Darkness. The air is thick, its moisture dissipating on my face. As I inhale I can feel the wetness coat my throat. I hold up the lantern but see nothing in any direction. My vision is wrapped in a blanket of pre-dawn darkness.

I’m standing in the middle of the Monifieth city cemetery, trying to focus my vision enough to keep from running into grave makers, many of which have been in this Scottish yard for over half a millennia. I move with caution, shifting my weight gingerly from one step to the next, as grass crunches underneath with the brittle snapping sound of breaking bones. Stopping, I curse the sound, and then realize there is nobody around to hear. Re-aiming the lantern’s beam towards what I believe to be the correct direction, I continue on through the crunching grass.

Before long I’m on more solid footing, and the dense mist begins to thin. I am getting closer, I can sense it. My breathing hastens and I speed my pace. Just as the darkness gives way to faint traces of light I feel the ground give way under me, and I fall straight down, landing hard on solid earth. The lantern breaks and the beam quickly dies. After tossing around a few obscenities I stand in the darkness and do the best to shake the dirt from my clothes. I take two steps forward and am met with a face full of dirt as I collide with a hardened, clay-reinforced wall. I feel to my left until I meet a corner, then another, and then another. It’s rectangular. Great. I’ve fallen into an open grave.

I cup my hands over my mouth and begin to shout for somebody’s attention but before any sound can escape my throat I hear the voice inside my head: “Why are you crying out? Who is going to hear you? Who is going to help you in this place?”

I lower my hands and look around. I can see nothing, no evidence I am not alone in the plot. I feel around once more in the darkness, uncertain I want to find anything. When I am convinced I am alone I cup my hands to my mouth once more.

Then it grabs me.

It starts at the ankle, and for a moment I think I’ve caught my pant leg around a deep-growing root, maybe an errant bottle tossed aside one night by a drunken caretaker. By the time I feel the fingers wrap around my arm I know I am wrong. Light begins to break above me and through the faintest beam cast into the grave I can see the paled arm, caked with dried layers of Earth and smeared with wet grass. The skin hangs off the arm revealing bone, and the free hanging skin bounces about like a cheap gag out of an episode of Creep Show. The other arm emerges – from where I don’t know – and grabs me around the torso, the skin on its fingers decayed and falling away from the hand as it struggles to tighten its grasp on me. Again I start to yell out but the voice in my head – foreign, old, and unsettling – cautions me before I can say a word.

“No need to cry out, boy. Nobody will hear you. Nobody will help you, not here. Don’t fight it, this is where you should be. This is where we all end up.” I continue to struggle, fighting the rotting hands as I try to rip them free of my body.

“We all get what we deserve in the end, every time.” I hear a cackle from above us and as I look up I’m met with a pile of dirt and leaves, heaped into the plot by the graveyard’s caretaker. I spit the earth from my mouth and continue fighting the bodiless being as the old, saintly looking Scottish caretaker shovels more dirt upon us. Just as I tear an arm free of my torso the clayed wall separates and a body emerges. It moves forward into the plot and is met with another pile of dirt and leaves from above. Frozen with fear, I instinctively back away until I am cornered in the far end of the plot. The shoveling from above abruptly stops and as the dirt and dust clears I make out the face of my undead attacker.

“Holy jesusfuckingchrist!” I screamed as I threw the sheets away from me and sat straight up in bed in one fluid motion. My breathing was fast and shallow. My face felt flushed. I’m slightly sweating. Carolyn is on the bed beside me, wide awake.

“Another nightmare?”

“Yeah,” I responded. I use the pillowcase to wipe the sweat from my forehead.

“Your arms were shaking and you were thrashing about. You’ve been going at it for about five or six minutes now. It woke me up. Was it the one where you are in the graveyard?”

“Yes.” I turned over onto my back and took a deep breath, holding it in before letting out a labored exhale through clenched teeth. I did it twice before rotating onto my side to face Carolyn.

“I don’t know what is wrong with me. This is what, five now? Same premise, same setting. Maybe Roderick was right, maybe I need medication.”

“Don’t be silly,” she responded, “He was talking about clozapine. That’s for schizophrenia. Definitely not your problem.”

She drapes her arm over me and I move closer, resting my head on the section where her waistline meets her hip. She smells good, and the soft, thin cotton fabric of her camisole feels soft against my face.

“It’s okay,” she reassures me. “Don’t dwell on it. It’s just your mind playing with you.”

“But it was different this time, Caro. I saw it, I saw the face.”

“Shhh,” she says as she raises her arms and wraps them around my back to hug me. Her touch is soothing, her voice calm. I raise my head and look around the room. I recognize the layout – the secretary desk and chair in the corner, the couch on the opposite wall, the armoire dresser across from the bed. It’s our hotel room in Salzburg. I lie back on the bed and try to relax. I close my eyes and breathe deeply, then rub my temples slowly. When I open my eyes Carolyn is leaning over me, smiling. I don’t even notice her morning breath.

“Just take it easy,” she says. “And relax, we’ve got all the time in the world.”

That’s when I frown.

This too – the hotel room, the conversation, even Carolyn – is a dream, and I know it. It’s been over a month since I left Salzburg, and weeks since I left Carolyn in Toronto. I’m fully aware of my semi-consciousness state, that REM phase when you realize you are not quite asleep but not fully awake, that ambiguous point where thoughts and dreams entwine and can be manipulated. For a moment I consider going with the moment, but then relent, not wanting to torture myself.

“Fuck.” I sit up and turn the bedside table light on. I’m in the guest bedroom of my parents’ house. I fall back on the bed and let out a huff. I grab a pillow from behind my head and cover it, pressing hard as if to muffle a scream. I can’t believe the tricks my mind is trying to play on me, its attempts to concoct a sick laugh. And for what? What pleasure can possibly be derived from it? I feel my blood begin to boil and I close my fingers, balling them into fists before letting fly with multiple punches into the pillow. Then I throw it in the direction of the bedroom door.

The pillow knocks the clock off the dresser and skids to a halt. The time reads 3:16 AM. I’m wide awake and hating my over productive mind.

I get out of bed and make my way to the other side of the room where the dresser sits. I plant my hands on each of the dresser’s edges to hold my body up and stare into the top-mounted mirror. I look bad; more and more gray is seeping into my hair and the five days of beard growth I’ve accumulated. The bags under my eyes are becoming more pronounced with each passing day. The wrinkles are emerging more and more, no longer masterfully disguised behind tan skin and a good moisturizing regimen. I barely recognize the reflection staring back at me. I am the oldest 25 year-old I have ever seen.

My thoughts drifted back to Carolyn, my head abuzz in hundreds of isolated thoughts, moments and things said and done over the past few months. I remember our last day together, our trip in silence as we drove to the Toronto airport for my flight back to Los Angeles. I remembered all the things I could have said and should have said, but didn’t. There would be no changing things; she had a degree to finish and a career to pursue, a career that finally seemed to gain firm footing. I had no job to return to in Toronto after months abroad on what amounted to a personal leave, and additionally had to return to Southern California to take care of my mother and keep a promise to a dying man. It was a bittersweet irony: She couldn’t go, and I couldn’t stay. And so she quietly hid her face, not able to look at me, and shed tears as the overhead announcement called for final passenger boarding of my flight. There would be no reprieve, no Garden State moment where Andrew Largeman gets off his flight and races through the airport to find Sam crouched in a phone booth and crying over losing her next great thing. As much as we both knew we were each other's next great thing, there would be no Hollywood ending.

It seemed two things had been bled from me these past few months, and I’d never see either again. In anger I slpped aside some toiletries and various items on the dresser, and they hit the side wall with an emphatic *thud.*

I heard the loud woof of the dog and soon after footsteps creaked on the wood floor in the hallway, followed shortly by a rap at the door.

“Everything okay in there?”

“I’m fine Mom, it was just some things on the dresser. I’m sorry I woke you. Do you need to take any medication while you are up?”

“No. Perhaps in the morning,” she responded from the other side of the door. “Good night.”

I went back to bed and flipped on the TV. This was becoming commonplace; tonight was officially the tenth in a row that I have had sleep problems and dreams. My window for getting over the European time change closed weeks ago and still I couldn’t get a restful night of sleep. As with nights past there was little on television at this hour aside from infomercials and bible school lectures, and so I found myself watching the National Geographic channel’s study of a lion cub raised in captivity and later returned to its natural habitat.

“The lion finds itself in a natural state, but a state foreign to this point. Whereas the cub had its entire routine and sustenance provided by others, here he will have to fend for himself or join up with a pride. The zoologists have done their best to correctly identify both the pride and the geographic area from which the lion originated, and now their hunches will be put to the test, a test where lives may be at stake.”

The lion was shown slowly entering the territory of a pride and male lookouts circled behind, keeping close tabs on the invader.

“The cub enters a new territory, one that has already been claimed by a lion clan,” the narrator continued. “Here we see the border protectors of the pride take notice that this cub is not one of their own, and thus must be watched with suspicion as a threat to the other lions. The cub wanders deeper into the territory, and more and more of the pride are coming to the front in noticeable view of this trespasser. Our zoologists, watching the interaction, notice that one of the adult lionesses bears a tracking tag from their zoo and are now certain that they have found the cub’s pride of origin.”

I turn up the volume a bit and watch the cub playfully approach one of the adult lions. Here the narrator takes on an ominous tone.

“The cub has been raised in captivity to believe that any fellow member of the species is friendly and a playmate, but in the wild the rules are different. Here we see the adult beat back the cub and chastise it with a roar and a stare, signifying that he is not automatically welcome back into the pride. Other adult lions join in to reinforce the behavior. It appears the cub will not be so easily welcomed back into its natural habitat.”
____________________________________________________________________________________

The meeting was innocuous enough: A lunch rendezvous and a little catch-up talk, how I’ve been, how they’ve been, and how the agency has been going. Of course I’d enquire about any open positions, it would be silly not to. But I wasn’t holding my breath.

I arrived early as usual and made for the reserved booth at the rear of the restaurant. As I passed a mirrored pillar I briefly took stock of my outfit. I had never dressed more casual for a business lunch; Overdyed Nyne jeans offset by a Banana Republic tweed jacket with blue two-tone thin striping over a eggshell colored Calvin Klein shirt. Magazines term the look “shabby chic.” I ran a hand over my beard stubble, sat down, and ordered a J&B on the rocks from the slightly cute but very overweight drink server dispatched to the booth. I don’t even think I let the girl get through her spiel. She walked away with her tray parallel to her legs and beyond in the distance I made out Gloria Simms.

She was just how I had remembered her, oozing power. The pants suit hung off her with the look of a professionally tailored job, the slacks showing off a perfect break along her feet. She removed her sunglasses and smiled warmly as she slid into the booth.

“Reed.”

“Gloria, you look like a million bucks.”

“I’d better, that’s how much the facial at Elizabeth Arden costs these days,” she quipped. When she smiled I could tell she had her teeth bleached recently. She waved a server over and ordered a glass of pinot blanc.

“You look well,” she began.

“Ha,” I laughed, “you are clearly lying.”

“No, I mean it. It’s a good look. You see it on every male D&G model. It says ‘extended vacation.’ Speaking of which, how was your time abroad?”

I paused and rubbed my chin. What do I tell her, and what do I withhold? She knew so very little about me, about my family and anything that transpired over the past few months.

“It was fine,” I concluded. A waitress returned with our drinks and took our order.
“Try the Ahi salad,” suggested Gloria as she gently brushed my hand, “the cut is exquisite.”

Soon after it was down to business. “So what are you going to do now?” she asked.

“Well,” I slowly began, “I don’t know. Right now I am still adjusting and trying to get used to being back in my natural habitat. It’s been a long time since I’ve sat here at a table with you, you know.”

“Yes, I know. But I am not talking about us having lunch. I’m talking about what you do tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after.”

I decided to feel out the situation. “I was rethinking my position regarding staying in the advertising field. I’m still young and I haven’t climbed enough rungs on the ladder to be in a spot where changing fields would be detrimental.”

“True,” she responded with some question in her voice. She wasn’t sure where I was going with this.

“Maybe I could go back to school for my MBA while I’m young. USC and UCLA have highly-ranked national programs. I suppose Pepperdine would do in a pinch, but if I’m going to do it I have to go top ten for the networking contacts alone.” I took a final swig of scotch from my near-empty glass and continued. “Still, I did like what I was doing at Chiat and the people with whom I worked. If anything were to ever open up in the near future, perhaps a new account...”

Gloria set down the glass and fixed her gaze squarely upon me. “We’ve talked about this before, Reed. I’d like to help, really – you were a good employee and very talented – but my hands are tied. My head count is maxed out, and there are no additional accounts requiring extra positions any time in the near future. You’ve got to understand that your transfer and subsequent decision to stay on at the Toronto office in a freelance capacity, coupled with the leave you took following your family emergency, left me no alternative but to fill your spot. You’ve been away from our office for nine months. Yes, it was bad timing the way the Toronto freelance situation coincided with your personal life, but in the end we had to move forward without you.”

There it was, the finality of the situation. I really had no job, no chance of getting back in. I wasn’t angry and I didn’t feel cheated because I had brought it upon myself. I had made the decision to resign and come back aboard in Toronto as a freelancer at the beginning of June right before my father suffered his heart attack. I took the leave and the Los Angeles office gave it to me even though I hadn’t worked there in the previous six months. They felt on the hook technically since I hadn’t issued a resignation to them at the time. They warned me about the chance I wouldn’t have a job to return to, they warned me they needed a person in that spot when I was running all over Europe. I didn't blame anything but myself and pure dumb luck. I just needed to hear the words "no chance" from someone else. I needed somebody else to carve my fate in stone.

“It was worth the shot,” I muttered. Our lunches arrived and I eagerly dug into what would be my last meal on the Chiat tab.

Somewhere among my third J&B, her second pinot blanc, and the halfway point of the meal, she resumed the work talk. “You know who is going to miss you most? I mean, we’ll all miss you, but I think Melinda has been the most affected by your absence.”

“I figured you’d say that about Mel.” I thought about how she’d always sit at the edge of my desk while we’d work, playfully showcasing her legs while she tightly crossed them, always right over left. Her legs were her prized possessions and she went to great lengths to keep them toned and tanned. For so long she had worked on getting people in the office to take her seriously based on her looks and cheerleader personality. It never worked. All she ever needed to do was turn up the charm and her business acumen. It was always there but she kept it well-hidden under the surface.

“It’s true. I can tell she feels overwhelmed, like she’s missing a partner to help carry the load. She is sharp, though. I will give her that.”

“She is,” I agreed. “And smarter than people give her credit for, myself included. She reminds me a lot of you in a way.”

“Oh?” Gloria questioned, eyebrows raised. “I don’t remember ever having been a peppy, leggy cheerleader,” she began.

“Fair enough, but I am sure you remember what it was like to be out of college and in a male-dominated industry where you had to prove yourself, where you had to show that you had the stuff and weren’t just another pretty face.” I shifted in my seat and leaned in towards Gloria. “Mel’s problem isn’t that she lacks the brains. She’s very smart. Do you know she got a 1500 on her SATs in high school? How many cheerleaders do you know who got a full ride to USC because of their brains? Her problem is that she’s gone through life for so long using her body to get people to notice her that she’s forgotten how to use her brains to the same end. And that’s sold her short. It’s made her just another piece of ass in the meat market of life, pardon my French.”

Gloria stifled a chuckle as she blotted her mouth with her napkin. “I know what you mean, and yes, I too have been there. I may not be the femme fatale that Melinda Davies is, but I had my time.”

“So you must understand the benefit of having some direction in her professional life," I continued. "I know she looks up to you, Gloria. What better role model could she have, and right there in the office? She’s asked me dozens of times about how you got to where you are, how a woman gets to be a power player in the corporate world. She wants in. And with you there to guide her, she could do it. She could pull it off in spades. She just needs for someone to see her potential as more than a smoking hot body. It’s going to take a woman, Gloria. Someone like you.”

Gloria rolled the stem of the wine glass in her fingers and mulled the proposition. I’m sure she’d had protégés in her life before, but likely not at the behest of a third party.

“That’s quite the idea. I have seen flashes of brilliance from her, there’s no doubt about it. But I know so little about her. Maybe I need to sit down with her or go to lunch and find out where she’s coming from. Find out what makes her tick.”

“Given the chance, I’m sure she would shine.”

“That’s very decent of you, you know. Here you are, no job, no prospect of coming back and yet you are talking up the people who were once around you. You're not all bad, mister.” She winked to punctuate the sentiment.

“Let’s keep that between the two of us. It is a dog-eat-dog world and once I’m back on top I don’t want news like that sinking me,” I retorted with a smile.

Gloria picked up the tab and as we walked out she gave me a quick hug, adding “keep in touch, I always like to hear where our people end up,” as the valet pulled her car to the curb. I closed her door and watched her drive off as I waited for the valet to pull my car around.

“Nice ride,” he said as he held the door for me. He was fishing for a better tip. I guess the lunch rush in Beverly Hills today wasn't as lucrative as it could be.

“Thanks,” I said, adding, “too bad it’s become the friggin’ Honda Civic of the mid-twenties upper class trendy set.” I gave him two dollars, cranked the stereo, popped the clutch hard and sped on to Wilshire heading west towards home. Ice-T played on the CD changer:

That attitude is rude, you won't get far
Cos they'll turn on you quick, you'll drop like a brick
Unemployment's where you'll sit
No money, no crew, you're through
You played yourself,
That's right, you played yourself,
Ain’t nobody else’s fault, you played yourself.

“Shut up, Tracy,” I said aloud to nobody as I punched the power button with my knuckle.
____________________________________________________________________________________

It’s been a long time, a decade at least, since I’d last received a postcard in the mail. In today’s age of instant electronic communication a postcard is such an antiquated notion. But there it was, alone in the mailbox awaiting me. I removed it and held it in my hands. It was oversized, much larger than the customary five by seven postcard one finds at tourist attractions. On the front was a picture of the earth with the North American continent in view. Over California was a hand written comment in black ink: “You.” My eye drifted across the continent until I saw another comment written above one of the kidney-shaped great lakes: “Me.” I turned the card over and read the card’s short message:

“What’s wrong with this picture?” A frown was drawn next to the comment.

I concentrated on the handwriting for a while, admiring the curves and lines of the letters. The gesture was as sweet as it was simple: Carolyn wanted to talk.

I waited until later in the day when I knew she’d have returned from class before I looked her up on MSN messenger. We had been doing this for the past week, almost nightly. It was becoming a habit.

Myfavoritereeder: Got your card.
T.O.Caro: I went downtown a few days ago to the mile loop around the lake you used to walk with that old guy. It made me think of you. Then I went over to Stewie’s and it reminded me of you even more. That’s when I bought the card. I can’t help it. I think about you, about us, a lot.
Myfavoritereeder: I’d be lying if I didn’t say the same, but we’ve got to stop doing this Caro, it’s just going to make us feel worse.
T.O.Caro: So what do you suggest?
Myfavoritereeder: The same thing I suggested before I got on the plane; forget about me. Start over with somebody else. It’s not fair to think there is going to be a happy ending.
T.O.Caro: Why couldn’t there be?
Myfavoritereeder: Listen to yourself, you’re there. I’m here. You’re not going to quit your master’s when you’re so close, and I’m not going to go out there if I don’t have a work visa.
T.O.Caro: You could come here for six months. The interior ministry won’t check on you until after six months if you aren’t working by then.
Myfavoritereeder: You know I can’t leave. I have to take care of my mother. I’m not going to send her to live with my sister and brother in law. They have their own family to start.
T.O.Caro: I know, we’ve been through it before. It’s just wishful thinking. We had a good thing though.
Myfavoritereeder: I know. We’re the victims of poor circumstances.
T.O.Caro: I just wonder over and over if what we have is too strong to die, or if we are just too weak to kill it.
Myfavoritereeder: A little of both. Have you been going out? Meeting anyone?
T.O.Caro: Right. It’s hard enough getting back into the swing of things, you know. Work, school, other. The other has suffered as a result. You? Any new fans to report?
Myfavoritereeder: No. I’m finding that being re-introduced into your habitat can be a difficult thing.
T.O.Caro: Only if you resist. Are you resisting?
Myfavoritereeder: Well...I’m not quite ready for prime time.
T.O.Caro: Reed, you can’t hide behind the scenes forever. That’s what Europe was for. To nurse you back to health.
Myfavoritereeder: And what about you, sending me cards and re-hashing the past when you should be out meeting new pieces of ass?
T.O.Caro: Don’t change the subject. I know that you’ve got to get back out there. Don’t shelter yourself inside your mother’s house. Don’t withdraw. You’re not that kind of person, and I’d hate to think what would happen if you did become that person.
Myfavoritereeder: I’ll be fine.
T.O.Caro: Still having the nightmares?
Myfavoritereeder: Yes. How did you know?
T.O.Caro: I figured as much. You’re forgetting I spent eight weeks in a bed next to you, during which time you either couldn’t sleep, or you’d have nightmares on the rare occasions you did sleep.
Myfavoritereeder: You say that like you regret it.
T.O.Caro: I’d run away with you all over again, circumstances aside.
Myfavoritereeder: So now? We can’t keep messaging each other and telling each other we wish this or wish that. How can you move on like that?
T.O.Caro: Who says I want to move on...
Myfavoritereeder: Jeez.
T.O.Caro: I shouldn't be this way. I am the first to admit the long distance thing won’t work. Maybe I’ll meet some dashing Canuck in the near future on the streets of Toronto and he’ll sweep me off my feet, but until then I can think about the American who did the same, can’t I?
Myfavoritereeder: I get your point.
T.O.Caro: Maybe we can get together at Christmas. I’ll be on break from school. Perhaps I can come out to Los Angeles if you can’t leave.
Myfavoritereeder: The pessimist in me wants to say that’s a horrible idea. We’ll have just gotten used to not having each other in our lives and then *poof* you’ll appear and all the old feelings will be stirred up.
T.O.Caro: I don't like the pessimist. What does the romantic in you have to say?
Myfavoritereeder: When does your flight arrive?
T.O.Caro: HA! I knew it.
Myfavoritereeder: You’d tire of me soon enough.
T.O.Caro: You sell yourself far too short.
Myfavoritereeder: ...and you need to start meeting better men than myself.
T.O.Caro: I’d like to think I can pick ‘em just fine.
Myfavoritereeder: We’ll do this again in a few days, I’m sure.
T.O.Caro: Ciao.

I found my mother in the living room propped up on the sofa and surrounded by throw pillows, reading the latest issue of Vanity Fair. My dog was at the foot of the sofa curled into a ball, catching up on her favorite past time, sleeping. The magazine in my mother’s hand was folded back awkwardly so that I could see one of the advertising inserts, and when I saw it I laughed. In a vertical advert running a third of the page was an Aveeno ad featuring that girl Patricia I’d met months ago at an art show preview. I was glad to see she was still getting work. I guess Aveeno still wanted to get their mileage out of her.

I kneeled down and ran my hand along the neck of Sophia as she slept. She adjusted herself, briefly raising her head to see who dare disturb her slumber, and let out a breathy Marge Simpson-like sigh as she fell back asleep. I sat on an ottoman opposite my mother as she lowered the magazine and removed her reading glasses.

“Come closer,” she said, “let me get a good look at you. I don’t think I have since you’ve returned.” I slid closer and she turned on another light.

“You have much more gray hair than I last remember you having,” she began. She ran her hand along the side of my face and rubbed my whiskers. “And I don’t know about this beard of yours. It’s shabby and undignified.”

“It’s temporary,” I told her. “But I know what you are getting at. I’m letting myself go, and you’re right. There are times when I walk by a mirror and don’t even recognize the face looking back at me. Suddenly I’m this old, leathery, sad sack of a person. I’m the oldest twenty-five year old I know.”

“It’s not just your face, dear, it’s your clothing and how you present yourself. You have always taken great pride in your appearance – it’s a trait you picked up from your father – but ever since you’ve come back your clothing, your appearance...it’s quite shabby.”

“I don’t think any of that matters to me anymore. Why should I care how I look to others?”

My mother adjusted herself on the sofa and set the magazine on the end table. “Your appearance is a reflection of how you feel about yourself, and when I see you looking like this I know you feel lowly about yourself. Do you want to tell me why that is?”

I let out a long sigh that rivaled the dog’s. She awoke and looked up at me to assess the ruckus. I looked away and caught my reflection in the glass of the patio French doors. Even at this distance I could see my disheveled look. I used to look good. I used to be somebody. I remembered a time in May when Carolyn and I went to a crowded bar to get a drink and everybody stopped to take notice. Whenever I wanted the waitress’s attention it was little, if any, trouble. People took notice. I was engaging and charismatic. I then thought about another time two months later in Scotland, in a town brought into the industrial age by my forefathers, in a place where most everyone knew who I was and why I was there, and how I’d enter a room and nothing would happen. About how I’d talk to people and lose their attention mid-sentence. I used to have presence when it came to things like that. Now I was just present. It was a subtle but noticeable shift and I was having a difficult time adapting to the new environment.

“I’m having a hard time coping with the new terrain,” I began. I had to choose my words carefully, as I was about to steer into delicate waters. “I went from a situation where I had a good job – one with promise and potential – to none. I went from a good deal with a good woman – one with whom I felt the type of connection I haven’t felt in who knows how long – to a situation best described as ‘geographically undesirable.’ I went from having my own place and my own life, to none of the above. My life has become a none of the above life. I don’t blame you, and I don’t blame Dad. Individually these things would have been a little easier to deal with. But together and all in the same span...” my voice trailed off.

My mother sat up fully and placed her legs on the ground. Her Yves Saint Laurent velour track suit made a funny sound as it rubbed the sofa upholstery. “It sounds like you are blaming us.” she said, “I can hear the regret in your voice.”

I shook my head. “The only thing I could have controlled but didn’t was running out on you in July the way I did.” I ran my hand across the short hairs growing back on my head where I’d shaved months ago while in Germany. “Fulfilling Dad’s, um, postmortem wishes only took two weeks, and instead I dragged it out into two months. I should have been back here with you and Alexis and Peter. I made a promise to look after you that I didn’t keep. For that I am sorry.”

She took my hands in hers. I could see the wrinkles around her eyes and the mature, matronly glow about her that all women her age have. “You did what you needed to do,” she said, “and I would want you to spend as much time as you need to make your peace with your father. No matter how you feel about how much time you took, realize you were given a great opportunity. We all were. We each had a chance for closure and to say what needed to be said and hear what he had to say.” A tear started forming in her right eye and she quickly wiped it away.

“And that’s lucky?” I said.

“Do you know how many people lose a loved one and never have the chance to say a simple goodbye, never get the chance to tell them all the things they want to say and hear things they have longed for their entire lives to hear? The opportunity to hear that person tell them how much they were loved, respected, admired? Or even a thank you? People who get cheated of that last moment carry it around unresolved in their hearts until it becomes resentment and anger. You’re very lucky indeed, you had an opportunity many would give an arm to have had.” She reached for a tissue and blotted more tears from her eyes.

“I think I’m just angry in general, angry at circumstances and angry at the cards I’ve been dealt on all fronts. I have that right – I read in Kubler-Ross’s book that anger is the first stage in all of this. It’s the main reason I stayed in Europe for as long as I did. It wasn’t only about resolving any issues I had regarding Dad’s passing, it was just as much about Carolyn. Europe was the end of our line. I knew that the minute I set foot in North America everything we had was done for. So we held out and tried to hold off the inevitable for as long as we could, and because I could see the end of the line coming all the while it made me angrier and a lot of that time I directed that anger right at her.”

“Oh no, you didn’t,” she said.

“If I wasn’t distant because of why we were there to begin with, then I was distant because of what would happen once we returned. I was moody, and bitchy, and a real pain in the ass. And that wasn't only when I was tearing into her. I was like any teenage pre-menstrual girl.” I paused and smiled. “I was like Alexis when she was in high school,” I added with a grin.

My mother smiled tersely, as if to say she remembered but didn’t view the memory so fondly.

“When we were in Freiburg I thought I was going to wake up one morning to a ‘dear John’ note saying she’d gone back to Toronto, that she couldn't take the abuse any longer, that this wasn’t what she signed up for. I was waiting for her to tell me that there were millions of guys out there, all of whom could treat her better than I had in the past few months.” I got up and started pacing a bit, something I was prone to doing when I thought things out aloud. Usually the act made my mother nervous, but she said nothing this time as I pivoted back and forth. “There’s a song by the rock group Pink Floyd called “Take it Back,” and in the song the singer laments how he ‘made her prove her love for me, he gave her all that she could take,’ and ‘pushed her to the limit, to see if she would break.’ I did the exact thing. Of course, he was talking about Mother Nature; I am talking about someone real and tangible. But she didn’t budge, she didn’t break. She stayed the whole while.”

“That is because she really cares for you. She wanted to help.”

I pivoted again, turning to face my mother. As I moved from right to left and then left to right, the dog kept watched my movement, trying to sense what sort of game this might be and how to play.

“I know. But in a way that’s the dream all women have when they are young girls, isn’t it? A hurt, brooding boy in need of rescue, someone she can nurse back to life. Someone she can mold into her little prince.” I stopped pacing and waved at the air to dismiss the idea. “None of that matters. She has a career to go after and a degree to complete. She can’t give that up. I wouldn’t want her to give up that dream; I know I couldn’t if the roles were reversed. And things being the way they were, with no job prospect to think of and an expired visa, I couldn’t stay. Plus, I have to take care of you. So there we are. She’s on her side of the continent, and as fate would have it, I am on mine.”

“It is a pickle,” my mother responded. “I’d only met her once during the ride to the airport, but she seemed like a very beautiful and bright young lady.” I laughed. My mother called every potential female prospect she approved of a bright young lady.

I stopped pacing and returned to the ottoman. “It wouldn’t be such a difficult thing to grapple with if the connection weren’t there. I don’t want to toot my own horn, but I’ve dated a fair share of women.”

“Really,” she responded with a roll of her eyes.

“I know you’re shocked, I can see it. Even I have had to break up with women, call it quits, throw in the towel – whatever euphemism applies.” I became more serious. “The connection couldn’t be denied, it was there for both of us. I haven’t felt that close to someone in about seven years.” I thought more about the last one I felt this way about. “Yeah, about seven years. The last one I felt this way about was Sharon.”

“Sharon was very nice, a very bright young lady.” There it was again. “Your father and I liked her very much.”

“Yeah, well...Dad liked her because she had big cans and looked good on my arm. She was a great visual accessory.”

“Reed! No need to be crass!” She rolled up her Vanity Fair and feigned smacking me. “It’s true, your father placed great importance upon appearances, but I am sure he saw more in Sharon than just her bosom.”

I chuckled. “Let’s agree to disagree on that one, okay?” I got back on subject. “Carolyn will be a hard one to forget. I just wish it wouldn’t be such a difficult thing.”

“Good things always are. If they were such an easy thing then you’d see every simpleton in town with a special someone on their arm. Anything good always carries with it struggle and the opportunity to grow and learn, so that the next time you know where to go from here.”

“And where do I go from here?”

My mother grinned. “That’s the question, isn’t it?” She pointed at me emphatically. "I will never be able to answer that question for you. Only you can."

I looked at the door and out towards the back yard and the 14th fairway beyond. This place was so foreign. I hadn’t grown up in this house, it was a retirement home meant for empty nesters looking to reinvent themselves. It wasn't any different than the average home - it had every amenity any ordinary person would require - but it wasn’t my home. Somebody once told me the idea of what ‘home’ is regularly undergoes renovations and revisions in your head, but not in mine. My home was an idea whose time had passed.

“So what now?” I asked my mother.

She paused and messaged her ankles before answering. “You finish moving in whatever items from your apartment you want to keep, and then, like you said earlier, you figure out where to go from here.” She smiled a sad smile, the type you see from people who savor the moment but at the same time think about when that happy moment will cease to be. She reached for her slippers and stood up.

“I think I am going to bed, it’s late enough,” she said as she watched her feet slide into her slippers.

“Do you need any of your medicine?” I asked. “Abraxane? Levaquin?”

“I took them earlier. I will be fine until the morning.” She kissed me on the cheek. “Don’t stay up too late. I know you are still having difficulty sleeping. Don’t let it beat you.”

“Thanks.” I looked down at Sophia. “Maybe I’ll take her for a walk. Would you like that girl? A little walk?” The dog snapped to and started panting, her tongue out to one side. I attached her leash and she was ready to go.

“What say we let you pee all over the 14th green so the groundskeepers will be teed off when they see all the whitened, acid-ridden grass. Would you like that?” Sophia let out a little squeal of excitement.

As I stood on the sidewalk in front of the house I looked down the empty, gloomy street. The ocean fog had made its way over the Santa Monica foothills and settled into the country club as it does every night at this time, making the place look like The Exorcist movie poster. And there I stood in front of the home, just like Father Karras did in the poster, and just like him I was unsure and a little frightened by what uncertainties were inside the house - a house I didn’t know filled with memories I couldn’t reconcile.

No job.
No girl.
No direction.
No place to call my own.
No life.

Square one.