Good-bye

Sheffield, MA Across from the Shay's Rebellion marker I take my first break. A hundred feet back my friend Jen stopped her truck beside me. She was furious that I'm really on my way and I never said good-bye. Life, sadly enough, is a long list of good-byes never said. Jen calls me a shit. She is right. Jen's dog Cody watches as we hug, and then once more with a depth that makes sure souls touch. Jen is real, and she knows I know.
I am dumb though. Really. My side of the conversation is dull, and details are non-existant. All of my brain is processing camp, and no one is left to answer the door. Alexcia is still waving in the rain. I am across the huge field that was our front yard wondering how we'll ever come together in two weeks to divorce. That is the plan. Alot of ghosts will walk with me by then. Conviction is easy in a clean court, or at a dry desk. Cold, wet, and hungry soldiers don't make the most reasonable choices. We will see how taunt our convictions are.
"This is it Jesse", Alexcia says, with total affection in her eyes. "This is your life dream. Slow down, calm down. Don't lose this moment. This is everything you have been preparing for. '

Alexcia yelled out my name half an hour ago to bring me down. I was freaking out. My hands were shaking. The clock on the stove was going was too fast, and it was raining out . Alexcia just wanted me to be more loving to myself. I yelled back,"GO AWAY!"
I yelled it perfectly. The house became crisp white paper with nothing on it , not a crease. Looking meekly up to the top of the circular oak stairway where Alexcia had been affectionately keeping watch, while combing our dog Bisbee's hair with her fingers, told me my arrow of two words had a perfect release. The fletching did not brush the bow as it sped to her heart. It was another little death, as there are in all great leavings. My heart too bled from a vein that I didn't know that I ruptured. My hands that were less than useless anyway, left everything. At he top of the stairs I walked to her bed.Fetal, Alexcia lay with Bisbee who had climbed into her cupped body. Her face was wet and hot.
"I am so sorry," I offered. "I lost myself, and you definately didn't deserve this." Over and over I moved the montra out of my chest. I am sorry. I am sorry. I was no longer talking about my outburst, and stress. Absence, yearnings, silence instead of words, women that meant more than they should have. I wanted to be this dog that makes the most loving sounds as it moves toward your concern. I wanted to wait at five on the hill in the lawn for all your returns, and my only sin being the occasional turkeyI kill by the forest, or being painted by the skunk I just had to take down. Really, I let me down. This silly man with shaking hands was not the husband that I envisioned I'd one day be.I can do better I wanted to say, tried to say. I am sorry.
My feet are now in the yard. From an apple tree I planted I take a red fruit. It is tight and good. Alexcia smiles at me with the shallow pain of good-bye acking up from her heart to her eyes. Pictures are taken. Somehow I find the end of the driveway, then the road. This is where the walk of New England stopped. This is where walking America begins anew. It is no longer Cadilac Mt. in Maine. We knew then that we would make love again, there would be visits, and cell phone calls. That was New England-not North America. That was then.
There is no sun today. It rains. We are reduced to children that say,"go away" when we are so scared that all that we love really will.