The coastlines, the ridge lines, the trails—it was always you I wanted to share them with. I wanted to reach out somehow, and tell you. The fear and the angst at what we thought we needed, I loved holding with you. The hospital beds and the classes, the late night failures of ice cream and little boxes of maybe meat, the lazy mornings and the city stumblings, our dirty bathroom and the crowded diner—oh, the crowded diner—my love is there anything we love more than coffee in the crowded diner?

Here is something from a tidbit I wrote before. It seems I can’t keep from making the driving force of every protagonist you. But that’s no wonder.

Where, some place back in time, my kid brother led his band bravely into the fray. Into dark lands with trees the size of skyscrapers, and boar who wouldn’t bother themselves with a shotgun, let alone a man. And my kid brother lost some friends in those wild lands, searching for me no less, and for that I’m sorry. Which I’ll tell him when time comes back around, and we are boys again, standing under the giant sequoias, on some richer man’s land, where we run and laugh as quietly as we can. We are bandits, locked in joy at the height of our crime, running like wild horses, our necks expanding at the cold air, the silent cathedral ours alone. And we’ll stop running, and look up, and all around us the old trees will be busy growing, speaking their own language, and two boy brothers will witness the heavens. Landowners be damned.

And we won’t whisper a word about it.

But now, I am sitting inside a diner. Outside, recreational vehicle space ships try to park in the lines. My coffee is strong and the stars are bright. Back on Earth, it always seemed that, if you could just shoot off from earth in a rocket ship, the stars would seem within reach, but turns out they’re just as far away up here. I remember my wife. She was always my wife, and is, and will be. I remember her smiling at me from rainy tables on Earth. I remember sharing a bathroom with her. I can pick her smile from a billion stars. 

It’s easy.

A man snaps me from my memories. He throws a thumb over his shoulder. Isn’t that your brother, he says, and we look out the window, over the hodgepodge of parking R.V.S.S.’S, across a galaxy or two, and under an aggravated asteroid belt, we see him.

He’s brave. He leads his men into an ambush. Fur-wearing barbarians attack from the woodworks. He swings a sword, He pushes forward. Caydran is there, by his side. They look each other in the eye. Caydran nods. My kid brother Keene takes strength in that, and pushes onward.

I nearly spill my coffee. I’m proud. The man who jostled me raises his eyebrows. I take from it that he too, is impressed. I’m so happy my kid brother has found so mighty a friend in Caydran.

“Now if you’ll excuse me,” I say.

I turn back to the counter; I jump into the stars.

And there she is.

Smiling from her side of a rainy Earth table.

And to heaven, I return.

We get to live together with our two little boys and the dogs I threw into your life. We get to eat together some mornings and most nights we get to hide our plates from the greedy little son. We get to wake up and take turns stumbling to the cribs. We get to walk together in the evenings and see what this planet has to offer in the sunset department. I get to hear you laugh. I get to watch our little sons smile every time you walk in the room. I get to hear you grow frustrated with them. I always smile. I hide it from you but I always smile and I always love it because, if you look, in another five minutes, you make those boys smile and you’re everything. To them; to me.

There’s a look in your eye when you’re frustrated. Sometimes it’s there when you’re walking and I know you’re deep in thought. You’ll chew on your thumb nail and ask me a question as though we’re two generals surveying the end-all decision of some important war. And maybe we are.

To them; to me.