he says. "I'm nearly finished with my current project. Any day now, I'll have some real findings to report."

"I look forward to it."

The grin fades from his face, but his eyes retain a light. "I'll be sure to share them with you," he says. The corner of his lip draws back to a dimple, a hint of a smile. "I think you'll get a kick out of them."

He wrestles on his coat, tugging his arms through the sleeves. He thanks me for dinner. I thank him for the wine. "Now we're even," I say. I open the door for him. For a moment, we face each other in the doorway, and then he turns to leave.

"Goodnight," he says.

"Goodnight."

***

After he leaves, I take a shower. I turn the hot water up all the way and step into its scalding stream. The heat hits me like a wave. It breaks over my shoulders before flowing down my legs, where it pools at my feet, gradually sucking away toward the drain. I lift my neck and let the water wash down my face, alcohol leaking from my pores. It has been years since I drank so much. Eyes closed, I sway beneath the gushing showerhead. I steady myself against the far wall, spreading both hands against the smooth plastic. The murmur of water fills and floods my eardrums, a chain of word-less whispers. In that rush of voices, I imagine I hear the harbor bell's lonely chimes. One. Two. Three.

I open my eyes.

***

I shut off the water. I dry myself, but I don't get dressed. Instead I stand at the mirror, scrutinizing myself. My eyes trace the curve of my sunken cheeks to my chin: its folds and wrinkles, its flap of dangling skin. I note the silver hair on my chest, grown patchy with age. It barely conceals the stains, the swathes of brown discoloration.

Everything is sagging: the skin at my armpits, my shallow gut, my fattened nipples. I remember Rosemary's body, young and lithe, untouched by time. I remember her slender arms and legs, the smooth skin at her eyes, and I shudder to see myself: beaten and broken with hollow eyes. They are glassy and featureless, like the colored windows of a chapel at night.

I don't know how long I stand there. When I finally get dressed, it is close to four. Beyond the window, the city hums a melody of embers.

***

Dead of winter. There is snow on the ground. Three or four inches thick, it blankets the earth in an undisturbed powder, reaching to the mountains in a white swoop. Above me, the sky is clouded over, the same color as the snow. The fields are distinguished only by the shimmer of sun on their faces, slicing in arcs across the frozen expanse.

Disoriented, I take a moment to get my bearings. I look for familiar landmarks, eventually spotting the farmhouse. I'm on the far side of it, opposite the elm road. Behind me, Morning Hill stands stony and still, its granite ledges glazed in ice. I cup my hands to my mouth. "Rosemary?" I call out, answered only by echoes on the wind, the skittering of ice across the snow cover. My father's fields are blasted and barren: untended, breached by weeds and blade-like grass.

"Rosemary?" I try again. My pulse thuds in my throat.

No response.

The farmhouse is visible in the distance: a mile off, maybe two. The elm road lies another mile beyond it. I begin walking toward the house, following the cattle track past fallen fences, overgrown pastures. In places, tangles of barbed wire emerge from the powder, snarls dulled by rust. A flock of crows darkens the sky to the west, toward the woodlot, the country left to the blackbirds, the scavengers.

It is an uphill climb, but I cover ground quickly, willing myself to float above the snow cover. The dream tides yield to my weight, cushioning my feet. I leave no footprints. As I approach the house, I see that the windows are broken out. The frames are face-less, sunlight shattered across tooth-like shards of glass. Paint is peeling from the exterior: stripping, leaving ragged fringes with the appearance of birch bark.

I draw nearer. I can make out graffiti on the walls and doors. Political slogans, mostly. End the war, one reads. I step to the nearest window. Squinting, I gaze inside, taking in the garbage: the condoms and cigarettes and beer cans, the remnants of a bonfire. I circle the house. An orange sign is posted to the front door, secured by a bent nail. Keep out. This structure is due for demolition on the following date. The sign is more than twenty years old.

I turn in the direction of the elms, but I know what to expect even before I see it. The trees are gone. Bare, drifted over, the road merges into the fields beyond it, where more signs of development are evident. Backhoes. Bucket loaders. Cement mixers. The steel outline of a superstore. A massive sign stands on two pillars over the construction, legible even at this distance, declaring it to be the future home of a hardware chain. I glance up, scanning the sky for a glimpse of blue, for a rift in the cloud cover. There are none.

When I lower my eyes, I catch sight of a figure on the far road, standing with their back to me. I shout Rosemary's name across the frozen plain. At the sound of my voice, the figure turns. They raise a hand to their face, shielding their vision. I move to take a step toward the road, but the dream tides suddenly give way underfoot, and I crunch into the powder. Surprised, I attempt to extricate myself, but the snow has hardened around my feet, conforming to my ankles. I can't move.

All around me, the dream has frozen: rendered silent, crystalline. A moment passes. Then the diesel train roars into view, trailing a black spume. Its whistle screams. The dream fractures and falls away.

***

I find Father Cleary's cross among the stars: its knife-sharp lines, its hard right angles. He pointed it out to me late one night following news of my brother's death. At the time, Cleary was being transferred out of our parish, removed from the diocese for reasons I was too young to understand. He found me wandering along the beach, stars overhead, swirling with the tilting planet. He took me aside. He cried and talked about my brother. He held my hand.

Guiding my finger, he sketched out the lines of a cross in the sky: once, twice, three times. As long as there are stars in the sky, he said, you can look up and remember your brother in heaven, united with our Father. Here, he said, slipping a pendant from his neck. It was a simple necklace: a thin bronze chain, a small gold cross. He fastened it around my neck. And when there are no stars, he said, you will have this. He left the next day. I never saw him again, but I still wear the cross, and there are no stars left in the city.