As Benny slipped around the corner, I had the strong feeling that something had just missed me. Something had blown from the earth and swirled around and now, at last, it was rising upward into the white hole of the moon. I didn’t know what it was. Some crackly, invisible force, parting as it blew by me. I could only hope it passed Benny, too.

For the next few weeks I replayed our conversation in my mind, tested the rancor in his voice. I wondered if we could have ended on a different note if I’d done something else, but I doubted it. He was unreasonable.

I’d looked out for myself? Fuck you, Benny, I thought. When had you ever helped anyone? I considered it testament to my respect for him that I had refused to treat him like a child that night.

Still, Benny rattled in my head while I caulked the windows or raked the yard. Yeah, I said. I’d looked out for myself; it was true. Was that such a goddamn crime? You looked out for yourself, too, Benny. You just never did a very fucking good job of it.

It was a long winter that year. The gray days stacked up, month after month, and over time I stopped thinking about Benny so much. I retiled the kitchen; I patched the leak in the roof; I went down to Minh’s sister’s wedding in L.A. I figured we’d catch up again at some point and get back on good terms. We’d start over again, like we always did.

In the spring the dogwoods in the backyard half bloomed. The sunny sides made their share of pink blossoms, but the shady sides remained patchy and skeletal. The oregano and the mint choked out the lilac and the lavender. The fennel shot up in a shaggy, purplish wall.

I was out laying railroad ties when the phone rang one day. I could tell from the look in Minh’s black eyes when she handed me the receiver that something was wrong. It was my mom calling. She was crying, and she said it was about Benny.

“They found him,” she said.

“What? Who found Benny?” I said.

“He was in Washington Park, just off the trail,” she said. “Lying under a blooming rhododendron bush.” She said he’d OD’d, whether by himself or with someone else they couldn’t be sure.

My mom went on to tell me what more she knew. Benny was only four days out of jail, she said. According to a story on the radio, the week after release was the most dangerous time for an addict. The body wasn’t prepared for the new freedom it found, and accidents happened.

“This is how we take care of our people,” she said. “It’s shameful. Utterly wrong.”