“We all knew it was coming. Only a matter of time, and then…well, you saw the place, right? Burned to the ground. They were good people, the Pearces.”

Good people. Wasn’t Travis “good people?” Like a needle stuck on a warped vinyl record, he silently asked again what had happened. “Where’s Travis at?”

“Over in Bishop,” Duane answered as they crossed the street and headed towards the hockey rink. “The psychiatric place there. They’re doing some sort of evaluation—competency stuff the court ordered.”

“Then what?”

Duane let out a heavy sigh and stopped walking. “Oh, I don’t know. And frankly, Jimmy, I don’t care. It’s out of my hands now.”

James came up short and turned to face his friend.

Duane dropped his gaze to the snowpack under their feet. “The Travis you knew and what he became”—he glanced at James’s face—“day and night. Especially the last couple years.” He straightened and a resoluteness settled over his expression as he squared James in the eye. “What was once weird but cute just became…I don’t know…weird. Weirder. We should’ve got him to a place he fit in a long time ago.” Duane took a step forward. “We all have to take some of the blame for not dealing with it.” He shook his head and walked past James. “Just a matter of time, and here we are.”

James let the words seep in. Could this tragedy have been avoided if he’d been around to see the signs? Travis had taken James’s leaving pretty hard, that much James knew.

“So how about you?” Duane’s words cut into James’s thoughts. “What happened to you?”

James gave a slight chuckled. If only he had the answer to that question. “I wish I knew,” he said.

“You just woke up one day and said, ‘Sorry, Lord, but I do believe this dance is over’?”

James shrugged. “Something like that.”

“Wow. I imagine that’s going to be a messy divorce.”

James smiled at that, but the humor quickly faded as the ironic reality of Duane’s words hit him with gale force. Messy was an understatement. His life was shredded into such tiny strips he didn’t know if it could ever be restitched into a recognizable pattern. Who in his right mind divorced God? Was that even possible without doing irreparable damage to the soul?

Duane reached for the door to the rink and pulled it open. The scrape of skate blades against the ice mingled with the clack of hockey sticks. A whistle blew and the shouts of a coach echoed through the hall.

James and Duane climbed the bleachers and settled in to watch the scrimmage. The game started and a single boy caught James’s attention. He recognized Duane’s son as the kid raced down the ice gliding the puck along the smooth surface of the ice.

“Remind you of anyone,” Duane asked.

James glanced at Duane, took note of the pride shining in Duane’s eyes. “He’s good. Much better than I ever was.”

“Not so sure about that, but he is good.”