It was a horror, albeit a slow, conversational one.

Dear Trevor,

O Carl, I miss you, too. Yours is a face that’s smoked 10,000 cigarettes. You told the same stories of closing deals on suburban split-levels until I wanted to punch you in the mouth. You were unable to make even the simplest decision. And you were the best friend I had since I died.

Carl is still in there, Trevor. Right where I left him. I stayed by him for what must have been many days, trying to get him to come back with me. He simply couldn’t decide what to do. So he did nothing. And now, like Martin, he’s turning back into nothing. Or into compost. His elements are coming unlimbed and unchained.

I know what happened to Martin now, because Carl showed me. It was a horror, albeit a slow, conversational one. The kind of horror that might happen over an afternoon of television and sandwiches. It was just as final and just as eternal.

I’ll tell you more tomorrow, Trevor. I’ll tell you everything.

Dad

I have a lot to tell you.

Dear Dad,

Wow. It’s good to hear your voice. Or read your words. You’re actually back. Which means you’re actually there.

I have all your old letters, but there was this part of me that thought maybe I’d imagined our whole penpal thing. But there you are. And here’s another letter from you. And this is one from me. So it must all be real.

I’m really sorry about Carl. I really liked him. Is he gone for good? That sounded cold. I don’t mean it to. I don’t need to ask you any questions about Carl. Just know that I am sorry.

But I do want to know what happened. To you. In the woods. And please don’t ever go back there.

I have a lot to tell you. Donnie Joad and I went fishing and had a big talk. Then Mom and I went out for dinner and had another big talk. It’s been an exhausting weekend. But I guess I think maybe you should do some of the talking now. All I really want to say today is that I’m so happy or relieved or whatever to hear from you.

I think that’s enough for now. You’ve got plenty to read as it is.

Your son,

Trevor

I don’t want Mr. Schick exposing himself to me.

Dear Dad,

I told Mom I wasn’t going to play in the father-son basketball game. She frowned at me.

“Why do you want me to play in it?” I said.

“Because,” she said, “A boy needs to have a father figure in his life.”

“And you think—you think if I play in this game—“

“I don’t know, Trevor. I want you to be around some good adult males. They can give you things that I can’t.”

“I don’t even know any of these people. Except Mr. Schick. And he’s a complete—“

“—I think you need to give Mr. Schick a chance.”

“What?!”

“OK, maybe you’ve given him enough chances already. But there are bound to be other fathers there.”

“And? You think I should go up to them in the gym and ask them to take me out for ice cream?”

“Don’t get smart. I just want to make sure you’re getting exposed to male role models.”

All I could think about right then was taking a shower in the men’s locker room at the Y. “Like Mr. Schick? I don’t want Mr. Schick exposing any more of himself to me. Besides, I’ve got you and I’ve got older brothers and I’ve got Dad.”

“What do you mean, you’ve got Dad?”

“I’ve—I mean—he’s.” I took a breath. “I’m OK, Mom. I’m fine. Just don’t make me play in that game.”

She looked at me all heartbroken-like, with her eyes full to the brim and her hands grabbing at her sleeves.

“Let me think about it, OK?”

“OK.” That usually meant she would agree with me. I hope that’s what it meant this time.

I also hope you write me back tomorrow, Dad. I’m getting used to your being gone again. Is this permanent? Are you ever going to write?

Your son,

Trevor

I started rooting for the dogs to win.

Dear Dad,

You’ve been gone too long and I’m really starting to get nervous. Part of my brain figures you’re never coming back. The other part reassures me that you will, any minute.

We had another away game on Friday. I didn’t go again, which sucks, but I’m starting to realize the whole team is pretty crappy and Mr. Schick is a dork, so I don’t really care that much. At least I knew ahead of time, so I went home with Rhett right after school, instead of having to wait around for a ride.

Donnie Joad’s mom dropped him off at our house after the game and we hung out. Donnie really likes to stay up late. Whenever he is at any kind of a sleepover, he figures the point of the whole thing is to see how late you can stay up.

Personally, I can’t stay up late to save my life, no matter how hard I try. If we’re just sitting around watching TV, I start nodding off at about ten and go in and out of sleep for a couple of hours.

At ten, Mom was in bed, so we started watching some stupid movie about hot looking teenagers who go to an island where they start getting attacked by wild dogs. It’s pretty much the stupidest movie ever made. The humans are all dumb. A girl gets bitten by a rabid dog, but decides she doesn’t need to go to a hospital. Instead, she should make out with some guy in the dark while dogs are trying to kill them. The dogs are way smarter. They know how to untie knots with their teeth. The dogs untie all the boats so the teens can’t get off the island.

I started rooting for the dogs to win, then I started falling asleep. Every time I would jerk awake, some dog would be ripping some dumb, sexy teen’s throat to pieces. It really started freaking me out. And I was sleeping on a chair, which was really uncomfortable. Donnie stayed awake the whole time and thought I did, too, because he talked to me even when my eyes were shut. That’s because he never took his eyes off the screen to notice anything else.

Finally, I woke up and the TV was showing an infomercial about a cool-looking vacuum cleaner. Donnie was sleeping on the floor, right in front of the blaring TV. I turned down the volume, switched to the couch, watched the vacuum cleaner thing for a couple minutes, then went to sleep for good.

Mom never mentioned her date. She made a really big dinner Sunday and Steffan and Keith came home and ate with us. I figure the delicious food was to make up for her going out with some guy we don’t know. But the food was really good. Roast beef and mashed potatoes and gravy and rolls and pink Jell-o salad and nasty green beans. Yummm.

I feel like I’m just kind of rambling, mostly because I’m just talking to myself. When are you going to write back?

Your son,

Trevor

When she doesn’t look stupid, she looks kind of wise.

Dear Dad,

I’m starting to get nervous that you haven’t come back yet. I thought this trip into the woods would be shorter, since you should kind of know where you’re going this time.

If I don’t have you writing me letters, I’m glad I have this old black dog. She’s not really old, but she’s already gray around her mouth. And she lays her head on her front paws and stares right into my eyes. So when she doesn’t look stupid, she looks kind of wise. Or understanding. At least she pays attention. When I talk to her, she hangs on every single word. I know this is mostly her listening for words like “walk” or “snack,” but I still like it. I can talk to her abour Mr. Schick (the fathead), you (the stiff) and whether or not Mom is dating (the mystery).

Mom was right about this dog. Everyone needs a companion. I guess she needs one, too.

I asked Rhett if he thought Mom wanted to date. He kind of blew me off, because he was walking out the door to some mysterious thing. He was eating leftover spaghetti out of a tupperware container as he walked. He said, “Mom? Date?” Then he sucked up more spaghetti as he opened the front door with his hip and walked out. Halfway out the door, he stopped and said, “Huh.”

Boy, it’s great to have such a wise older brother.

Your son,

Trevor

She claps her hands once and then pumps one fist into the air.

Dear Dad,

Are you gone back into the woods?

Another weekend. Another basketball game I didn’t play in. Not even close to getting in this time, as the score was back and forth the whole game. We lost by three.

Mr. Schick must think I should be happy just to be on the team. Like it’s some great honor or something. He’s kind of right, I guess. I am glad I didn’t get cut. But it sucks to just sit there on the bench. And close games are the ones I want to be part of. I want to be in the heat of the battle, you know? I want some of the blood that’s shed to be mine.

You were talking about purpose. I’m not sure what the purpose of the team is. Is it to bring glory to Mr. Schick? No one gives a crap if his team wins or loses and no one like him, because he’s a total dorkus. Is it to bring glory to the school? Because hardly anyone goes to the games. Parents go. And a few kids who are all into school spirit or some weird thing like that. There’s this one girl—Greta Glaspar—she’s at every game. She sits all alone right behind our bench and cheers like crazy. “Come on, Warriors! Whoo-hoo!” And she does this weird clap-pump thing. She claps her hands once and then pumps one fist into the air. Clap-pump!

Maybe she’s practicing to be a cheerleader. I suppose ugly girls can dream, too. Boy, that sounded harsh.

I’m pretty sure the idea behind junior high school sports is that it’s for the kids, right? I’m a kid, aren’t I? Doesn’t that mean I should get to play, too? What they really mean is that sports are for the athletic kids—not all the kids. The jocks play more and get better. The clods play less and get worse. We all learn our places, I suppose.

Your son the clod,

Trevor

Count on my return, Trevor.

Dear Trevor,

I’m scribbling this note to you and dropping it off at the post office as Carl and I get ready to head back into the woods.

Carl is tagging after me like a faithful mutt, waiting for me to give him a command. It’s strange. Once I gave him one order of leaving with me today, our relationship has changed. He looks to me for direction. I think it feels natural to him, to not have to think for himself. I understand that. This is not a place that encourages thinking, at least not without great effort.

I expect that I will come back, Trevor. I am nearly certain the woods are not for me, but I need to realize what they are for. They must have a purpose. There must be purpose, mustn’t there? I mean, even this purposeless place must play a role in the long stumble of our souls.

I hope we can somehow find Julia again and bring her back, but I only have the littlest bit of faith that will happen. Between you and me, it’s not my main purpose forgoing back in. If you had seen Julia and heard the chords her voice struck, you would understand what I mean. I don’t think there is any coming back for her.

Martin came to see us off, holding his empty pipe in his hand for comfort, tapping the bowl and probably wishing hard for tobacco. “Post tenebras spero lucem,” he said to us. “After darkness, I hope for light.” I hope for light, too. I hope for something. Something other than what I have now.

Count on my return, Trevor.

Dad

You bend everything into a dirty joke.

Dear Dad,

I wish you weren’t going back into the woods. But I’m glad Carl is going with you.

I kind of like Carl. He reminds me of the kind of friends I imagine you having, if you were still alive. A guy your age who would come over and help you build a fence and maybe give me sips of his beer when Mom wasn’t looking. I’d call him Uncle Carl even if he wasn’t really my uncle and he’d call me Trevorino or T-Dog or Sport-O and we’d punch each other on the arms.

Mom’s church friends don’t drink much beer. None of them have ever called me T-Dog.

If you had any of those friends when you were still alive, none of them are coming around anymore. None of them come around to take me out to breakfast or ask me about girls. That’s probably OK. It would just be weird anyway and I would feel strange going out to breakfast with some old guy.

I do kind of wish there was someone I could talk with about girls. They still pretty much scare me for the most part. Most of them, anyway. There are a few rare girls who don’t bring fear with them when they walk into a room. But most do.

I went roller skating a few weeks ago with some guys from school. It was for Gabe McCallister’s birthday party. His mom took us. I wonder if his mom knows that Gabe McCallister has a condom in his wallet. I bet she doesn’t, because she took us all to McDonald’s and bought us all Happy Meals, like we were kindergarteners or something. It was kind of cool, though, because we had a bunch of us guys making jokes about the little toys we got with the food. They were these chubby little space aliens with long, bendable arms. Gabe McCallister bent the arms of his aliens into dirty shapes, if you can believe it.

That’s what you do in junior high school. You bend everything into a dirty joke. Everything.

I was actually one of the best skaters. I’m pretty good at stuff that no one cares about. Gabe McCallister sucks at skating. He can barely let go of the wall. But somehow, he makes being a bad skater cool. One time, he wobbled his way across the rink right into a crowd of girls. He knocked one of them down and they laid there, tangled on the floor, laughing away. A few minutes later, that girl was guiding Gabe around the floor, holding hands with him.

How does he do that? If a girl asked me to hold hands with her, I’d probably barf all over the rink.

If you’ve left already, I hope you come back soon.

Your son,

Trevor

Carl, you’re coming with me. We leave tomorrow.

Dear Trevor,

I told Carl today about Julia. It wasn’t until I received your letter that I realized I hadn’t told anyone. And the thought that perhaps I could get someone to go with me into the woods is a great relief. Assuming anyone in this town will go with me.

Carl was shocked, of course. How could he not be? I’m not certain he believes my story. He kept looking up toward the woods while I was talking. When I got to the part about Julia, he asked the same two questions that have been running through my head:

“How did she get across the chasm? How could you just leave her there?”

I told him I was going back. He said, “She could be dead by now.” I smiled grimly and asked him to come with me. He said nothing for a while. I asked him for an answer. He looked up at me without replying.

Right then I came to a realization. In this little town, the ruling authority is apathy. Nothing is what we do every day. We are deep into that ditch. If Carl had been capable of making a decision, he wouldn’t still be here. I realized right then he was no longer capable, so I took a different approach. I said, “Carl, you’re coming with me. We leave tomorrow.” He looked up at me and nodded. So I guess that settles it.

Now Trevor, about this basketball team you’re on. I want to hear more about it. I reread your recent letters and agree with you on one thing: Mr. Schick sounds like a real jerk. But if I was there with you, I still think I’d let you deal with him on your own. He is your dragon to slay, not mine. Should you stick it out or quit? Your call, my son.

When I was your age, I was no great athlete. I ran track in high school and did OK in that, even if I never loved it. I played a little soccer as well. I remember struggling through sports all during my high school years, wishing I was the boy that quickened schoolgirl hearts when a ball sprung from my instep and rocketed 18 yards past a helpless goalkeeper. But my body would never cooperate with my fantasies.

During my second year in college, I joined an intramural soccer team—men and women and just for fun. I mostly did it to meet girls. But playing then, when I was 19 and out of high school—something happened. My body began to cooperate. The ball went where I wanted it to. I could dribble down the field with my head up. I could see the channels for passing. I knew when to make a break. People noticed. No coaches came calling. But I was good. I was finally good.

And it no longer mattered.

I still remember the day I realized it, when I bobbed my head left, kicked right through two defenders and shot the ball into the back of the goal, feeling relaxed and in control the whole time. I laughed out loud because I realized the cosmic joke of the whole thing. No girls sighed. High school was over already. So much of life is about timing.

Here’s another joke for you. You and I have finally connected. Unfortunately, you’re still alive and I’m dead.

Dad

Brian is only kind of a loser.

Dear Dad,

Your story about the woods is still pretty much freaking me out. I’m glad you came back. It sounds awful in there. I hope you never go back. I noticed twice that you said you planned on returning. To save Julia? Don’t do it.

What have you told the others in town? Why can’t someone go back with you? I don’t think you should go alone.

You’ll be happy to know that I survived the weekend—including a completely non-eventful Valentine’s Day—with no issues. In elementary school—even in sixth grade—we exchanged valentines, which I always thought was pretty stupid, but it was still fun. Bee mine with a picture of a bee and that sort of stupidness. In junior high you don’t do anything fun. No recess and no valentines. One lousy teacher, Mr. Anders, mentioned Valentine’s Day at all. And all he did was talk about the origins of the holiday. He said that Saint Valentine was some guy who was killed for his Christian faith way back in like 200 A.D. The whole romance thing didn’t start until more than a thousand years later. That’s it. Then we went back to Washington State history and talked about the terminus of the railroad. Woohoo.

Thanks for making it such a special day, Mr. Anders!

No girls gave me any cards. I saw quite a few floating around the school, but none came my way. Donnie Joad got one from his old girlfriend, Jodi. He tore it up and threw it back at her. She ran away and started bawling.

“I was just trying to tell her I didn’t like her,” Donnie said. “I don’t know why she had to get so upset about it.”

Donnie’s kind of a dork. I think he felt pretty bad. Poor Jodi. She felt worse. In junior high, everyone gets their fair share of pain.

Brian Haase and I talked at lunch today about the stupid basketball team. Other than being with Brian, I still kind of hate basketball. Maybe that’s Mr. Schick’s evil plan. Maybe his goal as coach is to see how many kids he can get to hate the sport. Maybe he actually works for the NFL or something, and his job is to make kids hate basketball and play football instead.

Here’s a question for you. If Brian and I become friends just because we’re the worst players on the team, is that lame? Does that make me more of a loser?

Brian is only kind of a loser. He has cool parts to him, like he is totally into cars. He always has a car magazine with him and he gets mad if you bend the pages. I’m pretty sure he is actually really interested in the cars, but those magazines have some amazingly hot girls in them, with huge boobs.

Brian can recognize any car in two seconds. When we were sitting on the sidewalk in front of the school the other day, he would see a car go by and say, “2002 Mazda 3. 1.6 liter engine with a dual hemi thingamajig.” Of course, he could be making it all up, for all I know. But he sure sounds like he knows what he’s talking about.

Anyway, Brian and I talked about quitting the team to protest being left behind last Friday. But then Brian said that Mr. Schick would probably be glad that we quit. So we decided to stay on the team just to piss Mr. Schick off.

I think it’s a pretty good idea. We’ll see if he notices.

Your son,

Trevor

I heard Julia crying out from the other side of the chasm.

Dear Trevor,

One of the things most frustrating about dying of cancer was how much of my focus was taken up with my own pain. Pain was always yammering for my attention. So when Steffan or Keith would come home from school and want to talk about a girl or a bad grade, I didn’t have much left to give. I’d say, “Hey kiddo, how was your day?” And when one would ask me how mine was, I’d force a smile and say, “Not bad, not bad.” A son of mine would tell me what happened at school and I’d raise and lower my eyebrows and nod my head at the right places.

But they could tell I wasn’t really listening. It was hard to listen to a whisper about a social studies class when my guts were yelling so loud all the time.

That’s how I feel right now. I don’t want to be phony with you and say, “Mmm, basketball…nice. Good job.” I want to really listen. I may have to go back and reread your letters in a few days. Right now, it’s hard for me to focus on anything other than what happened in the woods. The memories are still shouting at me.

Back in the woods, I was sitting next to the motionless form of Martin. I heard Julia crying out from the other side of the chasm. “Julia!” I yelled.

“I heard a voice!” she yelled.

“It’s Hugh,” I said. “What happened to Martin?”

“Help me!” she cried in return. “I’m all alone.”

I repeated my question, but she only cried for help in return. I turned to the body beside me. Martin was still breathing shallowly, with a faint gurgle. I yelled his name right into his ear, but he didn’t respond. I shook him, pulling the moss from his face and torso. No response.

Martin’s skin was pockmarked where the moss had been. The moss had begun taking root. He was host to its parasite. I slapped him hard, knocking spittle from his open mouth. I screamed his name at him, but I may as well have been screaming at a log. I slapped him again. Nothing. I laid him tenderly back on the ground. He settled back into his body-shaped dent.

I stood up and stumbled through the thick moss toward the edge of the chasm. I nearly tripped, which would have sent me falling plunging into the dark. I stopped and stared down toward the roaring river, but the chasm was so deep that I could not see the bottom.

“I’m here,” I called to Julia.

“Help me,” she called back. “I’m alone.”

“How can I reach you?” I asked.

“I’m alone!” she cried.

“How do I get across?”

“I’m alone!”

Trevor, I couldn’t stand to hear those words anymore—the insane repetition. I hated the reminder of my loneliness. I couldn’t stand to remain by that comatose body in the moss. I fled. I left her there. I turned and ran, following my own footprints in the moss, through the woods, back through the darkness toward town.

Enough for today.

Dad

We watched the Schickhead Express drive away.

Dear Dad,

I didn’t mean to sound like a total jerk in my last letter. You’ve been through some pretty serious crap. I get that. Thanks for telling me a few more details. And please let me know what happened next. You’re still leaving me hanging.

Down here, I want you to know that not all my days are crummy. I mean, I think junior high school pretty much blows, but I don’t want you to think I hate every minute of my life.

That said, today pretty much sucked. I showed up for school, thinking I’d have a basketball game afterwards. It was an away game, so I figured we’d all be piling into the bus and driving there together. After science, I walked to the locker room to change into my uniform. Everyone else on the team was already there, getting dressed, snapping towels, making rude jokes. So I started getting dressed, too. I was stripped down to my boxers when Mr. Schick came said, “Brian and Trevor, can you come here a minute?”

As Brian Haase and I walked over to Mr. Schick, the locker room grew quiet. The jokes stopped. The towels stopped snapping. The eighth graders pretended to keep getting dressed, but they were all looking our direction. The kind and gentle Mr. Schick said, “Fellas, we’ve got an away game today, as you know. Unfortunately, we don’t have access to the bus for basketball, because the high school is using it. That means we’re taking the Ford Econoline.”

For some reason, Mr. Schick thought I cared about the brand of our school van. Brian and I stared dumbly at Mr. Schick. He finally said, “The Econoline only has seating for 14.”

We stared some more, but I heard a few painful “oohs” from the kids behind me.

“We’ve got 15 players on our team, plus me. That means two of us will have to take one for the team and stay home.”

It was starting to make sense right about then.

“But don’t think I don’t value your contribution to the team. And next week’s a home game, so we’ll get you right back in there. OK, fellas?”

I’m pretty sure I heard Donnie Joad say, “Holy crap.” Brian Haase and I walked back to our lockers and changed into our street clothes. I borrowed Donnie Joad’s cell phone and called my mom to come and get me, but she was stuck at work. She said she’d leave a message for Rhett. Brian and I sat on the sidewalk in front of the school. We watched the Schickhead Express drive away, then sat there waiting for our rides.

“That Mr. Schick is a real dillrod,” said Brian. I agreed. I was glad Brian was there. I mean, it totally sucked at an unbelievable level, but it would have sucked a million times worse if it had been just me.

Anyway, I hope you figure out all your afterlife crap. By the way, this coming Sunday is Valentine’s Day. Thought you might want to know.

Your son,

Tom

I will lie down here, I thought, just for a moment.

Dear Trevor,

Believe me when I tell you I care about your life. It’s nearly all I’ve cared about since the first time I received a letter from you up here. I would love to come to your basketball game. If I could find it in myself to shed a tear, I would shed them for the times we did not get to play together at any sport or game—basketball, soccer, a simple game of catch, a pillow fight, a race to the mailbox and back. A spitting contest off the deck.

The woods simply overwhelmed me. I am a little better today, a condition which fills me with its own kind of dread, because I know I must go back into the woods.

Will it help if I continue my story for you? Here goes:

I followed Julia and Martin’s trail deeper into the trees until I began to notice a sound. It started as a distant, muffled buzz, but I recognized it even then. It was a river. It had such a steady, solid noise that I thought it might be a waterfall. The sound was a comfort—like running into an old friend in a strange city. A river meant life. Rivers started somewhere and went somewhere. They proceeded, unlike tides and fog and everything else in this world that simply seemed to come and go.

I was desperate for any kind of company, because the woods were the most alone place I have ever been. No animals. No people. Even the tree branches were out of reach. It was a smothering kind of loneliness. I thought maybe I would never see people again. I longed for humans. I would have kissed Sung-Hee on the lips if I had seen her.

The sound of the river was the closest thing to a friend I had. For the first time since I entered the forest, I quickened my step.

In the silence, the sound must have traveled for many miles, because it seemed I walked for days without reaching it. The saturated moss sucked at my feet. I slipped more and more as I went along, each time covering my clothes in green stains. The stains are still there now—green-streaked souvenirs of a trip I’d rather sever from my memory.

I was tired, but not in the way you might get tired from running lines in your basketball practice—yes, I read that letter. I was short of breath, much like I had become late in my cancer, when the air seemed less worth breathing. The moss sucked at my feet from below. The dark, moist air sucked at my mouth, seeming to pull any usable oxygen out of it.

But I went on, stopping briefly at the bottom of a rise in the land. The sound of the river grew louder here. I began to struggle up the rise and determined that when I reached the top, I would lie down and rest. It seemed as I went up, that gravity increased its pull on me. Each lift of a foot became a struggle of determination. I stopped halfway to the top.

“I will lie down here,” I thought, “just for a moment.” I did so, sprawling on the damp moss. I closed my eyes and tried to catch my breath, but the air here was damper than ever. It was like breathing in Jell-o.

Lying there, the side of my head was half sunk into the deep moss. I could hear the squishing, sucking sound through my submerged ear. I could feel a kind of tingly, creeping movement over my wet skin, as if bugs were crawling slowly up from the moss and onto me. I wanted to scream, to jump to my feet, but I was so tired.

I laid there, Trevor, thinking that perhaps I would just breathe in and out one more time and then go to sleep. It had been so long since I’d had a really good sleep. But I dreaded lying their by myself. I wanted to find someone—anyone. I longed to be not alone. I longed even for Martin and Julia’s pathetic company.

It was that longing—or that dread of loneliness—that pushed me to my feet. My face and clothing were wet and green now, like the moss I’d lied in. I struggled mindlessly to the top of the hill and nearly tripped over Martin’s body.

He laid there, his eyes mostly closed, his big chest rising and falling ever so slightly. Moss covered him nearly completely. It grew on his skin, as if he were made of rotting wood. One dripping eye was exposed. His gaping fish mouth sucked the moist air in and out. I screamed.

“Help me!” a voice called in response. It was Julia. I looked around in the dim light. “Help me, please!” she cried again. The sound of rushing water nearly drowned her out. “I heard a voice!” she cried. “Is someone there?”

I could just see her, waving a hand frantically, on the far side of the chasm. I had no idea how I might get to her. I had no desire to stay where I was, next to the moss-choked body beside me.

I need to beg for your patience again, Trevor. I am tired. I need to try to catch my breath again. I’ll write again soon. I’ve told you most of it, anyhow.

Dad

I’m still here. You’re the one who died.

Dear Dad,

You’re driving me crazy. I’ve received two letters from you since you returned and you’ve told me nothing except that the experience was awful and there was lots of moss. What am I supposed to do with that? You’re like Aunt Bronwyn who rambles on about old relatives I’ve never met. Get to the point, please!

I know I’m supposed to be patient. And I know that I’m still supposed to be amazed to even be writing back and forth with my dead father. Super spiritual experience and all that. But geez, Dad, you’re sounding kind of nuts. And you haven’t asked me one time about basketball. Nothing.

I mean, YOU left ME. I’m still here. You’re the one who died. Not me. You’re the one who left Mom with five kids and not enough money. And you know what? It kind of sucks.

Mr. What’s-his-face—Mr. Schick—he had a Team Talk today about last week’s game. He told us what we did right and what we did wrong. I don’t take any blame, because he didn’t even put me in for a second. He talked about that a little bit, too. “We’re in a very competitive league, so not all of us are going to play in every game. But you’re still an important part of this team. You still contribute in your own little way. Never forget that.”

Trust me. I will never forget that.

Mr. Schick is an ass. And you’re dead.

Your son,

Trevor

I pushed my way under the big trees.

Dear Trevor,

I still feel like I am catching my breath. Your stack of letters profoundly disturbed me, as I had no idea how long I was gone. Sometimes, in the woods, I thought I had only been there a few hours. Other times, I wondered if I’d ever been anywhere else.

Be patient with me as I explain this to you, Trevor. It’s difficult for me to write. This stubby pencil keeps falling out of my shaking hand. It is strange, communicating with someone who plays basketball, who talks of other humans. It amazes me that there ever were such things. This paper of yours that you send to me. It appears real. I hope it is and I hope you are.

Forgive me, Trevor.

The woods.

The Laughing Gull.

I remember leaving the Laughing Gull a million years ago or five minutes ago to follow Martin and Julia. I had no idea what I hoped to find in the woods, but the knowledge that others were going first eased my anxiety. Just knowing Martin and Julia were in there somewhere made the experience feel less alone.

I found a trail through the brambles and pushed my way under the big trees. Once I got past the brushy edge, the rough trail gave way to mossy ground, which made every step soft and slippery. It was easy to follow Martin’s trail, though. He left size 13 scars on the moss. Next to his marks were the tiny blemishes made by Julia’s shoes.

The woods were dark all the time. Above, the huge trees disappeared up into the fog. I suppose that fog is why the trees are so big. It’s always feeding them. Always growing them to become more and more overwhelming. More imposing.

Growth only happens up above. Down on the ground, the only thing that grows is moss and mildew. The trees are draped in cobwebby moss. Moss on the tree trunks is seaweed-heavy. The ground is soggy with it. Every surface seems covered with some shade of green. It’s a kind of life, I suppose, but a choking kind.

Taken me half a day to write this, it seems.

I walked alone for some time—no idea how long. The air was so heavy in there, it seemed hard to breathe deep enough to reach that satisfying catch in the throat. If I had to do more than follow Julia and Martin’s marks, I would not have managed. Soon, all I could see were trees and moss. The only dim light came from above. The only sound was dripping water and a kind of squishing, wriggling sound that seemed to come from all around. It sounded like a million bug-sized drops of water had come to life. It seemed—

O Lord.

Trevor, I can’t write more today. I feel I’ve told you nothing so far. Tomorrow.

Dad

If it was that awful in the woods, I don’t think you should go back.

Dear Dad,

I’m glad to hear from you. I mean, I’m really happy. Geez, these words just don’t work. Let me try again.

When I saw your envelope sitting in the mailbox, my stomach kind of jumped. I tore the letter open and read it right there. It felt like I started breathing again, after holding my breath for a week.

Now I sound like I’m writing to my girlfriend or something. This is isn’t getting any better. Anyway, when I read your words, I felt—I don’t know. It sounds so weird and scary. It makes my life here seem like a half-life.

Why do you need to go back into the woods? What happened to Martin? I’m guessing something horrible, but you didn’t say. And where is Julia?

If it was that awful in the woods, I don’t think you should go back.

Last Friday, in this half-life of mine, I had my first basketball game. Guess how much I played? Zero minutes and zero seconds. Mr. Schick, the kind and loving coach that he is, kept coming over to the bench to choose subs to go in. Every time he’d come over, I’d kind of perk up, just like Blackie Dog does whenever anybody comes into the room. I hope I didn’t look that stupid, but I probably did.

We won by 22 points, which seems like a big enough gap that I could have played. I know how it works. I don’t expect to play if it’s a five-point game. But 22 points? I didn’t think I was that bad.

Oh well. Brian Haase didn’t play, either. I’m pretty sure everyone else did. Even Donnie Joad, and he’s like 5’2”. We have an away game next Friday. Maybe I’ll get to play then. Who cares? What difference does it make? I didn’t want to go out for the stupid team anyway.

Your son,

Trevor

I’ve seen some horrors, Trevor. And I need to go see them again.

Dear Trevor,

I’m back. I haven’t even ready your letters yet. I just collected them from the post office and thought I had better write you to let you know I’m still alive, or whatever the proper term is. I’m here, at least.

I’ve seen some horrors, Trevor. And I need to go see them again. I’ve seen the fate of my kind. I found Martin. He is there in the deep shade of the woods and he will likely stay there, beneath the moss. I can’t speak of it anymore today.

I’ll tell you more tomorrow. Right now, I need to put my hand on the arm of a chair and feel something solid, or as solid as I can find in this half land.

I need to rest, Trevor, because I need to go back into the woods.

Dad

Maybe I’ll never get a reply to this letter.

Dear Dad,

I haven’t heard back from you. I’m hoping that’s a good sign. My mailbox seems depressed about it, though. I can’t get the little flag to stay up. It just keeps falling back down.

The dog still doesn’t have a name. Rhonda calls it Cassandra, but that’s obviously not a good dog name. Dogs are named Prince and Sparky and Snoopy and stuff like that. Maybe if it was a poodle you could call it Cassandra. But this dog is clearly a mutt. It should have a name that fits its muttness.

I had a weekend off from basketball practice. We have our first game next Friday. It’s a home game. I wonder how much I’ll get to play. Not many people come to middle school games, other than parents. It’s not like the high school games I’ve gone to for Stephan or Keith, where the stands are packed with people. At our soccer games, it was all moms talking to each other and dads watching. Mom couldn’t come to many, because she had to work. You couldn’t come because you were dead. Both are pretty good excuses, I guess.

I think about you all the time, wondering where you may be right now. Are you lost in the woods? Did you somehow make it to heaven or some other place? I can’t get my head around what kind of place you might be in. And you don’t know anything except that there’s water nearby and woods nearby. For all you know, you could be on a dinky little island. You might get a mile into the woods and come to the other side of the island. Or maybe you’re on the edge of some huge continent, like Russia, and you’ll just keep walking and walking and walking.

And maybe I’ll never find out. Maybe I’ll never get a reply to this letter.

Your son,

Tom

We got a dog yesterday. I drew a picture of it.

Dear Dad,

I hope you’re gone. And I hope you come back. And I hope you’re still there. And I hope I never hear from you again. And I hope I hear from you again every day.

I hope you get this letter and I hope you never get this letter.

If you get it, you’ll know that we got a dog yesterday. I drew a picture of it.

Mom picked me up after basketball practice and had Rhonda in the car with her. We went straight to the animal shelter. The shelter is split up into two sections—cats and dogs. We were let in by a woman named Cassandra—she had like three piercings in her lip, but still talked mostly normal. She took us behind a counter and then opened a big metal door. As soon as the door opened, the room behind her exploded in barking. The room was long and narrow, lined in three levels of wire cages on both sides. Cassandra told us to take our time, look around, and ask questions.

Rhonda had her book of dog breeds with her. She would walk up to a cage, look at the dog inside, then flip through the book as if she were some kind of botanist or something. No, wait. A botanist is a plant scientist. What do you call a dog scientist? A doganist?

I’m pretty sure there weren’t any purebred dogs in there. They all looked like different kinds of mutts to me. Some were little and hairy. Some were big and hairy. They were all loud, as if each one thought, “If I’m the loudest one, maybe they’ll pick me.”

One thing that’s weird about mutts is that they all have tails that curl upwards. There must be some kind of dog breed with upward-curling tails that gets around a lot, if you know what I mean.

We looked around for about half an hour and finally got the choice narrowed down to two—one was a black dog with pointy ears that was kind of medium-sized. The other was a little, dirty white dog with hairy legs. Mom didn’t like that one, because he had one goopy eye. Cassandra kept saying, “Don’t worry about his eye. That’s just a temporary condition.” Mom would nod and smile, and then whisper under her breath, “How does she know it will go away?”

So we picked the black dog. The lady referred to her—it’s a girl dog—as a shepherd-lab. A schlep, for short. That’s what I call it. I wanted to name it, “Schlep.” Rhonda said we should name it Cassandra, because I’m pretty sure Rhonda thinks of herself as someone who will get piercings when she gets old enough. We argued about names the whole way home. The dog sat in the back seat, between Rhonda and me. First time I can remember that we didn’t fight over who got shotgun.

I’ll write more tomorrow. Right now, I want to go play with Schlep or Cassandra or Dog X or whatever its name is.

Your son,

Trevor

It’s time for me to cram my ears with wax and get the hell out of here.

Dear Trevor,

Dear Trevor,

I’m sitting here at The Laughing Gull again, trying to get up my courage to go into the woods.

No, courage is not the right word. I’m trying to break through my walls of inactivity. Gordon would call my state The Modern Malaise. “We’re too separated from necessity,” he would say. “We don’t need anything. We don’t go hungry enough. We don’t fight for survival enough. No one’s trying to burn our village or kill our family. We’ve got nothing worth fighting for, worth working for.” I’ve been wallowing in this meaningless existence for so long that I don’t how to step out of it. I’m going to, though.

Do you have these kinds of days? I remember as a kid getting together with a friend and asking the inevitable question: “So what do you wanna do?” And he’d say, “I dunno. What do YOU wanna do?” We’d swap that question back and forth half a day without doing anything. Every option, no matter how stupid, would have been better than sitting there doing nothing. Drawing hand turkeys. Making toast. Trying to break the record for standing on one foot. Sometimes it doesn’t matter so much what you do, but just that you do, right?

Speaking of broken records, I’m starting to sound like one. Or how would I say that in a way that makes sense to you? I’m starting to sound like a parrot. Or a repeating sound bite.

I pretended that the reason I came down here to the Laughing Gull was to ask Sung-Hee precisely which direction Martin and Julia headed when they went into the woods. She told me that in the first 60 seconds. Right past Martin’s cabin and straight through into the shadows. Since then, I’ve been here for what would probably equal many hours in your world, trying to figure out how to get off of my ass, onto my feet and into the trees.

Instead I’ve been sitting here painting a portrait of Sung-Hee with her own awful coffee. If the picture is imperfect, it serves her right. I’ll include the picture with my letter to you. Hopefully it will be a going away present, as I go away into the woods.

Sometimes—today is one of those times—Sung-Hee sings while she cooks. She has a love of awful, old, pop songs and she sings them in her rickety voice with a Chinese accent. “IF-a you want my baw-dee AND-a you think I’m sex-eee, COME on sugar, let-a me knowwww…” She’s like a siren. I don’t mean a police siren, although that’s about how bad she sounds. She’s like an ugly mermaid, wooing me into her crummy restaurant with her warbly voice.

It’s time for me to cram my ears with wax and get the hell out of here.

Hopefully, you won’t hear from me soon.

Dad

At the seventh line, your head explodes. Then you start over.

Dear Dad,

My school is kind of lame sometimes.

So after all that crap about cutting kids from the team, Mr. Schick said that he has decided not to cut anyone. Everyone who tried out made the team. 15 kids in all. I’m not sure if this makes me feel good or not. It’s like being on a team where every kid gets a trophy, even the kids who suck.

Even so, I don’t mind not getting cut. I get a jersey with a number on it and the shorts are long and pretty cool looking. I can see why hip-hop guys wear so much basketball gear. It does look pretty tight.

Mr. Schick said I’ll be playing guard, so I need to work on my dribbling, defense and outside shooting. I think I’m a pretty good shot from outside. And if that means I don’t have to do layups, I’m all for it.  I still have to do them in practice, though. That stinks. I stress out every time I run toward the basket.

Nothing in basketball comes naturally for me. “Keep your head up when you dribble, Trevor!” shouts Mr. Schick. “Keep your eye on the ball, Trevor!” shouts Mr. Schick. How am I supposed to do both? And whenever you don’t do both, you have to run these things called “lines.” Did you ever have to run lines? I bet if you ever figure out where hell is up there, you will find Satan making the really evil people run lines. I suppose it’s good for me. That’s what Mom says. But it doesn’t feel good for me. It feels like I’m going to die.

You start at one end of the court, which, by the way, is covered in painted lines. Then you run as fast as you can to the first line, bend down and touch it, and run back to the end. Then you run as fast as you can to the next line, bend down and touch it, and run back to the end. You keep doing this until you get to about the fifth line. At the fifth line, you also start cursing Mr. Schick under your breath. You can only do it under your breath, because it’s impossible to actually talk. At the sixth line, you start grabbing your side, because it feels like weasels have crawled down your throat into your stomach and are trying to eat their way out. At the seventh line, your head explodes. Then you start over.

Anyway, Mom says we can get a dog tomorrow, to celebrate. I’m pretty sure that if I hadn’t made the team, she would have said we could get a dog tomorrow to help ease the pain. Mom’s kind of a genius sometimes.

I hope you get this letter. I hope you’re not lost in the woods. But I’m glad you’re going for it. Funny. You wanted me to go out for this stupid  basketball game. I wanted you to try to go somewhere. We’re both doing it, for better or worse. Hopefully for better.

Your son,

Trevor

They gone. Went into the woods just today.

Dear Trevor,

I’ve been wondering if I hope you make the team. Would it be good for you to feel the joy of being accepted into the tribe of basketball players? Or would it be better for you to experience the pathos of rejection, so that you can empathize with others in their moments of isolation?

Who am I kidding? I hope you make the team. Rejection sucks.

I wandered down to the Laughing Gull this morning for a cup of coffee. Not to drink, but at least to sit over. At least Sung’s Hee’s coffee is warm enough to produce a little steam. I can pretend that it would taste good, as long as I never forget myself and actually drink it.

Business was slow at the gull, so Sung Hee sat next to me at the table. “Have you heard?” she said.

“Heard what?”

“About Martin and that woman.”

“Julia?”

“That her name? They gone. Went into the woods just today. Martin stopped in to say goodbye. He said, ‘You’ll never see me again, This dear lady and I are traveling to the great beyond.’ Then he dragged that woman straight up into the trees.”

I’m writing to you now to let you know I’m going after then. I don’t mean you’ll never hear from me again. I’m going to follow them, though, and see where they go, how they go, whatever. Not that I think Martin knows what he’s doing. But if there were, say, rabid bears in the woods, I’m pretty sure they’d try to eat Martin before they’d eat me.

Wish me luck, as I wish you luck. Whatever that means. I’m doing something, simply because it’s better than doing nothing.

Dad

My main job is to wave my hands around a lot.

Dear Dad,

Today is the last day of basketball tryouts. Next time I write, I’ll let you know if I made the team or not. So far this week, I think it’s pretty clear I’m not the next LeBron James. I’m pretty fast and I feel like I’m working pretty hard, so I’ve got that going for me.

I still do pretty good at foul shots. I suck at layups. I have no idea if I’m any good at defense. From what I know, my main job on defense is to stand in front of the other guy and wave my hands around a lot. In that sense, it’s not that much difference than taekwondo. When I wave my hands around, I feel like yelling, “Ha! Hiya!”

When I’m on defense, I also feel like going into my boxing stance and right-crossing the guy right in the face. That would draw a foul for sure, but I guarantee it would keep him from making his shot. And it would feel good. Especially if the other guy was Dirk Fossler. He thinks he’s so hot. He’s an eighth grader. His dad is some kind of fancy basketball coach somewhere. He’s also got about the dirtiest mouth you’ve ever heard in your life. No matter what you say, Dirk can make a sex joke out of it. He can even do it with numbers. It’s kind of creepy, but kind of amazing, too. Who knew numbers could be dirty?

Brian Haase also went out for the team, like I told you. I’m glad he’s here, because he’s worse than me. He’s tall, though. He must be almost six feet. But he’s skinny as a rail.

At home, dog fever has struck my sister. Rhonda has this book about dog breeds and she’s been sitting around looking at it all day long. She has all these pages dog-eared (ha!) on her favorite breeds, like standard poodles and Dalmatians and girly dogs like that. I bet those purebred dogs are pretty expensive. If mom doesn’t want to pay for me to get a taekwondo suit, I don’t know why Rhonda thinks she’ll pay for a purebread dog. I mean purebred. But a pure bread dog would be cool, too. If your dog was pure bread, and you didn’t like him, you could just eat him.

You sound really glum in your letters lately. I guess I get that, because you’re dead and all. But I never really pictured you as a glum guy. Mom always talks about you as kind of happy and crazy. She never mentioned you being depressed.

If I was in your situation and you were giving me advice, what would you tell me to do? You already know you’d tell me to go. Do something. So that’s what I’m telling you. If you don’t want to get on the bloody boat, go check out the woods.

I mean, if nothing ever changes, then what are you waiting for?

Tom

Lots of people go there and never want to come back.

Dear Trevor,
I don’t know who this Mrs. St. Claire is. I know your mom had a whole bunch of friends from church that I never knew very well. I’m glad for that. Some of them seemed all right.
I never had much use for the whole church thing, as I’ve told you before. It wasn’t that I had anything against it. I just found it boring. And stuffy. Everyone gets in one big room for an hour and a half and acts holy. And Sunday was always the best day for sports. I probably didn’t give it much of a chance, though, much to your mother’s dismay.
My other main problem with church was that as soon as I walked in the door, I felt guilty. It seemed like church was designed to make a man think about his sins and I’d rather forget about mine. What is the point in reminding someone that they don’t measure up? I know I don’t measure up. Stop telling me, for God’s sake.
I always kind of liked the Bible, though. Church seems to work hard to be G-rated, even though it’s all about a Bible that seems more R-rated to me. Because life is R-rated. Both the Bible and life are full of sex and violence. In the Bible, David kills Goliath then cuts off his head. That’s not a scene in a G-rated movie. Then David grows up, falls in love with Bathsheba, who happens to be another guy’s wife, so David has that guy killed. And David was one of God’s favorites.
If God could like David, I wonder if it is in any way possible he could like me. I need to figure that out, Trevor. I need to do something to get out of this place. That means I have two choices: the woods or the boat. I feel like the choice should be clear to me, but it doesn’t feel anything like clear. It feels like mud.
Sung-Hee shared a little gossip with me today. She told me that Martin is thinking of going into the woods and he plans to take Julia with him. “He’s been telling that lady how wonderful the woods are,” said Sung Hee. “He’s been saying that lots of people go there and never want to come back. He’s been saying all sorts of things. He’s a mighty good salesman, that Martin. He almost makes me want to go, too.”
“Why don’t you?” I asked.
“I can’t leave. I got this restaurant to run. Who would make the food if I wasn’t here?”
I thought, who would care if you didn’t?
Dad

He told us we were all winners just for coming out.

Dear Dad,

I like your drawing of Julia. I’ve got a picture for you, too. Here’s another drawing of Mr. Schick, blowing The Whistle of Satan, as I like to call it. You’ve never heard a sound so shrill as that shrieking whistle.

I started basketball tryouts yesterday. They go this week. Then, at the end of the day on Friday, Schick will tell us who made the team and who didn’t. Yesterday he told us we were all winners just for coming out. Then he had us run a set of lines and told us we were the most pathetic bunch of slackers he’d ever seen. He seemed more sincere on the last statement than the first.

I’ve already resigned myself to not making the team. When I’m cut on Friday, it will be a relief and I won’t have to come to these stupid practices anymore. Then I can go home after school and play X Box. Or maybe I can finally start taekwondo lessons.

I know all about your Dad dying at the gravel quarry. Mom’s dad died when she was a kid, too. Burst appendix. According to Mom, her dad was a real jerk. All this dying doesn’t feel so much like a joke to me as a curse. Sometimes, I wonder if it means I’ll die when I have kids. I also wonder if it means Mom is gonna die soon. Then I’d be an orphan. What would happen to me then? Rhett is a senior, so he’d probably just live on his own. Me and Rhonda would have to live with someone, though. Maybe Aunt Fredi, but I think she’s an atheist, so Mom would probably never let us go there. She probably has in her will that we go to live with some church friend. Hopefully it would be with someone whose house doesn’t smell weird.

Some of the houses of church people have weird-smelling houses. Like Mrs. St. Claire. She’s got a really fancy house, as jammed full of knickknacks and doilies as a house can be. If there’s a flat surface, you can bet Mrs. St. Claire has put a doily on it. And there’s not a doily in the place that doesn’t have some porcelain ballerina or glass elephant on top. You can’t walk into the place without breaking something. Last time we went there, Rhonda pushed me and I knocked a glass clown off its doily. It’s little umbrella broke off. The grown-ups were all in another room, but I still I freaked out and started looking through drawers for some glue. Rhonda told me to relax. She opened a window and just chucked the broken clown into the bushes. Then she took a little glass panda from a group of other glass pandas and put it on the bare doily.

“Mrs. St. Claire will never notice,” said Rhonda. “Let’s go get some chips.”

Rhonda is the smartest person I know. Or at least that’s what she tells me.

Your son,

Trevor

It makes me wonder if God ever kills people simply as a joke.

Dear Trevor,

Maybe your mom just wants to get you a dog. I’d like you to have a dog. Maybe your mom senses that you are kind of lonely and that a dog would help. Maybe it’s not about her at all.

By the way, Chairman Mao was the leader of Communist China back in the 60s and 70s. You’ve seen pictures of him wearing a little cap with a red star on the front. And no, I never worked for him.

I drew a picture of Julia. She always looks like she is about to realize something, but never quite does. As if she’s thinking, “I just realized—oh wait. No, never mind. I guess I didn’t.”

I think that Julia waited all her years down on earth for her life to get started. And then, just when it did—just when she got married and became part of a family—she died. It makes me wonder if God ever kills people simply as a joke. I don’t think He does, but there does seem to be evidence that He has a dark sense of humor.

Here’s an example: My father died when I was young—just like you, I guess. He immigrated to the States as a young man, because work in the coal mines back at home had dried up. He worked in mines in Montana, but the work was so dangerous he wanted to stop before it killed him. So he moved to Tacoma and got a job in a gravel quarry, where he was crushed to death in a small landslide. Funny, eh? A real knee slapper.

I had a full life up until I died, but it was only half done. And there were many parts of it that were only half lived. I had a mess of wonderful, noisy children. I loved and was loved by a happy, bossy, beautiful woman. I started a business and had it going in a direction I was beginning to like. And all along this thing was waiting right outside of my peripheral vision. One day, I turned my head a bit to the left and there it was. And six months later, here I was.

I’ve got to get out of here. I need to get on with things again somehow. What should I do, Trevor?

Dad

Mom has not started dating anyone, but I think she’s thinking about it.

Dear Dad,

Who is Chairman Mao? Is that someone you used to work for?

Mom has not started dating anyone, but I think she’s thinking about it. I mean, this is pretty much just theory on my part. And on Rhonda’s. But I think there’s something to it.

Here’s why: We don’t have a dog right now. We had Val when you were alive. Based on all the stories Steffan tells, Val the German shepherd was The World’s Greatest Dog. I’m pretty sure Steffan thinks Val could levitate at will and poop gold. Supposedly, you trained the dog remarkably well and it never did a wrong thing ever.

After you died, we got another German shepherd. I guess they figured the last one was so wonderful, they should stick with the breed. Mom or someone named it Floyd. I hated that dog. Or feared it, I guess is more accurate. Whenever I went outside, it would jump on me, stand on my chest, and bark in my face. I remember being about five years old and trying to run from our house to Barry Barton’s house before Floyd could catch me. I rarely ever made it. Luckily, Floyd ran away. Good riddance.

Then we had Horace, which was an ancient beagle that some crazy lady gave to Rhonda. The crazy lady lived in a beach rental and when she moved, she asked Rhonda if she wanted a dog. Rhonda was eight years old, so of course she said yes. So she came home with this gray-muzzled, half-blind old dog who barked at anything that moved. I guess Mom couldn’t bring herself to take the dog away from Rhonda.

The best story about Horace, which is the same name as Mom’s brother, Uncle Horace, was that one summer, Uncle Horace was coming to visit all the way from Minnesota. Mom warned us kids, “When Uncle Horace is here, don’t call the dog by its name. Uncle Horace would be very offended if he found out that old dog had the same name as him.” On arrival day, we were all steeling ourselves to stay steady, when we saw Uncle Horace’s rental car pull into the driveway. Horace the dog saw it too and started barking like mad. Uncle Horace, who looked about a million years old, stepped out of the car. Mom opened the front door. Horace the dog was barking like mad. Uncle Horace was walking toward the house. Then Mom yelled, as loud as I’ve ever heard her yell anything, “Horace! Shut up! Horace! Shut up!”

Uncle Horace was really confused.

Anyway, Horace the dog died after just a few years and we’ve been dogless ever since. Recently, Mom’s been talking about how we should get another dog. This surprises all of us, as Mom doesn’t exactly love the beasts. But she’s been saying all this stuff about how important it is to have a companion and how bad it is to be lonely and Rhonda says Mom isn’t talking about us. Rhonda is pretty smart about this stuff, or so she tells me. She said, “Just you wait. Mom’s gonna start going out on dates.”

That’s all I know for now.

Your son,

Trevor

Why are you asking what I would think about Mom dating?

Dear Trevor,

Why are you asking what I would think about Mom dating? Remember our agreement to be honest with each other?

First of all, no one dates up here, but that doesn’t mean there’s no pettiness, misery, jealousy, gossip, self-doubt or any of the other benefits of dating. There are only three women regularly in our little town. One is Sung-Hee, who is hard to recognize as a woman. She claims she was married and raised children back in your world (she says they all worked for her at her hamburger stand), but she looks more like Chairman Mao than anything resembling a female. As far as I can tell, she has no breasts at all.

On the other hand, Sung-Hee loves juicy gossip. I think she longs for scandal as much as she longs for life itself.

There is also an old woman who lives down at the end of the row of shacks. I’ve never heard anyone call her anything but The Woman At The End. She has white hair down to the middle of her back and wears a dress that looks like it was made of burlap. I’ve never spoken to her. I see her drift in and out of the fog every now and then. She gives me the willies.

Then there’s Julia, who just got here but honestly doesn’t feel all here. Carl says to give her a chance. Maybe she’s still recovering from jet lag, which is what he calls the post-traumatic stress of realizing you’re dead. Martin gloms onto Poor Julia every chance he gets and she seems undecided on whether she likes the attention or not. I’m pretty certain Martin will drop her the next time a group of newcomers arrive.

If I were alone on a desert island with Julia, back on earth, I suppose I would, ehh, do something with her. Date, mate, call it what you will. Here, I just find her another vague annoyance. Like a fly. Not a mosquito trying to suck your blood. Just a fly bouncing its head against the window while you’re trying to get to sleep.

I guess you can count the ship captain as a woman as well, or as a living nightmare. I can’t think about her.

But I do want to know about your mom. Is she seeing someone? Tell me.

Dad

I can’t imagine that I’ll make the team.

Dear Dad,

I’ve been trying to figure out who else is going out for basketball. Some of them are easy to figure. Donnie Joad is going out, because he does anything that’s free. Skip Hendrickson is, because he’s good at everything and likes to make sure everyone knows. Rick Jarvis isn’t, because he plays soccer year around on his fancy club team. Mudgett isn’t. He doesn’t do regular sports. Just taekwondo, which seems way cooler than basketball to me. I hear that Rusty Foster is. I hope I don’t have to get dressed next to him. Yikes. A bunch of eighth graders are and I hope like heck that Gilman isn’t one of them. I still haven’t seen him around school since the fight.

Brian Haase is going out for the team, which I never expected. He’s not much of a sports guy. Maybe him and I will get cut together. It would be a relief to not be the only kid to get cut.

Because, you see, I can’t imagine that I’ll make the team. I mean, I’m gonna try and everything, but I’m just not very good at this whole basketball thing.

Dad, I have a question for you: that Julia woman up there with you. Are you, like, interested in her? I mean, would you ever date her or anything? Do people do that sort of thing up there?
 
Here’s another question for you: If mom were to date, what would you think about that?

Your son,

Tom

That poor asparagus would be a soggy, flavorless mess.

Dear Trevor,

It’s funny, because you don’t want to go out for dinner with just your mom, while I would cut off my right arm for the chance.

I know what you mean about how restaurant food can’t compare to your mom’s home cooking. She was always an astonishingly good cook, as long as you could keep her away from making casseroles.

When it came to basic food, roast beef, fried chicken, biscuits, apple pie—no one could come close to your mom. A chicken dinner on a Friday night, maybe with baking powder biscuits and a steamed vegetable. I would burn down Sung-Hee’s shack for a meal like that.

I loved to watch your mom cook. She was a master of efficiency, which she probably learned by growing up on the farm. Farm girls have a natural desire to avoid work, because they do so damn much of it.

Here’s how I remember it: First, Evelyn would turn on the oven. It didn’t matter what it was, she cooked every single thing that ever went in that oven at 350 degrees. Then she’d fill a bowl half full of flower, with a good dose of salt and pepper mixed in. She’d take the chicken pieces and douse them in the flour, then she’d lay the white, powdered pieces in a pan, all packed in together like babies in a hospital nursery. That was it. No extra spices. No secret sauces. Just flour, salt, pepper and chicken. She’d slide the pan onto the top shelf in the oven and shut the door.

Then she’d use the leftover flour as the base of her biscuits, so there was no waste. She’d add a little more flour, then pour a little baking powder into the palm of her hand and tip it into the bowl. She’d cut in some butter. Or lard if she had it. Then she’d pour in some milk. No measuring cups. No measuring spoons, other than the cupped palm of her hand.

“How do you know how much to put in?” I’d ask.

“Oh now,” she’d say, as she was kneading the dough onto a breadboard, “you just pour in enough so that it looks right.” She’d have flour on her forehead, looking all farm-girl beautiful without knowing it in the least. She’d cut the biscuits from the rolled-out dough with an upturned water glass and slide the circles onto an ungreased cookie sheet. One that was all black and burnt from so much use. Then she’d sneak the cookie sheet on a rack under the cooking chicken and start washing the vegetable. Let’s say she was making asparagus, since we’re dreaming here. She’d plop the spears in a pot of water and put it on the stove. Then she’d boil every living bit of life out of those spears. The chicken would be both crispy and tender at the same time. The biscuits—flaky and light and dripping in butter and jam. But that poor asparagus would be a soggy, flavorless mess.

Two out of three ain’t bad.

Dad