A Wife Who Wants Beauty - Part 8

The girl was seven, eight at the most. Even from across the street in the dim, pulsing lights of the city, Lisa could see her eyes — bright and eager and knowing. She wore a dress, which was impractical in her position, with torn pink stockings and black tennis shoes. There was a park across the street from the hotel where Harold and Lisa stopped at the valet stand and made one last check of clothing and makeup on their way into the banquet. Lisa noticed the girl right away. And the newspapers.

She sat on the ground in front of a green metal park bench which supported a mass of ragged clothing and shopping bags that looked to conceal an adult, lying down. Over the mass was a layered array of newspapers serving as a quilt. The girl was taking selections from the quilt, choosing them carefully for her purposes, and tying slips of the newsprint into bows. Three already adorned her matted hair, tossing in the December breeze in unison with the edges of the quilt.

It didn't help. Lisa wondered if the little girl knew that her bows didn't look pretty; they only served to make the scene she occupied more pathetic. Lisa saw her as a gawker sees a Monet. She stared at her idly but intensely and absently shook her head. Something told her she shouldn't think of the girl as an exhibit, as if the valet might become a docent and point out the detail in the girl's bright green, threadbare scarf. But she couldn't help it. She saw her from across the street, but she knew the scene perfectly.

She knew the most minor details — the endless arrangement of strips of pulp that never seemed to align just right; the frailty of the bows; the way they seemed less pretty over time; the gnawing awareness that the bows weren't working; the drive to ignore that awareness; the little girl's fear of looking at the fluttering heap of newsprint behind her because she knew what she would see. She would see someone she didn't understand. Forces larger than her, cosmic and random and unexplained and unfair. Regret. Rejection in the form of charity. Ugliness.

One of the bows blew away from the girl's fingers and both of them watched it tumble down the street, then crash and crumple into the gutter.

A Wife Who Wants Beauty - Part 7

The fifth surgery was a mistake, a step backward. It would take a sixth to undo the damage of the fifth. She only hoped the seventh would move the cause forward.

Harold had long since given up on dissuading her. He called from the closet to ask where his tie was. It had been years since he wore it — probably since the fated Christmas party of which they had stopped speaking.

Lisa was in front of the mirror again. She labored there for hours each day, either putting on or taking off various modules of her public face. Tonight, she started a half-hour early. She was going to stand in front of people tonight — hundreds of people — and smile and receive an award.

Ten months before, after stumping through hundreds of storefront businesses and scores of networking lunches, Lisa had landed an account that would set her for all of the surgeries she wanted. Grand Properties managed more than one hundred apartment communities, with more on the way. They would advertise for years to come. Grand had also provide other introductions until, on this night in December, Lisa was primping for a banquet where she would receive the Matilda Thacker Award for the paper's top salesperson.

A Wife Who Wants Beauty - Part 6

The second plastic surgeon declared the second surgery a success, though Lisa wanted a second opinion. The skin looked stretched to her. The second opinion on the second surgery led to a second job, this one in retail, and a third surgery. The third surgery begat a third job and the fourth begat a fourth. The fourth job was selling newspaper advertising.

It was a dying breed, the newspaper advertiser. A diaspora of dreamers and traditionalists who believed they could make business dreams come true with a loss leader and a catchy slogan stamped onto paper as cheap as their promises. They had to know, Lisa thought, that only a very few people would actually read their ads and that every single copy would be burned, shredded, recycled or lining the cages of pet gerbils within a week. Surely they knew, but she wasn't going to tell them.

After all, she had made a habit of not stating the obvious. She did not cry, "Unclean! Unclean!" on her way through the Starbucks line. If they couldn't see what everyone else could see - if they couldn't admit the inevitable, then she wasn't going to try to persuade them.

To Lisa, this was progress; from the back corner cubical hidden from view to the out-front salesperson for a very public entity. To many local businesses, especially those like bondsman and personal injury attorneys with ties to lots of local news stories, she was the face of the paper.

A Wife Who Wants Beauty - Part 5

The most daunting opponent in Lisa's War On Ugly was not her cheek or her third cervical nerve: it was money. Harold had proved a caring nurse and a devoted lover. If her repulsiveness had ever affected him (how could it not? she thought) he never showed it. He assured her that he loved her inward beauty; he loved her for who she was, not what she looked like.

He was lying.

Or at least she imagined he was. She doubled her gym visits and started to look for work. Harold was doing many good things, but he wasn't funding her War.

Lisa hadn't worked since their wedding, seven years before. They had intended to start a family right way, but that hadn't materialized. Somehow, she imagined, her body was broken on the inside before the accident scarred the outside. Maybe, in a way, it was poetic. Maybe it was time for everyone to see how ugly her empty womb looked.

The first job that came along was in bookkeeping. She answered a want ad in the newspaper, got a call the next day, an interview the next week, and an offer the week after that. She took it. She had a bachelor's degree in accounting, though she had been convinced she would never use it. Her new employer was a family-owned plastics company that manufactured the black caps on syringe plungers. The accounting department had three members. When her new boss, Oscar, walked her to her cubical on the first day, she immediately descended to a darker mood.

Her cube was in the back corner of an office bullpen, hidden by windowless walls and empty desks. She was two cubes removed from her nearest coworker. As if to explain, Oscar pointed out that this cubical was closest to the filing cabinets she would use most.

On Oscar's tour of the facility, they passed the sales department where shiny-haired girls in pencil skirts were zipping up a trade show booth. They shook her hand and smiled faintly, each whispering a silent prayer of gratitude, Lisa suspected, that they weren't deformed.

She worked there for six months and put all her earnings into a health savings account. She scheduled the second surgery before giving her notice. She was packing a cardboard box with the few personal items from her desk when she pondered that the surgery would require an injection. In the consultation with the surgeon the week before, she had learned that Botox would be used. She had worked for six months helping a company make little plastic discs for the right to use one of them on herself. She smirked crookedly, lifted the box, and walked away from her desk. She didn't look back.

A Wife Who Wants Beauty - Part 4

The first surgery was a gift. Her church raised half the cost and a plastic-surgeon-friend-of-a-friend discounted the rest.

The improvement was dramatic. Her friends, who always seemed to see the bright side of Lisa's devastation, used phrases like, "beautiful", "natural" and "good as new."

They were liars.

Lisa knew her face wasn't "good as new." "Less hideous" would have been more accurate. The cheek held higher and appeared firmer, but it still drooped unnaturally, and the tell-tale ripples of loose skin under her eye still winked at her in the mirror.

She thanked the doctor and the church, and secretly resolved to continue her campaign.

A Wife Who Wants Beauty - Part 3

It was a Sunday night when the truth came to Lisa that attitudes were shifting from sympathy to apathy. She was in the bathroom alone, undertaking the tedious process of removing makeup from her jowl. It had been four months since the accident and she no longer expected to see beauty when she looked in the mirror. She expected to see a sagging cheek pulled grotesquely away from the right eye socket. She expected to see an absence of symmetry reflecting the absence of a working third cervical nerve.

She sagged elsewhere too. With a full schedule of doctor visits and a full complement of stinging stares from the pony-tailed, firm-bodies girls at the gym, exercise had become difficult. Her shoulders slumped. Her hair seemed to clump and drape like willow leaves in rain. Her mirrored ghost appeared as more of a puddle than a person — slack, and lifeless, stretching and distorting its reflection in a polluted medium with little radiating ripples marking the violence.

She had been to church that day. There were the usual hugs and well-wishes from people she had known for decades. But there was a difference in their approach, an ambivalence she barely noticed at the time but seemed impossible to ignore in front of the mirror.

They were distancing.

All the prayers and assurances for healing had gone silent, and now people weren't sure how to treat her, as she wasn't sure how she should be treated. As a pariah? As a project? As a charity case? A survivor? Was she to refuse to let it affect her? Refuse to acknowledge the damage and refuse to let others do so? That was noble but disingenuous. The truth was that it did affect her, all of her.

Was she to "own it" and address it? Come to it with a matter-of-fact acceptance that made it sound like she was talking about the weather? That appealed to her but, given that she was still crying over the ugliness every night, it hardly seemed possible.

She decided, or rather the face in the mirror decided and informed Lisa, that there would be no ignoring or owning. There would only be struggle; a dragging, tear-streaked siege of the ugliness. A prolonged campaign to get herself back in shape.

A Wife Who Wants Beauty - Part 2

The least affected by the accident, at least physically, was the other driver. He walked away with only bruises, though his walk was short and ended at the back seat of a squad car. Thomas Thacker had been a city councilman for less than a month. At the Brookwood Country Club's Christmas party that night, he had celebrated much. The year had brought him to public office, to a corner office with his law firm, and to the manager's office at a luxury car dealership where he was handed the keys to a jet black XK. Thacker blew a point-two-three.

His mug shot was on the front page of the local newspaper that Lisa found folded on the table next to her hospital bed. Harold was asleep in a chair that didn't quite recline far enough. It was dark and quiet except for the ubiquitous beeping of medical machinery — a syncopated reminder that life is fragile. Lisa realized she was in a regular room. There were none of the curtains and gurneys and rushed voices of the ICU she remembered from the last time she was awake. And she realized that she couldn't turn her head, discouraged from moving by a faint instinctive memory and by a thick armor of bandage from chin to collar bone.

She reached for the newspaper and read the account of her near-death. Thacker hadn't seen the Meunsters until he hit them. Harold's instinctive steering had kept them on the road for another four hundred feet after the initial collision, only to be sideswiped again. The second collision had sent the Honda rolling. Thacker had been released on bail, but his future looked grim. Lisa stopped reading after the quote from the mayor.

"If you're the cause of an alcohol-related accident that nearly kills a young couple on their way home from a church Christmas party on Friday, you can't expect to sit in council chambers on Monday as if nothing ever happened."

A Wife Who Wants Beauty - Part 1

It was an eyelash curler that impaled Lisa Meunster's neck. The only thing metal in the car's cabin and it happened to be in her hand at the moment of impact. She wasn't using it, at least not for curling eyelashes. It was a prop for her story about Sylvia and Mary and an undercooked hamburger. Then it was a weapon.

When the Jaguar crushed the front quarter panel and snapped the from axle of the Meunster's Honda, Lisa was pushed forward and to the right against the passenger door, and the eyelash curler, one metal ring still looped around her finger, was jammed between the door handle and her neck. In the days that followed, doctors would explain to Lisa that the eyelash curler had pierced the sternocleidomasoid muscle and split the tiny gap between the internal and external jugular veins. She had been incredibly lucky, they would say. The eyelash curler had been inserted from the front and then levered to the right as if to pry her esophagus out the front of her neck. This prying motion had severed the third cervical nerve, and that was to be the source of Lisa's trouble, though she wouldn't know that for several days.

There were other lucky breaks, she would be told. It had been raining that evening and the car rolled into the median where soft soil slowed it more gradually than the freeway would have. Harold would be released from the hospital the same day. His fractured left tibia might never return to full strength; he would probably have a limp. But he was alive and he would be sitting by Lisa's ICU bed when she woke up.

"Thank God you had your seat belts on," they would say.
"Thank God the kids weren't with you."
"Thank God it wasn't worse."

When their car came to rest, Harold was unconscious and Lisa was hanging helplessly from her seat belt. Their Accord lay on its left side so that Lisa, in the passenger seat, was hoisted into the air. Getting ready for their third Christmas party that month, she had chosen a red dress with a lace hem that encircled her knees, and a white blazer. She felt a pain in her neck — she wasn't sure why — and realized, with surprising disgust given the circumstances, that her clothes were ruined. Bloody streaks of red made it look as if her dress was bleeding onto the white of her favorite blazer.

From her position there — in a ditch, hanging from a seat belt, looking at her unconscious husband, with an eyelash curler sticking out of her neck — Lisa could see through the moonroof toward the freeway they had just left and the city skyline behind. It twinkled. Broken glass was sprinkled with water and the lights blurred and pulsed. Lisa thought it looked exactly like one of the pre-loaded wallpapers on her smart phone, beautiful and out of focus.

The Theology of Christmas Poop

My pastor's sermon yesterday reminded me of a conversation about poop I had with my grade-schooler recently.

Now, I'm not insinuating that the sermon was a load of crap. In fact, I thought it was very good. I have heard crappy sermons before, but I don't think I've ever heard one from Dr. Andy McQuitty. No, what reminded me of the poop talk was Andy's analogy about physical and spiritual bread. Let me see if I can walk this fine line between blasphemy and boorishness to explain what I mean.

Andy talked about a passage in John 6 wherein Jesus feeds 5,000 men and then calls himself the "bread of life". Andy said that the common criticism of religion that it is for the weak is akin to saying that food is for the weak. We wouldn't call someone weak because they feed their body, nor should we call someone weak when they feed their soul. I agree with Andy's premise, but I think I would have come at it a different way. And that's where the poop comes in.

A few months ago, I had one of those conversations you can only have with a seven-year-old boy. My son asked me, "Dad, does God poop?" I had to think about the answer. Was there an answer to that question? And did the answer matter? Or should I just roll my eyes at the kid and tell him not to be silly. After a little reflection I was surprised to realize that, yes, there is a theological truth in the answer to my son's question, one that matters a great deal. I told him, "No, son. God doesn't poop. You know why he doesn't poop? Because he doesn't eat. And you know why he doesn't eat? Because God doesn't need food or water or air or any other source of life outside himself." God is entirely sovereign and self-sufficient. He doesn't rely on any provision. He doesn't need any fuel outside of himself. He is, in fact, the only being of which this is true.

Which brings me back to Andy's discussion of the Bread of Life. I think Andy is right, but I also agree with that old saying about religion. It is for the weak. It is for those of us — meaning all of us — who are not entirely self-sufficient.

Eating is an act of humility, just as is every habit of human survival. Every time we surrender to sleep, every time we draw a breath, every time we tuck into a quarter pounder with cheese, we are making a tiny confession that we are needy, we are temporal, we are weak, we are not God. Isn't it interesting how often we are reminded of our neediness — three times a day by growling stomachs, once a day by heavy eyelids, countless times by our emotions — and yet we can forget to acknowledge this most basic truth?

And that's where Andy's analogy was going. It would take a delusionally proud person to insist that they don't have the human weakness that requires food. And yet we are often proud enough to insist that we don't have the weakness that requires the Bread of Life.

There's one more angle to this theology of poop which is appropriate during yuletide. Christmas is the time when we celebrate that, among other things, God pooped. The all-sufficient, all-mighty, sovereign God of heaven — the Ancient of Days who had never known need, never lacked for food, never feared the future or fretted over scarcity — became human, humbled himself at his birth, at his family dinner table, and in ancient Palestinian latrines in order to offer us the Bread of Life.

Somewhere, between learned lectures of my pastor and the uncouth innocence of my son's potty ponderings, I was given a lesson about God and humankind and poop. If that's not a Christmas miracle, I don't know what is.

Victory In Clay Jars

Considering Paul's words in 2 Corinthians 4 this morning:

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 

Paul isn't foretelling a glorious victory here for the Christian. He doesn't foresee a triumphant parade for the believer overcoming the spiritual attacks and physical hardships of life. This would not pass muster with the modern American prophets of profit and progress. If you were to tease out a definition of Christian victory from Paul's words here it would be something like "survival". We are perplexed, persecuted and struck down, but not completely destroyed. So at least there's that. Paul is playing not to lose. He seems happy with the moral victory; at least it's not utter defeat. His message might be rendered thus:

"Life is hard for a Christian in the world. After all, it was hard for our leader so we shouldn't expect any different. But hunker down and stay alive. Bend but don't break. We can get through this thing."

Not exactly uplifting.

Of course, the circumstances surrounding Paul's writing are all temporary. A great victory does await when Jesus comes to make all things new. But I think there's some realism in Paul's words that make them appealing, if not inspiring; appealing, at least, to those among us whom life has beaten up.

Jesus said our enemy wants to steal, kill and destroy. Sometimes his destruction comes calamitously — as quick as a gunshot. But just as often he prefers to grind rather than explode. He lays siege to our souls, one disappointment, one failed relationship, one blunted hope, one tiny betrayal at a time. He means to starve us out — to weaken our constitution by degrees until surrender seems advisable, hope pitiable, destruction preferable.

I'm intrigued by the ways scripture instructs to resist evil. Sometimes, we are meant to confront it or expel it (1 Cor. 5:13). Other times, we are told to flee from it (1 Cor. 6:18). Sometimes, though, we are meant to bear it, to "stand up under it" (1 Cor. 10:13). It may be that the best way to combat the attack of a thousand tiny offenses is with a thousand tiny redemptions. So we kiss and make up again, we tuck our kids again, we show up to teach that Sunday school class again, we forgive again, choose love over selfishness again, we ignore the temptation again.

Paul knew what it was to suffer dramatically for the gospel, in shipwrecks and floggings and imprisonment. But he also knew what it's like to feel the siege works pressing in, to endure the daily drumming doldrums that drift us toward despair. And to both circumstances, his message was the same: this life is going to beat you up, especially if you stand for the gospel. Endure it with dignity. Your hope is its own victory.

And your victory will be sweet.

Our Father In Heaven

My friend Nat has three boys in their 20s. It scares me to death to talk to him. His sons are making decisions now that will affect the rest of their lives. They are facing situations that require wisdom and virtue and nuanced thought.

My kids can't decide which pants to wear.

As a parent, I feel responsible to help my kids mature, to grow in character and in capacity to face life's challenges. It occurs to me that God has faced the same challenges with his children.

Last week at church, my pastor explained some of the theological implications of the Last Supper. Jesus was replacing old ways with new. He put himself in the place of the paschal lamb; he is the final sacrifice. He put himself in place of Moses; he is leading the new exodus. He put himself in place of the passover feast; his body and blood sustain us. And he put himself in place of God's first position as our heavenly father — the lawgiver.

God's first interaction with humans (after he made them from dust and whatnot) was to give them a command: don't eat this fruit. In the years between Adam and Jesus, those heavenly laws had expanded to more than 600. The law was a big deal to the culture where Jesus ministered. And Jesus put himself in its place. He said, "A new law I give you: love one another."

What does this have to do with parenting? I think our experience of parenting reflects God's experience with the human race. We parents have to start our relationships with our children with rules focused on behavior: Don't touch that. Don't eat that. Don't hit your sister with that. Our kids don't always understand our rules, and sometimes they rebel against them. They have to learn to trust their parents to know more than they do, and to have their best interests at heart. But we don't want them to stay there. A child must grow not only to trust her parents, but to learn the reasons behind her parents' rules. The goal of parenting isn't just to breed obedient children, but to train up children beyond childish lessons — to become co-adults.

God has done the same thing. The entire sweep of the Bible is from law to grace, from a focus on behavior to a focus on our hearts, from adolescence to maturity, from the concrete to the abstract, from certainty to mystery. We, as a species, have been parented. We have been discipled into deeper understanding of God and his purposes in the world. We are called to higher, nobler, wiser responses to our Father than dumb obedience out of fear.

Of course there is one critical difference between us and God: we will never replace him. We will never put God in a celestial assisted living home and become our own gods to our own little creatures. We will forever be his children. He will always be wiser, higher, and better than us. And that's a good thing because sometimes we face decisions and situations that are, frankly, much too big for us — decisions that affect lives and fortunes and futures and kingdoms. And, if we're honest, some days we can't even decide which pants to wear.

Funeral Reminders

I've been to too many funerals lately. A month ago, a close friend buried his uncle. Two weeks ago, a family in my ministry buried their 11-year-old daughter. Then last week, my church laid to rest one of its patriarchs. Every one of those losses was painful. I watched all three families cry and grieve and sometimes struggle for breath. But as much as funerals are difficult and painful, they are also essential and good. Death is not good, but funerals can be. I never leave a funeral wishing I hadn't gone. Here's why.

Funerals remind us of our mortality. You wouldn't think we need reminding. After all, everyone knows they're going to die. But we often live like we've forgotten. Death no longer happens in our homes or even with our families. Death in our culture is often shrouded by beeping machines and IV tubes and waiting rooms and hospice care. We don't kill to eat and we don't witness death in our own species, so, most days, we go about our lives as if death weren't real.

I was encouraged when I saw that my friend burying his uncle brought his kids to the funeral. It's hard to talk to grade-schoolers about death. But then, it's hard to talk to 40-year-olds about death too. If we're going to live well, we're going to have to do hard things; we're going to have to face hard truths, like the truth that we are mortal.

At the funeral I went to last week, a friend of the deceased summarized his friend's character with three words: empathy, kindness and gratitude. I wondered what three words my friends will use to eulogize me someday. (Probably confusion, dereliction, and fetor, but that's another post.) That, I believe, is a good exercise — to imagine our eulogies, even to aspire to one. I wonder if we would all be better off if we held funerals for our living friends about once per decade, just as a sort-of report card on their lives. I like to think the eulogies would get better.

But funerals don't only force us to face death and encourage us to live well. They do something else.

Funerals remind us of our immortality. We need this second reminder more than the first. As much as we tend to forget our mortality, at least death is something we can see. We file past the open casket and cast our eyes upon the proof of our mortality. But we don't get to see eternity before we enter it. And oh, how we long for a glimpse! It tells us who we most truly are — not accidental collections of biological odds and ends, but players in a cosmic, eternal story; children of God. It tells us where we're going — not to the grave but to the sky, not to an end but to a beginning.

At last week's funeral, the pastor read C.S. Lewis — the last paragraph of the last book of the Chronicles of Narnia — which describes the experience of the Pevensie children after their death in a railway accident. (Yes, one of the most joyous and innocent stories in all of children's literature includes the death of children!)

And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before. 

If you've ever gone to a Christian funeral and you thought it was all about mourning and despair, you missed the point. It's a send-off, a farewell party, a great big emotional flower-laden arrivederci; a space in our togetherness, as Khalil Gibran would say. Because we will see them again, in a story that keeps getting better and better.

We serve the God of life; therefore life is good, death is bad, and humanity hounded by mortality is not the way things are supposed to be. But when we gather for a home-going we are reminded of truths that outlast life and a God who outshines death. And any gathering that accomplishes that is a good thing.

Author's Note

At the risk of over-explaining, I wanted to add a quick note regarding "A Mountaineer Who Wants To Kill". It was so much fun to write! And I dug in to invest much more time and energy in it than the other stories in my summer writing exercise. Even so, I realize that I made several factual mistakes. The entirety of my climbing knowledge has been acquired from one book and a few Discovery Channel episodes. So mistakes were bound to happen. For instance, I know now that Mt. Everest can't be seen from any vantage point in Kathmandu. Also, I'm sure that, despite much Google-ing, I screwed up some of the information about camps, seasons, and equipment used in climbing the word's highest peak.

Still, I hope the ride was enjoyable. I meant to create a yin-and-yang sort-of duality to the story — Aaron's life for Dawa's; Turner's life for Robert's. Every scene has a pair of some kind, and the final scene refers to a kind-of mysterious balance.

So if you're a world-class climber and you were offended by my ignorance, I apologize. The best way to keep that from happening again is to take me to Nepal with you.

A Mountaineer Who Wants To Kill - Part 6

Aaron lunged forward and hooked his ice axe around both of Turner's ankles. The Kiwi fell hard and slid off the mountain.

For an instant, Aaron was surprised at how smoothly the plan had worked. As expected, both sherpas had taken ill, but Turner's clients had insisted that he take them to the top. Aaron stepped in to offer his sherpa who could care for the clients, leaving Aaron and Turner to climb together behind. The only other obstacle had been detaching Turner from the fixed ropes. Just as dawn was breaking they had taken a knee to catch their breath just above the South Summit. From there, the climb was steep but smooth up to the Hillary Step. The path followed just a few feet on the Chinese side of a ridge that marked the top of an upturned slab of snow-covered granite the size of a city block. The slope pointed sharply toward a glacier four thousand feet below. Aaron looked above and behind. Four climbers could be seen in each direction, but none were close enough to see what would happen next; none close enough to assign blame. Aaron unclipped his climbing partner as he stood from the breather, waited for him to turn to face the mountain, then, without really considering his actions, without remorse, like an athlete who had trained for this very move, lunged at Turner's legs.

That's where it should have ended. Aaron was just about to exhale, just about to breathe deep for the first time since his father's death, just about to see the sunrise over endless craggy peaks. But that didn't happen. It couldn't. The mountain was out of balance and had to right itself.

Aaron felt his right foot jerk away from the snow. Turner had slowed his slide enough to fling his unclipped rope toward Aaron. It wrapped around his leg and now both men were trying to arrest their slide.

Aaron came level with Turner. They were stopped but clinging desperately to ice axes with barely a half inch of purchase. Turner's red cap had fallen off and his face was a pink smudge of blood and snow. He hissed at Aaron.

"What the hell, Aaron? What are you doing?"

Aaron struggled to kick into the ice with his crampons and refused to answer. Turner reached for him and Aaron slapped him away.

"I'm killing you. Like you killed my dad."

Turner stopped struggling and stared at Aaron, breathing hard, his exposed face already succumbing to frostbite. "I—"

Aaron tried to kick at Turner but his axe slipped and sent him six more feet down the slope, his head even with Turner's feet. He saw turner slide a foot back along the snow and then bring it forward fast to kick at him. Aaron grabbed the foot, one of the crampons digging into his wrist through the down parka.

"Let go, you little prick!" Turner screamed. "I swear I'll kill you too!"

Aaron reached higher and caught Turner's harness, then his shoulder. The Kiwi was flailing and swinging his free hand, but couldn't land a punch. Aaron lay on top of him now, both of them breathing hard through frozen blood and spittle. Turner jerked his head back square against Aaron's nose. Aaron felt the warmth of blood running over his beard and down the neck of his parka. "Why'd you do it?" he whispered, his head right next to Turner's ear.

Turner coughed and choked. Aaron's weight was pulling the parka against his throat. "Your dad was an asshole. He was sticking his nose in my business."

"You mean because he didn't want you bringing fat cat retirees up here?"

Turner jerked his head back again. He missed this time, but the jerk started another slide. They went twenty more feet down the mountain before Turner's axe stopped them again. Aaron looked over his shoulder. Two hundred feet below, the granite slab ended and the free fall began. There was a truce, both men trying to catch their breath. Aaron looked to his left. Sunlight was just reaching the jagged horizon now. Purple peaks tickled the bottom of a pink sky. An airliner glided silently over the mountains to their west, below them. Turner said, "I'm sorry," and Aaron thought he heard him cry.

The wind was calmer this far down from the ridge. It was quiet for several long minutes except for their breathing and Turner's faint whimpers. Aaron closed his eyes and breathed deep. He could smell his blood and his sweat and the ropes, the crisp, bitter cold, the sunlight and snow and harness and a broken handle and a dutch oven and a cheap, tinny stereo. He laughed.

Turner must have interpreted that as forgiveness; he said, "Let's get off this slope."

Aaron thought of his father, and of Dawa Lob-sang. He smiled again and reached for Turner's axe. "Yeah, he said. Let's do that." And he lifted the axe from the ice.

Turner bumped and jostled under him as they slid, a jarring ride like the stiff old suspension in a mud-caked blue 4Runner. Aaron watched the landscape speed past and felt himself sliding over washboard dirt roads. Turner's screams were pitched high and thin. They warbled and soared like a guitar solo. They were all together: Aaron and Trevor, Dawa and Dad. Sliding and bouncing into eternity, across sun-speckled granite, through daybreak breezes, to another mountain ramble with Steely Dan.

A Mountaineer Who Wants To Kill - Part 5

Aaron crouched over the tiny burner in his tent, aware that he was playing with fire. And poison. Poison had worked once, he thought. He hoped it would work again. This time, Aaron only wanted to cause illness, not death. It was a risky move — so many variables. If he diluted the risin too much, he would miss the opportunity. If he left it too strong, he could kill innocents. And there was no telling what effect the altitude would add.

He was at Camp Two, the busiest and most boring stop on the journey to the roof of the world, the place where dozens of climbers were leaving and arriving every day, ferrying gear up from lower camps, wrestling through thin sleep, willing their bodies to adjust to the air. Most of the time spent here was in tents, trying to sleep, melting snow, and waiting through the slow and unreliable process of acclimatization. It was evening. Through the unzipped vestibule of his tent, Aaron could see a blood red sun dropped into the slot of sky between the walls of the Western Cwm. Above the sun were hundreds of colors as varied as the tents in the little nylon village at Camp Two.

Of the twelve expeditions on the mountain, nine had climbers at Camp Two. Though high and cold and cramped, there was a festive atmosphere. Climbers shouting to one another from tent to tent. Jokes and hopes passed on the whistling wind. Aaron screwed the cap on the thermos of poisoned tea and set out to offer it to two men he had never met.

Trevor Turner had made four successful ascents of Everest, each time with at least two sherpas. While most climbers took only their most trusted aid to the top, Turner felt the need for additional support. That meant three men in one tent, which meant a larger tent, which meant a bullying campaign to find a wide enough spot to pitch it. Aaron forced himself to smile when he called out through the logo-rippled nylon.

"Room service for the Turner Trio?"

There was a chuckle and a grunt and then the tent's vestibule zipped open. Trevor Turner's gold-topped head erupted from the zipper. He looked both confused and pleased at what he saw. Aaron held out two mittened fists, one with a Thermos of tea, the other with a metal flask. "A drink for good luck?"

Aaron had to squat in the entrance of the tent, not able to crowd in past the vestibule. Turner greeted him with an energetic but furtive smile. Said it was good to see him on the mountain again. Aaron did his best to create a jovial reunion. He passed the Thermos to one of the sherpas, met his eyes, smiled, and gave a little bow with his shoulders. Then he unscrewed the cap on the flask and handed it to Turner, "Tea for the buddhists. Something stronger for us."

Aaron asked about Turner's clients — a middle-aged couple who were both here for the first time and had almost zero qualifications for their attempt save for the two that meant the most to Turner — their large bank account and their New Zealand citizenship. They were in the tent next door, probably asleep. Turner talked about the weather like he had planned it. They talked about rugby because Turner must always talk about rugby. They talked about Dawa Lob-sang and Prenesh Ghode. In less than fifteen minutes both the Thermos and the flask were empty and handed back to Aaron. He pocketed them and slipped on his mittens.

"Aaron," Turner said. "It was good of you to stop by. I should have reached out more since since your dad … I should have checked on you."

Aaron tried to smile. "I thought you and Dad had a falling out."

Turner shifted uneasily on his sleeping bag. "I guess we disagreed, but there's no use holding on to that now."

"About what?"

"It's not important."

"It might be to me. What did you disagree about?"

Turner shifted again and studied Aaron's face. He wasn't going to escape the question so he sighed and said, "Business. I climb for business. He climbed for love. He wanted to keep the mountain for people like himself."

"You mean climbers?"

"Everyone on the mountain is a climber, Aaron."

"The couple next door? They're climbers? He's a surgeon, right?"

"He's camping at sixty-one hundred meters; he's a climber."

"I see. And you and dad fought over that?"

"I'm sorry to say we fought on the morning he passed."

Aaron gathered his feet under him and reached for the zipper. He turned to the sherpas with a smile. "I hope that keeps you warm tonight," he said. "Big day starts in a few hours."

Both sherpas smiled, mute.

"He was a good man and a great climber," Turner said, his tone trying to rescue something.

"Yes, he was."

A Mountaineer Who Wants To Kill - Part 4

Trevor Turner arrived at Advanced Base Camp like Charlemagne, leading a procession of people and equipment so colorful and so expensive that it was hard to interpret it as anything but a claim to kingship. Turner was the most visible and most successful among a crop of Everest guides from New Zealand who enjoyed playing the mountaineering underdog. Their assertion was that, despite the starstruck claims of Europe and America, of Reinhold Messner and Alex Lowe and George Mallory, New Zealand was the cradle of mountaineering greatness. And all the knighthoods and accolades from the West only reinforced their zeal.

Sunlight broke through a week-long cloud as if to trumpet the arrival. From the uphill edge of camp, Aaron watched Turner shake hands with other guides and their clients, working the crowd like a politician at a black-tie fundraiser. It was the same job, Aaron thought; stealing loyalties, forging alliances, asking for "support" in the form of guide fees that rose to Himalayan heights. He wore red from head to toe, the most high-tech gear and clothing, splattered with the logos of climbing's biggest sponsors, and gilded by a sweep of wavy blond hair that framed his broad, skull-capped head. His gait was easy and even, almost floating across the jumbled tallus field, greeting and hugging fellow climbers, welcoming them into his exclusive fraternity of the mountaineering cool. Turner smiled his way to the communications tent — the only collection of shared equipment on the mountain and a sort-of command post for all twelve expeditions making their bid that year. When Turner ducked into the tent, his caravan was still appearing over the moraine ridge in two lines a quarter mile behind him.

It was May first. The best guides had been on the mountain for three weeks already, spending valuable resources on the invisible processes of planning and acclimatization, and waiting for the skies to clear. The forecasts called for clouds to move out in the next few days; that's when the ascents would begin. It had been an unusually wet winter and every expert was predicting a short season. By mid-May, the snow would be too unstable for an ascent. Two weeks to reach the top of the world. Two weeks to confront another of his father's killers.

A Mountaineer Who Wants To Kill - Part 3

The guest room was barely part of the permanent structure below it; more of a rooftop garden covered by corrugated metal and plywood. It wasn't plumbed. To pee, Aaron had to descend a cascade of wooden steps to a half-rotted platform that failed to hold level with the threshold of a metal bathroom door whose rust clashed viciously with its ochre paint. His room did have electricity, which is to say it had a single bare light bulb and a duplex outlet, half of which was permanently occupied by an electric space heater that threatened to set half of Kathmandu ablaze. Outside a small square window, the shadow of two buildings seemed to lean in toward one another as if peering in at Aaron's little nest. And between then, behind them, Aaron could see the sharpened, indigo peak where his father died.

There was a gentle knock on the door; Aaron jerked and spilled tea on his leg. He pulled an ice axe from a pile of equipment and leaned it beside his chair before he answered, "Come in!"

A tall man stepped into the light of the single bulb and let the door swing closed behind him. He smiled deeply, openly, without pity. His teeth shone brighter than his eyes which hid behind smudged walnut cheeks.

"Mr. Ghode?"

"Aaron. I bring you greetings. It is good for you to visit us," the man said loudly. He crossed the room faster than Aaron could stand so that his outstretched hand almost caught Aaron in the forehead as he rose.

"Please sit," Aaron said, studying his visitor carefully for a long moment while he levered his frame into a squatty wooden chair. The light bulb swayed narrowly above a metal card table and the two men. Aaron had only met the visitor once, years before, on his first visit to the Himalaya. Prenesh Ghode was a titan of Nepali industry. His "brokerage" (Aaron thought "slave market" might be more accurate) supplied more than three-fourths of all the sherpas on Everest. Though he had never climbed higher than the steps of his office building, he dressed the part of an explorer. He wore thick boots, wool slacks, and a down vest right out of an L.L. Bean catalog. Aaron sat and then remembered his manners. "Tea?"

"No, thank you friend. I hope you don't think me rude, but I cannot stay long. I have many men coming to the mountain this season. some arriving tonight."

"No worries," Aaron said and then waited for more. But the visitor only looked around the tiny room, taking inventory of its contents. Then, satisfied that he had cataloged Aaron's possessions, he turned his gaze to Aaron's eyes, as if taking measure of his thoughts. "I didn't expect to see you. How— how have you been?"

"No, I'm sure you didn't expect me," Ghode smiled. "I wasn't sure I should come but—" here he trailed off and resumed his study of the room.

"Why did you come?" Aaron asked.

"I heard you were in town and…and I'm sure you have heard about Dawa?"

"Yes. Terrible."

"Well, your arrival and his death coming so close together, I thought…I saw it as a sign. An opportunity."

"Oh? An opportunity for what?"

"To betray a secret.

Involuntarily, Aaron's left knee started to bounce as if keeping time with a rapid, barreling tune. He tried to respond casually, "Secret, huh? I'm all ears."

"Dawa Lob-sang was a dear friend. We worked together for many years. He was the best guide in Nepal."

Aaron remembered Ghode's habit of using the title "guide" for his sherpas, and the title "sponsor" for the foreign climbers charged with getting their increasingly unqualified clientele to the top of the world's highest peak.

"I was glad to see him once more before he died," Aaron said quickly.

"Yes. It's convenient that you were here when he did," Ghode paused again and eyed Aaron carefully.

"Why is that?"

"Dawa has left you an inheritance."

"What?"

"He was a frugal man with no family. After Aapti died, he had no one. His family was his fellow climbers…your father among them. He leaves you four million rupees."

Aaron was blank. Why would Dawa leave money to him? Out of guilt? A buddhist penance? And how on earth did Dawa Lob-sang have almost forty thousand dollars?

"There is something else; the secret," Ghode said.

"Tell me."

"Dawa was not there the day your father died. Your father climbed alone. Dawa refused to leave high camp that morning. There was weather and—"

"Bullshit! Dad would never have climbed alone. What the hell are you talking about?"

"I know it is hard to hear, Aaron," Ghode's tone was slower but no softer. "But it is true. They fought. And Dawa thought that Robert would not climb without him. Dawa thought he was calling a bluff. But Robert wasn't bluffing. He attempted to summit alone."

"Where are you getting this bullshit?" Aaron was standing now, looking down at Ghode with his arms crossed and his head canted aside. The light bulb lit his jaw and the steep slope of his chest, but left his eyes dark. "Who's telling you this? And why now?"

"Dawa told me on the day of Robert's funeral. He told me so I would allow him to work, but he swore me to secrecy in order to protect your father's name as a climber."

"That sonofabitch let my father die! He killed him! He made up a story so he could keep his job and you believed him?"

"That sonofabitch saved half his salary every year from that to this and has left it in an account in your name at Rastriya Banijya Bank. I have the account number," Ghode produced a slip of paper from a zippered vest pocket and laid it on the table.

"There were witnesses, Prenesh."

"Two. Trevor Turner and Sherpa Tonsing. Tonsing doesn't work for me. He refuses to discuss that day with me or anyone else. And Turner is…" Ghode looked at his unscuffed boots. "also not talking."

"And you've asked?"

"Not exactly."

"Because he's Western?"

"Kiwi. It's not wise for me to make trouble, Aaron."

"I see. Bite the hand that feeds you and all that, huh?"

"Something like that."

Aaron took his seat again and let his arms hang from slumped shoulders. He stared toward the window and fingered the tip of the ice axe still leaning against his chair.

"What, exactly, are you saying? Turner and his sherpa lied to cover Dad's ass?"

"I don't know their motives. And I don't know what happened that morning," Ghode said. "I just know it happened without Dawa Lob-sang. And I'm giving you four million reasons to believe me."

"So what am I supposed to do now?"

"That's up to you. You don't have to do anything, Aaron. Take your money and go back to America. I'll cancel your climb this year." Ghode wrestled himself out of his chair and put a hand on Aaron's shoulder. "But if you want to know how your father died, you'll have to ask Turner."

A Mountaineer Who Wants To Kill - Part 2

Aaron watched his dinner companion drink the poison, but it brought him no joy. Six years of plotting and seething were over. He had succeeded. And it was over so quickly, so casually. Just another drink like so many passed around the tavern that night, raised to smiling lips, drunk with hungry forgetfulness. Just another dead old man like so many others. Just another day in the shadow of the Mother Goddess like millions before.

The tavern was little more than a windowed closet on the upper floor of a dusty brick rowhouse along a narrow street. On the floor below was an office of some sort where men wore ties clipped to short sleeved white shirts and did their best to appear "professional" and "developed" despite the frequent sound of fistacuffs from the market across the street. It didn't matter, Aaron thought, looking down at the street through stained windows, trying not to watch too eagerly for the oncoming visitation from death. No one in the "professional" or "developed" worlds was paying attention.

The poison had been easy to get. The Nepalese version of the DEA, if there was such a thing, was apparently unconcerned with a myriad of mood-altering drugs being sold openly in bodegas, in street markets, and on street corners by bleary-eyed teens carrying their inventory in plastic milk crates on the back of scooters propelled by black smoke. It didn't take many quesions to lead from dealer to supplier to producer who could provide a drug that would alter more than one's mood. It was risin, or some Himalayan version of it. The druggist, whose shop occupied a cinder-block hut which jutted into the alley behind a butcher shop, had said it was odorless and tasteless.

Aaron's dinner companion sipped his tea slowly at first, blowing and casting stern looks across its surface as if he wasn't sure of its quality. But as the tea cooled, his consumption sped until he was gulping and calling for a second cup.

"It is so good to see you, Mr. Aaron. I am so glad you are here in Nepal. So glad to sit and have tea with Mr. Mann again, eh?" He raised his cup. "To your father."

Aaron felt a twist in his gut at the mention of the man whose death he was avenging, but he raised his cup and smiled. "Yes, to my father."

Aaron's companion was Dawa Lob-sang, a sherpa of legendary longevity with twenty-five ascents of Chomolungma to his credit, if anyone asked, which no one ever did; summit ascents were counted and congratulated by white men. Dawa was toothy and thin. His balding head shot forward from his torso and his shoulders were slender, bony and hunched. They looked pressed together as if some invisible giant were constantly squeezing him in an unwelcome hug. His face was vacant and joyful, punctuated by China teeth and a permanently-raised brow that made him look as if he was constantly expecting a punch line.

"I miss him," Dawa Lob-sang said, wiping the poisoned tea from his lips. "Your father was a good man."

Aaron Mann seethed at the guile of his father's killer. The innocence of his manner only made his feigned allegiance more vile. Aaron wondered if Dawa had been this calm when he cut his father's rope, or when he raided the tent, or when he created the cover story about a micro-blast. "A good man," Aaron repeated studying Dawa for a tick or downward glance that would betray his guilt. None was there. He turned again to peer through the grime on the window. In the street, one of the office workers was leaving loudly, shouting at someone in the office below and holding high two middle fingers.

A Mountaineer Who Wants To Kill - Part 1

Steely Dan was almost loud enough to drown out the deadening hum of the Airbus A320's engines. Aaron Mann adjusted his headphones and tried to close his eyes and see his father. This had been Dad's favorite album. He could see the elder Mann wobbling his head in rhythm with Walter Becker's guitar and the washboard road under the tires of their mud-caked 4Runner on the way to another weekend ramble through the mountains. Dad. And Steely Dan. And that rusted blue 4Runner stuffed full of rope and harnesses and a dutch oven with a broken handle. And the hum of the road like the hum of jet engines, only softer. Less angry. Less violent.

Aaron moved his hands to his lap to give Bill-the-accountant-from-Atlanta a turn with the armrest. He let his head fall to his shoulder and peeked through the window at the jumbled landscape below. The cataclysm punching those mountains toward the sky must have been enormous. The chain stretched beyond his view from forty-thousand feet, through Myanmar and into China. It was a squalid terrain where nothing living was allowed to stay, scraped by glaciers stained brown like the skid marks of nature, dotted with bitter peaks that threatened to claw the belly of the airliner. Up here, Aaron thought, it was all blues riffs and armrests, the dull drone of engines and sun-lit memories of his father. Below, it was all icefalls and tallus and spindrift.

And murder.

A Son Who Wants Love

When he was six, Sean held on to his dad's pants while the men talked and smoked in the dark on the front porch before they would all get into one car and drive away. Sometimes, his dad would turn aside toward the light of a window and check the roll of cash in his front pocket, squinting through cigar smoke while he counted. When his mother put Sean to bed on those nights, she would pray for her husband with a special earnestness that Sean didn't know what to do with besides notice.

---

When he was ten, Sean held a basketball in the driveway waiting for his dad to come home. He had promised to be home in time to practice before Sean's game. The ball felt heavy and useless in his hands. He realized he was afraid to bounce it, as if it would break into thousands of tiny orange pieces. He stared at it for a long time, wondering if it really was a basketball, realizing that the ball was growing larger and heavier and uglier, until his mother shouted that it was time to go. His father wasn't there. He wasn't at the game either.

---

When he was twelve, Sean held the door to his room closed while his father raged against the other side. He was asking about money, about where Sean's mother had hidden the cash. He wasn't drunk — Sean had seen drunk before — but he was panicked. More than once his voice broke. Was he crying? Who cries and begs for money at his son's bedroom door? Who was his father becoming, Sean wondered. Who was Sean becoming?

---

When he was sixteen, Sean held out his brand new drivers license for his parents to see. His dad seemed both proud and preoccupied at the same time. Sean wondered how a human could combine those two affectations at once. At worst, his father hated him; at best he was ambivalent.

His father asked him to go for a drive and Sean was more than happy to oblige. Maybe this was a turning point? Maybe the truth would come out? While Sean backed out of the driveway, triple-checking his blind-spots, his dad seemed overwrought. Sean expected him to make some kind of announcement.

"Sean, you're mother and I are splitting up..."
"Sean, I have to go away for a while…"
"Sean, you're a disappointment to the family and I never want to see you again…"

These are the fears of a boy on a drive with his unknown father. But all his dad said was, "I'm glad you got your license son. A car is a lot of freedom. I hope you don't misuse your freedom."

After that, they drove in silence.

What did that mean? Was that some kind of code? Was he supposed to know how to interprets dad-speak like this? Was it something every other teenage boy came by naturally, but he was missing somehow? Were other teenaged boys driving around with their dads, getting the same cryptic messages and knowing in silent understanding?

He started to ask, but his father said, "Let's go home. I don't want your mother to get worried."

---

When he was eighteen, Sean held his diploma in his right hand and swung the tassel across his cap with his left. He scanned the audience for his father, but didn't see him. Maybe he was in the back. Maybe he was proud of him even if he wasn't there.

---

When he was twenty-three, Sean held his bride's hand and smiled for the cameras. He felt sick. He almost wretched when he heard the photographer say, "Ok, now let's have the happy couple with the groom's parents." His mother stepped dutifully forward, and they smiled for the camera.

---

When he was twenty-six, Sean held Benjamin who weighed seven pounds, one ounce and measured nineteen inches long. Everyone said he had Sean's eyes. His mother said they had said the same thing about Sean having his father's eyes. He posted photos on Facebook. Three days later, his father liked them.

---

When he was forty-six, Sean held eight tickets to Paris. They were a family of six now; Ben had three sisters. He handed two tickets to his mother who said she would do her best, but he really shouldn't have spent the money already.

"Mom, you know as well as I do that I wouldn't have gotten a commitment from him. Besides, I'm a partner now. We're doing fine. I'm willing to take the risk."

It seemed a foolish risk though, another in a lifetime of risks taken, of putting his neck out or his hand out or his heart out only to have it ignored. His father had always wanted to see the Mona Lisa, his mother said. Maybe it would work out.

---

When he was sixty-seven, Sean held his father's head off the pillow so he could sip through a straw. The pale pink sippy-cup seemed an ignoble detail, but hospitals aren't places to worry about things like dignity. He lowered his father's head and sighed. There was little hope — for the cancer or for their relationship. Sean rocked on his heels a little, waited a beat in case there was anything else, then started to gather his things. The nurses had been adamant about a ten o'clock bed time.

"See you tomorrow," Sean wished. He wasn't sure his father would see tomorrow, and he wasn't sure he could bear to sit with him in meaningless silence again if he did.

His father grunted and shifted his weight.

Sean walked through the door and away from his father finally. The elevators were at the end of a long passageway lined with half-opened doors through which Sean heard wheezing old people and clicking machines. He punched the button and waited for the ding.

"Mr. Calvert? Excuse me, Mr. Calvert?" It was a nurse coming behind him down the hallway.

"Mr. Calvert, your father wants to see you."

"I just came from there."

"I know. I think he pushed his button right after you left. He's calling you back."

Sean wondered if that had ever happened before, his father calling him to his bedside. He looked the same when he got back to the room.

"What's up?" Sean said. He stood near the door.

"I want to tell you something."

"You told me before, dad. You don't want a ventilator. They aren't going to put you on one."

"Close the door and come here."

Suddenly, Sean was eight again, taking orders form his old man, hoping he wasn't in trouble. Hoping he would hear something that would give him footing, that would steady his little-boy world full of school yard bullies and enigmatic girls and unnoticed successes.

"Joseph is a fruitful vine,
a fruitful vine near a spring,
whose branches climb over a wall."

Sean looked at the monitor above the bed and checked his father's vital signs. He must be delirious. Didn't they say his mind might go in the final moments? He reached into his pocket for his phone. He needed to let his mom know.

"Those were some of Jacob's last words to Joseph."

"Who?"

"Jacob and Joseph. In the Bible. I read it this morning."

Sean chuckled and put his phone back in his pocket. "Since when do you read the Bible?"

"Since I've started dying, or at least started dying faster."

"Dad, you're going to be fine. Now go to sleep. I'm going to get in trouble for—"

"Jacob loved all his sons," his father said. Then he coughed and caught his breath. "But he loved Joseph most."

Sean couldn't respond. He wasn't sure what his father was trying to say. He wasn't sure he wanted to know. He just didn't want the end to be any more painful than the middle had been.

"But Jacob failed his sons. He was a terrible father. Absent. Angry. Scheming." He coughed again.

"Look Dad. I appreciate your trying to get right with God and stuff, but I don't really want a Bible lesson right now—"

"Shut up, Sean. Give me a minute. I'm trying to do something here."

"What, Dad? And don't tell me to shut up. I'm a grown man. What the hell are you trying to do?"

"Bless you. I'm trying to bless you, Sean."

There was silence and for the first time in his life Sean saw tears in his father's eyes.

"I realize a lot of things now. This bed has made me see a lot of things. I've realized my regret can't change anything; it never has. I've realized you're a good son. I've realized you're a successful man, a terrific husband and a helluva good father.

When I was a boy, people used to talk about a beautiful death. If someone died peacefully at home with their family around, that was a good thing. If they fought death and cursed, that was undignified. I've realized I'm not going to have a beautiful death. Hell, look at all these damn tubes. And I've realized an old man's dying words aren't worth a lot but they are the only thing of any value I have left."

The old man lifted himself to sit up with a grimace so that he could meet his son's eyes level.

I was never sorry for failing you, Sean. I thought it was your mother's job to raise you. I was too busy trying to earn a name for myself than to think about giving you one. But now I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't give you a better start and that makes me more grateful for the way you turned out.

I'm proud of you, Sean.

And I love you."

---

When he was sixty-seven, Sean held a hymnal and looked up a stained glass window he had never seen before but seemed oddly familiar. The preacher had never met his father, but he told some recycled stories he had heard from the family the evening before, and did a well-enough job of paying such respects as were due, as due to all men, as due to an enemy killed in battle or an outlaw gunned town in the wild west or an inner-city crime statistic who never knew his father.

There were thirty people in the chapel, most of them hardly knew his father. Those who did were probably mourning a lost debt as much as a lost friend, Sean mused. There seemed a lot of regret in the room. But Sean held the hymnal and sang, "Twas blind, but now I see." And he smiled at all that regret, hanging about the room, draped across his father's memory like the flag of belligerent army. He smiled. And when someone asked him how he was doing after the service, he said, "I'm blessed."