Robert’s was a genial, a stammering halt. He waited, dutiful, for his parents to rush in, without wanting to seem to rush. “I’ve called them, honey,” I had said. He waited till they wrestled their coats off, then half collected themselves. I could see they had been napping or more (the magic bed’s romantic effect?) and that the Gustafsons were flustered on account.

You watched him take in the room as does some swimmer waiting for the signal, the contestant strong and flexed in starter position at pool’s edge, eyes still busy, playful, fixed just above water level on those loved ones waving, eyes busy and glad to be working a last time before true work begins, work mostly underneath.

Then it was that starting pistol, the determined if slowed movement as through water. His mother got on his right side, his father prayed aloud (eyes lifted) with such sweet faith, on his left. I wedged in at the feet. Surrounded, he knew he was. His eyes opened wide a last time, and he took in the room and I wondered if he looked for Angie and I fought feeling jealous of that, even now! He saw me at the foot of the bed and I, silly, waved, but it was all right because he gave the slightest nod and tried to lift the hand to his mouth for, I knew, a last blown kiss, so social, then put his head back on the pillow and began the ending of it in earnest.

He was no sentimentalist; he only attracted them. I stood tearless, taking note of how he managed it. His parents must be professionals at such scenes but that could only help so much, considering who we had here.

A perfect blond pebble skips three times across the lake’s surface. Then, the next try, it skips just once. A third, in every way identical, it only sinks. But it settles right where you can—in water this clear—see it go straight down and rest upon its side there on the very very cold very bottom.

Porch Angels

esterday morning, years after most of the funerals, rising just before dawn, seeming to wake at some sound half-heard only in sleep, wearing a nightshirt Angie gave me, I wandered downstairs to make the necessary coffee. I’ve long since learned to drink mine black. Why? Ossorio, with a third-world cavalierness about refrigeration, could never keep his cream quite fresh. Daily, you would pay for the black addicting brew, you’d glory in its potent heat, you’d pour white into the dark disc and see a sudden irregular world map evolve. Here was the separation of the land from the sea and you saw it and you saw that it was not good. The cream.