I imagined my little Sarah at home. She had not complained about her vision for a few days, and we all seemed to relax a bit. Meg had even begun to talk again about finishing the volume of poems she had been working on for a while. I doubted she would complete the project. For years she had blamed motherhood and marriage for her lost momentum. It was probably true enough. Though I considered myself a present father and capable roommate, it was different for her, as it is different for mothers. As much as I did, she did more. But at least now she talked about the book the way she once did, and I read this as a good sign, tried to read it as good.

Still, regarding Sarah, or just in general, I had a sense of something looming. I felt myself drifting, sinking, and I didn’t want my mood to affect my time with the students, so I started thinking about things like magma formation and subduction boundaries, alluvial fans and headward erosion, canyons and V-shaped valleys. But the V-shaped valley became a metaphor in my mind for the newly formed watershed that was my daughter’s vision. We wondered for months after her birth just what color her eyes would be, dark brown like mine or amber like my wife’s. They turned light brown but not amber, so they were her own, and that turned out to be an indication of her personality, always her own person. Perhaps all parents think as we thought about our child’s individual and singular attributes, but that made her development no less unique. I always wanted to see through her eyes, to see her world. I imagined, realized, that if I could think like her, have my mind open like hers, so much of the world would be that much more available, magical, mysterious to me. I would be a better scientist, a better person, a better father.

We made a planned stop at a little convenience store in the middle of nowhere, just outside of a nothing called Ocotillo. The flat-roofed, one-story adobe was newly painted, but no amount of cosmetics could cover its age and wear. The sign was not newly painted but spelled out, peeling and weathered, Coyote Stop. We would buy sandwiches and drinks and connect before the last leg of the drive to the campsite. Many of the students had never camped before, so this isolated island of desert commerce served as a bit of a buffer between town and the true middle of nowhere. The ancient couple who owned and operated the gas station had seemed for years as old as the desert itself, and as tough and grizzled as anything that grew or lived in it, but still they carried on. They were both named Pat. Man Pat was a squat man with broad shoulders, clearly at one time quite muscular, and thick glasses. Woman Pat was built similarly, and though she walked with a severe limp, she somehow managed a kind of dancy grace.