Had he been asked to explain himself, Tom would have drawn himself up and spoken about the importance of being a good neighbor. But it went very much deeper than that. Once, when repairing his own stone fence Tom had, without prompting, spent a week repairing Lama Tashi’s. And when the lama had gone on a two month visit to the Himalayas, to reconnect with his elderly guru, his colleagues and family, he had returned to find his cabin newly and securely insulated, protecting him from the worst of the arctic winter freeze as well as the summer heat.

Lama Tashi always expressed his heartfelt appreciation for his neighbor’s kindness, although both he and Tom knew that it wasn’t his gratitude that Tom yearned for. It was instead something he had so far been unable to bring himself to express.

Lama Tashi had tried to reach out to him over the months, then years. There had been exchanges when he’d as good as physically yanked Tom away from the mesmerizing specter. The irony didn’t escape the lama that it was the man who lived closest to him, who did more than most in practical ways to support him, and who was in the direst need of his guidance, who was also the most impervious to his efforts.

Enough! Understanding the unprecedented, seismic shift about to occur, Lama Tashi knew that Tom was about to have the best chance he ever would to be rid of the monster that was slowly crushing the life out of him. Past encouragement had failed. Time to change tack.

Lama Tashi knocked three times on the Jackson’s front door. It was a while before the lock turned and Tom was standing in the doorway. Once again, there was the same meeting of eyes. The same recognition in Lama Tashi’s expression as he reflected, with deep concern, how pervasive the darkness in Tom had become.

Tom showed him through the hallway, a light-filled room with a high, windowed ceiling, in the center of which stood a large table. In former times the table would have been dominated by one of Tina’s sweeping floral arrangements, a festival of vibrant blossoms and verdant greenery. Today, it stood bare, a great, empty, highly-polished slab. Tom led him to the lounge which opened onto the balcony, the room which had once been the epicenter of the Jackson’s social whirl. Its walls were bedecked with photographs of battleships, striker aircraft and, mounted in pride of place, a pair of Enfield muskets from the Civil War. In a far corner stood an upright piano, never played. The balcony outside was open and strangely stark, denuded of the once-lush hanging gardens of Babylon, as Tom had ironically referred to his wife’s creations.