I read the e-mail, even though I told myself not to. What’s it to me? I thought. Who cares?

I did. I cared so much that I shut my computer, left the library, and walked straight to the Great Northern Bar & Grill, where in quick succession I had the aforementioned shots of Cuervo Gold.

After that I returned to the library, intent on writing October an e-mail.

How are you? I typed. Long time no talk. Congratulations on SFMoMA.

October had once told me that having a show at SFMoMA was one of her biggest dreams in life.

You did it, I wrote. Hope you’re well.

Even in my inebriated state, I knew this was a pathetic attempt at communication, particularly since it had been 949 days since I’d last seen and/or spoken to her, and I deleted the whole thing. That’s when I directed my attention to the tree, and then Patty came over.

The aspen knew I wasn’t brave. I could see it in its eyes.

“Do you know why aspens have eyes?” I asked Patty, who was standing near my chair, looking either worried or fearful; I couldn’t tell which.

“They’re shade-intolerant,” I explained. “They need light. Lots of it. They battle with their neighbors for sun, and the higher they grow, the shadier their lower branches get. So you know what they do? They basically cut off the blood supply to the lower branches so that the taller branches, the ones that get all the light, can thrive. They’re smart trees. They don’t want to expend any energy trying to save the branches in the dark. Not when the ones in the light can flourish. The lower branches eventually fall off, and that leaves a scar. That’s what the eyes are. Scars.”

“Mr. Harper,” Patty said, “I think it might be time for you to go home.”

“My home is in California,” I told her.

“Some fresh air would do you good,” she said, quietly but firmly. “Would you like me to call Sid to come and get you?”

Fucking small towns. Everybody knows everybody. Right away I started packing up my stuff because I didn’t want her to call Sid. He didn’t need to see me like that.

Sid had been my thesis adviser back at UC Berkeley more than fifteen years ago. He teaches at the Flathead Valley Community College now, twelve miles south of Whitefish. He and his teenage daughter, Maggie, had moved up to Montana after his wife died in 2009. We’d kept in touch over the years, and when I found myself wandering aimlessly around the Pacific Northwest, I called him and told him I was in a bad way. He invited me to come and stay in the little caretaker’s cabin on his property while I figured things out.

I planned on hanging around for a month or so, until I got my head back on straight.

It’s been almost three years.

Back in college, I’d written my thesis on Aristotle and his definition of happiness as it related to how well one has lived up to one’s potential as a human being, and Sid had called it exemplary. He said I was a bright, insightful thinker, and he’d granted me my degree with a warm handshake and the kind of encouraging pat on the back that could only come from someone who had no idea what a gutless failure I was going to turn out to be. Or, rather, what a gutless failure I already was.