What are we to do with all this pain?

How do we overcome longing

Admit our losses and stop stop stop

Our high-pitched laments?

I’ve begun to find notes

In my own handwriting:

“How many days must one go without hope?”

Can’t be helped; look up there

Even the inner curve of the moon

Has been chewed.

Tom figured if he recited his poem out loud, Dave would laugh. Or maybe not. Didn’t matter, because Tom wasn’t prepared to take a chance that day.

There was something else he hadn’t mentioned. Since Ida’s death, he’d begun to write his poems at the back of the planet notebook, working his way through the pages from right to left. It was as if he’d begun to compose in Hebrew or Arabic. He decided this was a symptom of missing Ida, his Ida affliction. He’d been turned back to front: What was there to understand?

HE WAS APPROACHING the town’s outskirts now and thought of the slim pickings in his fridge. Will’s four-day visit was over and the fridge was empty. His son, a tall fellow, had always been a big eater, especially during his teen years. At the end of Will’s every visit, the cupboards were bare. Tom thought of his own teen years, and the summers his mother insisted they spend with her parents in Nova Scotia. Aunts and uncles and cousins had been invited for a family supper during one visit, and at the end of the meal, one of Tom’s uncles told him: “You cleaned your plate, son, and that’s good. But I’d rather pay your board than board you.” Everyone laughed, and Tom had not forgotten the remark.

He drove directly to Marvin’s, picked up canned salmon and tuna, a bag of frozen peas, a loaf of freshly baked bread, a half chicken darkly roasted and ready to eat, three blueberry scones, a container of potato salad and a bar of dark chocolate. He added a copy of the daily paper to his grocery cart. Since Ida’s death, he’d begun to pay closer attention to the obituaries—something he hadn’t bothered about before—though he hadn’t let on the day Dave had mentioned them. Tom wasn’t morbidly interested, but he did read the mercilessly compressed details of people’s lives with more than a little sadness.

He paid for the food and his paper, raised a hand to Marvin (who was at the upstairs window) and checked the community board on the way out. One notice attracted his attention:

GRIEF DISCUSSION GROUP

What was that about? He didn’t stop to consider. He detached a tear strip from the bottom edge and tucked it into his wallet.

HIS HOUSE, THE CAPACIOUS OLD HOUSE—too big for one person now—into which he and Ida had moved three years after they married, was a few blocks from Marvin’s store. As he approached, he saw the Danzigers, neighbours from the cul-de-sac at the end of his street. He knew they were heading out for their early evening walk. The Danzigers were in their nineties and had lived on the street forever—long before Tom and Ida moved to the area. Mrs. D was wearing a scarf over her head and tied under her chin, and she was bent low over her walker, butting her head against the wind. She wasn’t able to be out without the walker anymore because her gait was unsteady. Mr. D was stumping along beside her, supported by his cane, which he brandished in greeting when he recognized Tom’s Cherokee. Tom returned the wave and manoeuvred his Jeep into the narrow garage he’d erected in 1979. Most of the structure was put together from old barn boards he’d been given by a man known to everyone as Mott. For generations, the Mott family had farmed two miles past the outskirts of town. Tom had picked up more than a few antiques from Mott descendants.