No, but it could have been a course title, the kind that would have drawn students, like when he used the subtitle “Skeletons in the Closet” for his undergraduate anthropology course on biological investigations. He still continues to think of topics and titles that would fill an undergraduate lecture hall: the recent excavation of an outhouse near Paul Revere’s home; the Neanderthal cave paintings; that recent find of a horse from the Pleistocene Epoch right in someone’s backyard. He has spent his adult lifetime studying such findings and is still shocked to learn that the bones of something that once lived and breathed have survived thousands and thousands of years. He kept a timeline in his office, stretching around the room, with that tiny half-inch mark that shows the miniscule life of a man.

What does Tomb Time mean?

He didn’t answer that question; how could he even begin? It’s hard to even answer it for himself these many years later. Tomb Time, a secret message, a silly buzzword for something that remained unspoken and removed from his real life. It was an escape, a call to flight, like what he had felt as a boy when he dreamed of jumping onto the northbound train, what he had felt during that time when Lil demanded so much of him, even though she was little more than a bitter ghost herself. And then something happened, something unplanned and surprising, and of course he responded to some attention; what dog wouldn’t? Someone who listened to all he had to say. Someone who believed in his ideas and his thoughts. Someone who asked questions and wanted more and more of what he was able and willing to give, not someone to quip “Mum’s the word” or come home from volunteering talking of death and decay, and smelling of all the hideous lotions and sprays people used to mask it. Of course he had had the fantasy of running, leaving all the heartache and sadness behind him and starting all over with a brand-new life and someone who would listen and care, someone who would make him feel important and loved, and, no, it also wouldn’t have hurt if it were someone interested in sex and willing to explore or experiment.

He had been tired of a life so deeply rooted in grief. It was exhilarating to first allow himself to imagine it all, and then to actually act on the impulses. It was exciting; he felt alive, a gravitational pull that heightened all of his senses. But then even his imagination was crippled, every fantasy eventually broadening the lens to where he could see Lil standing there on the other side of the tracks—steadfast and loyal, opinionated Lil. And if he allowed himself to imagine the end of life, his body shriveled away, she was always the one there to witness it.