That night, lying by the fire under a set of stars that looked so fresh and clean they could have been minted that morning, in the chilly air that carried on its sleek back the sounds of nightbirds and the splash of fish —maybe this far south a gator tail —I watched the two of them sitting across from me, as Frank, snugged behind her broad shoulders, combed out Hazel’s hair with slow, gentle strokes.

Everyone in Upper Parkview, even people who did not know the Engelbrechts socially, knew about their Elijah, and how he not only cooked and served at the Engelbrechts’ excellent parties, but also suggested the dates and chose the wine. It was said he kept a record of who owed the Engelbrechts and whom they owed, and that people who offended him got shifted down the list. 

He was born before his time, and since it was not his time had to be put back in and born again. He would not stay in the crib. His mother thought he had wings. She thought he could fly around the room.

I too, alone, survived to tell thee. A whale tells this, white as Biscay froth, a tale black as caviar. I almost lost heart. Albinos do, doomed special while feeling like the rest. We’re dark unto ourselves.

Ajegunle Joe spent the evening reading the letters from the few subscribers he had left. Without a single exception they called him a fraud and demanded back their money.

They had begun to view things differently from an early date. By the time Matteo Lupi celebrated his twentieth birthday each had agreed never to speak to the other again.

He remembers the peculiar, special warmth of days in southern France. The sharp smell in the air of sun on pine trees. Of fires. These smells and that warmth on his skin come to him before he sees anything.

Though it was pitch dark on the road where the Foxes parked and you tried to keep from stepping in the black puddles of icy mud when you looked up at the stars, North Main Street was brightly-lighted and decorated with lanterns and paper carved pumpkins in the windows, and the street was closed off with flashing barricades and crowded from one end to the other: from the tightly-packed mob around the bandstand where a punk band was pounding out grating music and jumping sometimes with their guitars, to the end of the road near Gepetto’s, where the crowd thinned out and everyone stopped and stood, puzzled and bemused, before turning back to walk again.

The significance of these footprints remained in chrysalis within me until the recent death of my great-uncle reminded me of the occasion.

Sharon understands the uses of beautiful. When she comes to visit, even in this middle life, she wears her hair down and schoolgirl thick to her shoulders.