“Yes, before he died. Probably when he was a kid.”

The dog was gray with black eyes and a little collar, and Harvey wasn’t sure if he wanted something that had belonged to a dead person but he didn’t want Jason to be upset.

“What’s his name?”

“I have no idea,” Jason said. “That’s crazy, isn’t it?”

Harvey shrugged. “How do you know who’s psycho and who isn’t?”

“You don’t,” Jason whispered. “And that’s the scariest part of all.”

Lil

October 12, 2016
Southern Pines

It’s sunny/warm (where is autumn?), and I’m feeling a little blue. I think I have always felt that if I got a grip on each day, recorded the weather and the mood, that I could hold it all in place. I wish that every day, I had cupped my palm under my heel and raised my leg to full extension. Would there have been a day when suddenly I couldn’t do it anymore, like that morning I woke and found I needed reading glasses? The turn will come when you least expect it, then the unraveling. You forget things you couldn’t imagine you could forget and, in the same moment, you remember something you haven’t thought of in a hundred years, an odd little scrap that blows into your head just because the light slants across the room in a certain way or you hear a strain of music, or smell onions and peppers browning in an iron skillet. Spaghetti sauce was my mother’s best dish, and it always began that way, onions and peppers in a sizzling skillet. I’m sure I have told you that before, Becca.

November (again) 2016
(Finally feels cooler)