Before I could respond, the office door swung open. In walked Shad, his disheveled hair and grimy toga so out of place it caused me to laugh, until I looked at myself and realized I wasn’t exactly dressed for success either. Shad moved silently past the bookshelves, the table, and the windows. He stopped at my desk, took something from the desktop, and handed it to me.

It was a photograph, with Marci and Brian and Amy—the only place I’d seen them smile in two years. The picture had been taken three years ago, when we still lived together. But I couldn’t get away from the office that day to make the appointment at the studio. It was the second time I hadn’t shown, so Marci told the photographer to take the pictures anyway. “It was more realistic with just the three of us,” she said to me later, twisting the knife.

I gripped the brass frame with both my hands and, feeling like an empty room after everyone has suddenly left, I stared longingly into their smiling faces. The next thing I knew, I was looking at my held-out hands. They were empty.

We left the office, but as we stepped off the elevator and out the front door, I was suddenly sitting in the office of a counselor I recognized. It was like a movie cut that went from one scene to the next with no transition, nothing happening in between. It was then I realized Frodo hadn’t been with me in the office, and I couldn’t remember where I’d last seen him.

“Nick, it wasn’t your fault,” Dr. Druef told me. “You’ve been misunderstood and victimized. Your intentions were good; your family should have seen that. They should have been grateful for all you did for them.”

“Yes,” I said, nodding. “They should have been grateful.”

“Marci never understood your needs.”

“No, she didn’t.”

“Divorce was better than living together in constant conflict. Much better for the children this way.”

I nodded. Suddenly everything went out of focus, and I began to lose touch. Dr. Druef was gone, and immediately I sat with Joshua in my condo listening to classical music. The absence of transition made me think I must be dreaming, yet I was completely lucid, and my blue La-Z-Boy recliner was as tangible as it could have been, right down to the little coffee stain on the right arm.

For a few hours I was immersed in the whirlpool of melancholy and reflection, going wherever the melodies led, over the mountains and valleys and through the deserts of my life. Especially the deserts.

“The music is beautiful, isn’t it?” Joshua asked.

“Yes. Beautiful.”