“Stratton, my boy, you don’t want to go through life the way I have. This shit life is all we have. There’s nothing else. Just this one life to do whatever we deem necessary. Nothing, if that’s what you choose, like I have. Or everything. We can end it or we can go on, through the sun and the shit, and sometimes it’s hard to tell the two apart. We’ll be lied to, sacrificed, forsaken, crossed, let down, and betrayed, but if we’re lucky, we can be loved, too,” he said. He looked at Carolyn, then at me. “And if we’re truly lucky, we might learn to love ourselves. That’s what life is about, taking the good with the bad and somehow going on. As I’m sure you know by now, there’s a certain pride in being shit on and still forging ahead. This life is the best fight we have. The only good fight for some. So don’t be like me and give up on it.”

“You really think you’ve given up?”

“In my own way, I have. In your own way, I’m pretty sure you have, too. But don’t.”

I nodded, wanting to keep talking. But just then Gene lifted himself from the couch and walked into the kitchen.

4

I shook Carolyn awake. She opened her eyes and looked around the room, smiling at Gene when finding him on the couch across from her.

“Hi,” she said to me. “How long have I been sleeping?”

“About two hours. Come on, let’s go downstairs.”

“Will you carry me?” she asked, reaching her arms up and around my neck. I grinned and was oddly thrilled for the opportunity. I hefted her up.

“Thank you for dinner, Gene. It was great,” she said.

“I’m happy you enjoyed it.”

I went down the stairs slowly. Between the two of us, Gene and I had finished two bottles of wine on top of what we had had with dinner. I was pretty drunk, but I was careful with Carolyn and made it back without tripping. I placed her in the bed. She was in that lucid trance between wakefulness and sleep, that place where one is aware of dreaming and can either decide to fall headlong into it or wake and let it dissipate. I undressed her, pulled the duvet out from under her, and covered her with it.

“Mmm. Thank you,” she moaned, her eyes closed. She pulled the duvet to her chin, balled up one corner, and wrapped her arms around it.

“You’re welcome.”

“Are you coming to sleep?”

“I will soon. I’m going to read for a bit.”

“Okay.”

She sighed, shifted, and then almost in a whisper, said, “I really like Gene. I think he’s lonely up there.”

I bent over and kissed her forehead “We’re all lonely, my dear.”