“We’re almost there,” Charlotte shouts, waving her cane at a clearing in the trees illuminated by thin, end-of-day sunlight, a dull spotlight on the stage of their memories. There is a massive old apple tree, the wizened apples glowing red, the branches tumbling down like arthritic grey limbs. They walk toward the clearing, the only sound the wind whispering in the leaves.

Elizabeth constantly told him life should be lived in pursuit of what Herzog called the ecstatic truth. A truth Adam should hunt for after she was gone if he wanted any real peace of mind. She was very ill by then, but he was still shocked when she died. He hadn’t expected the wrath lurching up in his body, an irrational and shameful fury at how Elizabeth had abandoned him with two small, helpless children, as though she had done it on purpose.

Adam knows now it was a terrible fear and sorrow hiding behind the rage. Grief would be tender and quiet, Adam had assumed. But instead he found himself running laps around the pond in the back of the house every night while the children lay asleep in bed, and he hoped they wouldn’t wake up alone while he screamed in the woods, fleeing from the stupid ecstatic truth chasing behind him under the dark, sinister sky. Even then the grids and panels in his mind were slipping.

His wife’s funeral was packed with friends and colleagues and extended family. Cousin Herman standing at the back of the sanctuary, staring at the coffin. The little girls skipping up and down the aisle between the pews, Aster tripping on the thick red carpet. She hit her chin on the wooden pew and Herman helped her up. She held his big rough hand until she stopped crying. Then the girls ran up the aisle and sat by the altar, the young priest smiling at them.

Later, at the reception, Aster and Julia asking when Mommy was going to be coming home. Tears leaking from Adam’s eyes as Herman put squares and cookies in a plastic bag. No use good food going to waste, Herman said. He hadn’t shaved or combed his long stringy hair and he was wearing a plaid hunting jacket and work boots. Herman lived in a mobile home near the gravel pit, right by Johnny’s Burger.

A few months after the funeral Herman was arrested for punching the mail delivery person.

Adam was stuck with the old women, but at least not with Herman and his stringy hair and his hatred for the mailman who never brought the mail anymore. Herman was like Elizabeth. He did as he pleased, whenever he was so moved, with no hesitation, no regret. Courage or insanity, Adam wasn’t sure. They were like backwoods crusaders in an obscure comic. Adam is simultaneously drawn to and repelled by their way of living outside the grid. Nothing ever storyboarded, spontaneity the order of the day, never a glimpse of cowardice or regret.