Life was a flash of the car dealer's beam that cut through the sky every night. And its song was a guitar moaning with love and the feeling your head would explode.

And choices of college or the Army or the job that paid for the rent.

At twenty-three he looked to Tamara for his future. It came at him fast with a white picket fence, a small cape, and three kids and ball games and picnics and fun. Then came the packing for college and then weddings and the loneliness that an emptied-out, outgrown house sounds like of memories of noise.

And the final silence of being truly, completely alone.