It isn’t quite over.

I climb the narrow staircase. My room is to the left, above the kitchen. The eaves are low. Slanted walls, two windows, iron-frame twin bed. On the dresser, a row of ten votive candles in little glass cups. I strike a match on a sandpaper strip and light them all.

On the wall above the candles hangs a picture. It’s smaller than a postcard, smaller than a photograph printed at a drugstore. It was posted on a metal music blog last fall, taken by someone with a decent camera. I printed it out at the public library.

In the photograph Anders is onstage. Lips parted. Eyes almost shut. The fluttering wicks turn his image to oily black and gold.

I close my eyes.

Anders. Anders. Anders.

I repeat his name like a chant. Like a song of my own.

Anders. Anders. Anders.

We’ve lasted one more night.

Around the house, the woods creak and whisper and groan.

But they are shut outside. Anders is asleep, in his own quiet house. And I am here.

I blow the candles out. I fold back the blue cotton quilt with its yarn knots and its fading flowers, untie and pull off my shoes. Then, at last, I climb into bed. The woods will whisper to me all night long.

Anders

There’s not much more pathetically lonely than a bowl of milk with just three Cheerios floating in it.

I reach across the breakfast table and grab the yellow box. Now I run the risk of overcompensating, having to add more milk and then more cereal in a never-ending downward spiral, but I can’t face those three drifting Cheerios any longer.

Dad watches me pour. His eyes are tired.

“You were up early today,” he says.

I have a flash of those minutes sitting on the end of my bed, morning sun sieving through the pine needles, the guitar in my hands. Even the memory makes my heart lift. Suddenly I can’t wait to be playing again, making the lines a little smoother, the notes even cleaner. God. I’m such an addict.

“Sorry,” I say through a mouthful of Os. “I just played the acoustic. I didn’t think I’d wake you.”

“I was already up,” Dad says. “What was that? Pink Floyd?”

I shovel in another mass of cereal. “Yep.”

Dad nods. He rubs his head with the flat of one hand. Dad’s hands are like baseball mitts, broad and tough enough to grab a flying fastball or hoist a splintering beam without flinching. His face is permanently sunburned. The bottoms of his feet are like cement. He is his own protective gear.

“Your mom said you had a good show last night,” Dad goes on as Mom drifts back to the kitchen table with a fresh mug of coffee. Goblin twists through her ankles, begging for scratches.

“Yeah,” I say, swallowing. “They want us to add a second night. Be the regular Friday and Saturday thing.”

Dad’s eyes don’t exactly narrow, but I can see the eyelids around them tighten, like he’s bracing for a blast of sawdust. “And he’s still not paying you? That Ike Lawrence?”