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Tony was meticulous about machinery and told me that you should always put a tool back exactly where you found it, so you'd know where to put a hand to it the next time. He told me that after I had not done it and he'd flown into a fit. He had a temper, but mostly he was fun to be around, a manly man, and I think my mother Doreen liked to see the two of us together.

In the fall of the year that I was graduating high school Doreen was seeing Tony off and on. She worked as a waitress at the Headingley Hotel and that's where she had met him - he drove a bulldozer for a construction company, seasonal work. He was the last hire and so the first laid off in September. He was from the north country but his family had moved into the city when he and his brother Nathan were in their twenties. This was about the time my father was electrocuted up a hydro pole, working for Manitoba Hydro. He made some kind of mistake connecting wires and in an instant was dead. I was ten at the time and what I remember about the funeral was how many people showed up at the church in sweat pants and baseball jackets. Our family rarely saw the inside of church, but Doreen had standards: you went to weddings and funerals in good clothes, out of respect for what was happening.

Tony had a room on the edge of the city but he spent a lot of time at my mother's house, a little place just outside of Headingley with a double garage and a gravel driveway. She would go to his room sometimes and then she would call home to let me know where she was and how long she'd be gone, and I had the feeling she felt guilty but didn't know what to do about it. I didn't mind. To me it seemed that's how things worked, she had her own life to lead. I had my own girlfriend and she came over sometimes and that was just part of life too.

Tony drove a motorcycle, a Triumph Bonneville that he repaired himself. He was often in the garage late into the night, tinkering with this or that. He showed me how to adjust a carburetor, twisting the set-screws until the mixture of oxygen and gas was just right. It was a finicky business. But it felt good when you had the engine running smoothly. He showed me how to grind valves with a hand drill. Metal parts littered the work bench in Doreen's garage, oily rags and tools with stained handles. I liked him. He whistled while he worked and he often had an open beer on the work bench and he invited me to share it and to look over his shoulder at whatever he was doing. Up north he had spent a lot of his youth shooting things - ducks, geese, deer, moose - and he liked to do that and often was up early in the morning to drive out to some place with a rifle. He always asked me to come along. I came to be a good shot but I didn't like killing things the way he did. His brother Nathan didn't either. He still asked me to come along, but after a while we both knew I'd decline and he'd go out on his own.

When he wasn't out hunting that fall, he hung around the house and that bothered me. I'd grown up used to a lot of space and time to myself, and someone else rattling around in the house put me on edge. Tony too. For a week or so it was okay between us, but after several more had passed he became irritable and accused me of being a surly teenager, which I probably was. We'd snarl at each other and he'd leave in a huff, banging the door behind him. I'd hear the bike cough to life and see swirls of gravel and dust behind it as he left the yard. I wasn't sure where he went on those days, but it was probably a bar. It didn't much matter. He was out of the house and I had it to myself. It was the one thing Doreen gave me: space and time.

***

In late October Tony was in a foul mood about being laid off. He spent a lot of hours in the garage and at night he and Doreen went out places, dancing, or visiting friends. He was edgy because he was out of work and Doreen was edgy because he was edgy. I thought maybe they'd call it quits, the way she had with other guys and it was not a prospect that displeased me. The house seemed to be getting smaller and smaller, the flare-ups and silences more frequent and intense. I fought with my girlfriend sometimes and was mean to friends at school. We were reaching the boiling point when Tony got a call from his mother one night. It was late, I was asleep when the phone rang.

Doreen came into my bedroom sometime later. "Jimmy," she whispered, "Jimmy, are you awake?" I could tell by her voice that something serious had happened. It wasn't Tony out on his motorcycle - something Doreen never tired of fearing - he was standing behind her in the hallway. I could just see his head of dark hair over hers. "It's Nathan," she said when she saw that I was awake. "Nathan has killed - Nathan has committed suicide." She started to shake then and I knew she was trying not to break down.

I remember sitting up in bed. I remember Doreen holding me while she cried and also that Tony came into the room and placed a hand on her shoulder. His fingers knitted on her night dress like a cat's paws as the tears ran down her cheeks and he hugged her awkwardly from behind and said, "Doreen, Doreen." I was in a daze from sleeping deep and from being awoken suddenly to such shocking news. It was the first time since my father was killed that a person in my acquaintance had died: and he really didn't count either, seeing how young I was at the time. I hope that doesn't make me sound callous. I loved my father, but I didn't remember him all that well, only that I missed him once he was gone.

Doreen's crying was like the snuffling of a child. After a moment Tony stepped away from her and moved the football off the chair in my bedroom and put it on the dresser. But then he decided not to sit there and came and sat on the end of the bed. He ran his hands back through his hair and blew out his cheeks. "I shouldn't never have given up smoking," he said. After a bit he began to tremble and I realized that he cared for his brother, and I wished that I had a brother I could feel about that way.

Nathan's death wasn't entirely unexpected. He had been depressive since before he left high school. He could not hold a job. He moved out of his parents' house and lived in a halfway house with others like him who spent time in and out of hospitals and took a bunch of pills and were generally so miserable to those around them that no one wanted much to do with them. He looked like Tony: stocky, muscular, with a head of dark hair and eyes that flashed with anger over the least slight. They didn't get along and rarely saw each other, but they were brothers, and on the night he killed himself Tony was as upset as I ever was to see him, or any man.

***

After the funeral service we went to their parents' place, which was on a scrubby plot of land past the town of St Francis. They lived in a big mobile home, a double they called it, with several bedrooms and a kitchen and a spacious living and dining area. The mother, Edna, greeted us at the door and offered us a beer. She was chain smoking, her fingers stained yellow from tobacco. The rooms were thick with smoke, like at the bar, and Doreen waved her hand in front of her face when she sat down on the sofa beside me and took a sip of her drink. The father was a small man with red hair. His name was Eric. He sat on the opposite end of the sofa with a glass of whiskey in his hand, looking like a bird that might take flight at any time. There were sliced meats and cheeses and rye bread on the table and we ate, and Eric and Edna talked about every imaginable subject except Nathan. There were only a few friends present and soon it was only us and I could tell Doreen and Tony were restless. The sun had set an hour or so earlier and the sky outside was darkening. I had been excited earlier, at the cemetery, but felt dull in the heart and wishing I was home in bed, reading and listening to the radio.

Doreen tapped her watch and glanced at Tony, then me, mouthing the word school.

"We got to go," Tony said. He was standing at a side table examining a photo of Nathan with the family taken when the boys were in their teens. It was in color. Tony was wearing a Toronto Maple Leafs sweater and Nathan a Canadiens. "Jimmy here's got homework," he said.

"Right," Eric said. "We don't want the boy growing up ignorant like the rest of us." He smiled at me and tipped his glass in my direction.

"Right you are," Doreen said, standing.

"So soon?" Edna said. "You haven't seen your father in months, Tony, and then it's up and go before we've hardly had a word. Before -"

"Edna," Eric said sharply, "you've had plenty of words, plenty."

But Edna was intent on what she had to say. She shot him a mean look and said, "If not for your father's sake, then Nathan's."

Tony sighed. He was pulling on his jacket.

Edna screwed up her face. Smoking had put black lines under her eyes, and creasing her skin in a scowl made her very unattractive. "Your brother loved you. Even if you didn't love him. You know that, don't you?"

"Maw," Tony said. He placed one hand over his stomach.

"He looked up to you and wanted to be like you. When you were boys he -"

"He hated me," Tony said, his voice rising. "That time I went to his apartment, he told me to piss off and die. He was not my loving little brother, he was a monster, he treated you and Dad like crap. And me - he told me he never wanted to see me again." Tony was trembling, worrying his thumbs against his other fingers. He was red in the face.

"But you," Edna went on, as if she hadn't heard a word he'd said, "on the day we bury your baby brother, you can't make tracks away from us fast enough."

"Edna," Eric, said, "for heaven's sake now."

"Maw, you're upsetting me."

"I'm upsetting you!" Edna stubbed a cigarette in an overflowing ashtray. She started to cough, a deep smoker's cough that threatened to leave her without wind. Her face turned beet red. She waved one hand in the air and coughed and gasped. It was something Eric was used to. He didn't stir, hardly glanced at her as she recovered her breath and put one hand over her chest, gasping and clawing the air with her other hand. Tony stared at Doreen. He looked helpless.

Doreen passed Edna her bottle of beer and Edna pulled at it for a minute and then seemed recovered.

Eric said, "You go now, son. We'll be all right." He stood and put his hand on Tony's wrist and gave it a squeeze. "She's just upset," he added. "We're all upset. I am, she is, and you are. Maybe Doreen here and Timmy too."

There was a long silence. I could tell Doreen was struggling not to correct Eric about my name and it was clear that Tony was hoping she wouldn't do that. He took his father's hand and held it in his. Eric had green eyes and they bugged out slightly. His mouth crinkled down as if he was going to weep but he took several deep breaths and did not. It was a point of honor with him, I guessed, and I admired him for it. He patted Tony on the shoulder.

Edna looked hurt that we were leaving and when Doreen wasn't looking gave her a sharp look that made me feel protective of my mother, a feeling I didn't have often. I stood too and put my unfinished beer on a side table.

"Well," Eric said, "so, then we'll ..."

Edna brightened suddenly. "Before you go," she said, standing, "I've got something for you, Tony." She went into a back room. While she was out, Tony looked at Eric, who shrugged his shoulders. A tabby cat had been sitting under the table and glancing in the direction of the food. It came out and leaped onto a chair and licked the edge of the plate with the cold meats, but then seemed uninterested and jumped back down on the floor and went under the table again.

By that time Edna had returned. She was carrying a rifle. "This here was Nathan's," she said before anyone could react. She was carrying it in the way an honor guard does, to arms, and she shifted it and thrust it toward Tony.

"Maw," he said, backing away, hands up like a cop halting traffic. His voice cracked. I'd seen him angry and upset with Doreen or me about this and that but never with the look in his eye he had right then. He seemed frightened almost, and close to tears. I wondered if maybe he thought he was responsible for Nathan sticking his head in that oven.

"Take it," Edna insisted. "You were the one always liked guns."

"I can't," Tony said. He'd placed one hand over his stomach and was shaking his head.

"You can," Edna said. "You will."

"Maw," he said, "you don't know what -"

"He wanted you to have it," Edna said sharply. "He said I should give it to you." It was clear to me that she was lying, and I guessed that Tony knew that and maybe Doreen did too. Edna had got the idea in her mind, though, and there was no changing it, you could tell that too.

"It's a twenty-two," she said.

"I know what it is," Tony said.

"Your father bought one for each of you when you were boys. Christmas."

"I know that too, Maw." Tony's voice was growing increasingly irritable.

"And he wanted you to have his, see, his last request kind of thing."

"For God's sake, Maw," Tony said in a rage. "He didn't even leave a note."

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Edna was so clearly lying and so insistent that she was absurd, and Tony looked so forlorn and panicky he might have bolted out the door. Maybe he was afraid that bad luck came with the rifle, maybe he thought it was terrible to take it when his mother was so obviously trying to guilt him into it. I don't know what he thought but there has never been another time in my life when I've seen someone so uncomfortable with a gift.

"Take it, son," Eric said sharply. "Just get the damn thing out of here." Tony sighed. He reached out with both hands and took the rifle from his mother.

"Good, now," she said, a note of triumph in her voice, "you see." When we were at the door she added, "Now mind now, that thing may be loaded."

Tony sighed. "It'll be all right," he said with finality in his voice.

***

Outside the air was cold. On the drive out we'd heard on the radio that it was snowing up north and the moon overhead was so bright it was blue. Doreen shivered against the cold. I had on a sport jacket and my neck was open to the wind and it was the cold wind that comes down from the north and freezes the water in the rivers and lakes.

Doreen owned an old Datsun with rust spots but she asked Tony, "You wanna drive?"

"No," he said. "I've got the bad gut." He moaned slightly when he spoke.

When Doreen frowned the lines of her face hardened and she was not attractive at all. She looked like she was going to say something sharp but she did not. Tony threw the rifle into the back seat beside me and we drove away toward the city.

There was silence in the car, which was all right with me. I thought about the fact that I'd be leaving school in a few months and expected to live like an adult. Maybe I'd move into the city and have a room somewhere. I thought I'd go to college but I had no money and neither did Doreen, so it seemed I'd be working for some time before that. Which was okay with me. I'd had my fill of school. I thought, too, about what my mother would do after I'd left. I did not think she would marry or even live with Tony. She'd said as much. She had talked about taking a course and improving her life. Paralegal maybe. She had her own plans and that was all right by me. I wondered if Tony would move on and what would happen to him. He seemed to have the look in his eye some days of a man who wasn't sure where he was going, only that it was not where he'd set out to get to, and I felt sorry for him in a way, but not too much.

My thoughts turned to hockey. The try-outs for the Braves had been held and I had made the team, had in fact been named the team captain. My coach said the New York Rangers were sending a scout to sign me to a card and there was every likelihood I could play in the pros, if I set my heart and mind to it. I didn't think I could do that. It seemed to me that there was a lot of yelling at players and pushing them around by the managers and coaches, things I didn't like in my own coach. And I probably wasn't good enough to make it to the Rangers, so I'd be putting up with all that and playing in the minor leagues. I thought college was a better prospect. I'd always liked reading and watching the news on TV. Maybe I'd become a teacher or journalist.

***

We came to St Francis. There's a wide opening at a curve in the highway there where the Assiniboine River is visible, and the moon was dancing on the water and it looked pretty. The geese had come down from the north by then and most had passed through, but a few stragglers were still left and some were in the field between the highway and the river. Tony looked over at them. He shifted on the car seat. "Christ I'm glad to be out of there," he said.

"Me too," Doreen said.

"Family," Tony said and shook his head. He glanced into the back seat. "You okay?" he asked.

"Fine," I said. Though the truth was I had a knot in my stomach and was wishing away the miles.

Tony was still looking at me. "You did great there," he said. And then he added with emphasis, "Timmy." And he laughed a quiet laugh and so did Doreen. I did too and my gut felt a little less tight. "I'm all right," I said, "Timmy's okay." We all three laughed. I had rolled the window down a crack and was happy to be breathing fresh air. I don't know how Eric lived with all that smoke. People become used to each other's habits, I put it down to. It drove me crazy when Tony sniffed and snorted when we sat and watched TV. I don't think I could ever have adjusted to that. And Doreen hated it when I clipped my toenails in any place other than the bathroom. But she had no idea how annoying it was when she whistled along to her Abba tape in her squeaky off-tune way.

After a while Tony said, "My guts are in a knot."

"Welcome to the club," Doreen said. She laughed. She was coming around now that we were out on the road and she was behind the wheel. She liked driving and she liked to drive fast. In the city she zipped between lanes, dodging past buses and taking the curb lane where cars are parked, cutting people off as she whipped along. She played Iggy Pop on the stereo and thumped her palms on the steering wheel to the beat. Often she had a cup of black coffee in one hand. I'd only just got my license and the way she maneuvered took my breath away. But I thought, Okay, if that's what gets her through the night.

We came to the junction of the highway and the Trans Canada and Doreen slipped into the feeder lane. A car was coming along the Trans Canada but she cut into the lane in front of it. I suppose she thought she had a lot of room but the Camaro was moving fast and the driver lay on his horn when he came up behind and then took the outside lane, slowing to drive right beside us, horn still blaring. Two men were inside and they glared at us and gave Doreen the finger. She gave them the finger back. We drove like that for some time, the two guys staring into our car. Then the Camaro scooted ahead and we thought we were done with that but the car went directly in front of the Datsun and the driver intentionally slowed, hitting the brake, and Doreen had to put on the brakes too. We were all three thrown forward. "Jesus," Doreen cried out.

"What the hell," Tony snapped, putting one hand on the dash.

Doreen snapped back: "What?"

"You're driving crazy."

"He's driving crazy," Doreen said.

"My guts are already in a knot and then you go drive like a crazy person," Tony said in a tone that made Doreen look at him and frown. "You always drive crazy," he went on.

"Back off," Doreen said and wheeled past the Camaro in the open lane, the little engine of the Datsun working hard and the car shuddering. We were at the place just before the gravel road toward Lido Plage. The speedometer shot up further. The men in the Camaro glared at us as we rushed past. They were guys in their mid-thirties wearing T-shirts and ball caps. They had scraggly hair and black brush mustaches. When Doreen passed them I looked back. The driver had sped up and his headlights were not far from the back of our car.

Tony had his feet braced against the firewall and one hand on the dash board. "Will you cool it," he shouted, "for the love of Christ!"

Doreen said, "Who's behind the wheel here, who's driving here?" She slowed a little to make the turn onto the gravel road, tires squealing. The Camaro followed behind, its headlights momentarily splashing into my back-turned face. I had a bad feeling about what was going to happen.

When we were on the gravel, Tony asked, "They behind us? Jimmy?"

"Yes," I said.

"Shit." He turned in his seat to look out the rear window. "Now look what you've gone and done."

Doreen glared at him and then into the rearview mirror. I could see the jut of her jaw and the way she was biting down on her lower lip. "Me?" she said. "Oh, isn't that just typical."

At a straight stretch the Camaro shot up beside us and then a little ahead and then cut in front, braking hard, so Doreen had to brake too, and the cars fishtailed around on the gravel, the Camaro on the left and ahead as both slowed and swerved about. Doreen sawed at the wheel and kept the Datsun on the road, but gravel pinged on the undercarriage and the suspension made grinding noises. The Camaro sped up ahead again and cut in sharply. "Fucking hell," Tony shouted. Both cars fishtailed crazily again. I could see the man closer to us and he was yelling and trying to hang onto the dashboard of the Camaro. Then the cars came to a juddering stop, making horrid metal sounds and scattering gravel. I was sweating and Doreen was breathing hard and Tony was saying, "Shit shit shit" in a high-pitched voice filled with rage. The guy on the passenger side leapt out of the Camaro and was yelling at Doreen as he came toward the Datsun. There was some distance between the cars and he was crossing it slowly, jabbing his finger at Doreen and yelling, "Stupid fuck! stupid cunt!" You could hear him clearly, and he was out of control.

"Drive!" Tony shouted. He looked down the road, illuminated by the headlights, a straight stretch with a long curve at the far end.

Doreen's hands were locked on the wheel. The knuckles were white and her arms were shaking, from wrist to elbow.

"Drive away," Tony said. "Drive on. Now!" He pointed straight ahead. The Camaro was half in the ditch and the Datsun had a clear path in front of it.

"Mom," I shouted. The guy was closing in on the Datsun. He was going to do something violent, like smash his fist through a window, that much was clear by the set of his shoulders. He had a crazed look in his eye, which appeared worse because we were sitting looking up at him. I thought my mother might die right there. I thought I might.

"Drive!" Tony shouted again.

"I can't," Doreen said weakly. She threw her head back and howled. But her hands would not move. My window was down and the sounds of the man's boots crunching on gravel came closer.

That's when it became apparent the guy had something in his hand, a thick stick or a club.

"Christ almighty!" Tony shouted. It was a wail. He could see what was coming, as could I. Maybe Doreen could too.

The man raised the club and smashed it into the driver's window, scattering glass over Doreen. She screamed. He pulled the club back again and peered down into the car. It was not clear what he meant to do next. He might have been content with what he'd done, but it looked like he was going to do something to Doreen. She was howling, a screeching sound that made the hairs on my head stand up. My eyes were locked on the man and the club. It was wrapped in black tape, a cop's night stick kind of thing. I wanted to leap out of the car and pummel him in the face, beat him until he couldn't move. I was that angry. He was about to kill my mother. The rage I felt registered as the surging of blood in my head and I wondered if this is what animals feel just before they're killed.

I didn't see that Tony had grabbed the .22 out of the backseat. "Roll your window down!" he screamed at me. "Now!"

I did. Almost immediately there was the loud report of the rifle, louder than I ever could have thought, as the impact of the charge reverberated in the little car. Doreen screamed. The man with the club dropped it and grabbed his left shoulder, which was bleeding visibly. His face was contorted. He looked surprised at what had happened. He staggered backward, then fell to his knees on the gravel. He made an odd sound when he hit the road, humph. The other man, the driver, was out of the car and making his way toward him, not quite running but moving fast. He threw off his ball cap and it fluttered behind him into the ditch.

"Drive!" Tony shouted at Doreen. "For Christ's sake!"

The shock waves from the rifle shot had brought her back to her senses. She stamped on the accelerator and the Datsun leapt forward, spraying gravel behind. I caught a glimpse of the two men through the rear window. They were both standing then, fast diminishing shadows, one of them holding his hand to his injured shoulder, the other staring at our car as it sped away.

***

It was only a short distance to the road that led to my mother's little house. My heart was beating wildly in my chest. Doreen was fuming the whole way, letting us know, if there was any doubt, that she was furious with Tony, and me, too, maybe. There was no use in pointing out that she had brought the business on. When we drove up, she sat without moving, her arms locked over the steering wheel and her head down. "Get that thing out of here," she said.

Tony had the butt of the rifle stuck between his feet with the barrel pointed up, almost touching the roof. He got out and so did I. The wind was up then and cold on the face. We didn't say anything but started walking away from the car and house. The property sat near the river, slanting steeply at the bank, but we'd both been down there many times and knew our way even in the dark. We stumbled a bit but were okay. An owl hooted in the trees and we both started and looked about and then laughed. Tony was carrying the rifle and when we came to the riverbank he took the end of the barrel in both hands and twirled himself about, like a man throwing the hammer at the Olympics. He made a half spin and released the rifle, which sailed out over the river, spinning like a helicopter blade, then fell into the water with a loud plop.

"That's that then," Tony said, wiping his hands together. I knew he meant more than the rifle and I felt sorry for him. He always had good intentions and this was another example. He had meant to stand up for my mother, but in her eyes it had gone horribly wrong. We stood and looked at the river. A log floated by. On the far side something twinkled in the moonlight, a piece of aluminum or glass. I studied it for a while, wondering who had left such a thing there. I wondered if I'd see Tony again after that night and concluded it was unlikely and I felt badly for him again, but I was not much bothered by the prospect of him being gone from our lives. Other men had come into Doreen's life and gone. He was not the first. He was thinking something like that, too, I gathered.

"I had high hopes," Tony said, "for me and your mother." He had his hands thrust in his pockets then, shoulders slumped forward. "Not that I thought we'd get married or anything," he went on.

My nose was cold and I rubbed it with my hand.

"I guess I'll light out now," he said. "I've always fancied Albuquerque, New Mexico." He laughed. "Want to know why?"

"Why?" I said. I was curious. I realized it might be the last time I'd ever speak to Tony.

"I like the name." Tony laughed again. "Imagine that, traveling thousands of miles because you like the name of a place."

"It's an okay reason," I said, "as good as most."

"I guess. Or maybe California. I hear there's a construction boom on. I think I could like California. You don't have to wear a helmet there on your bike."

I was thinking how it was that a person's life could turn on one small act, like firing a gun. Life was strange. Tony and Doreen had seemed solid, as solid as most couples, and that had ended in one moment. Our hopes and dreams were fragile, I realized. You went along thinking your life would continue as it had been, planning and projecting into the future and then one thing happened and it all tumbled apart, as fast as pulling the bottom card out of the house of cards.

Tony cleared his throat. "Your mother's pretty and a fine woman," he said quietly, "but she's not the only woman around."

I didn't know what to say to that, so I said nothing. I felt the cold creeping in around my ankles and shuffled from one foot to the other.

"I like it here, though," he went on. "I'll miss it."

"It's quiet," I said. My heart was still thumping hard in my chest. It would be hours before I calmed down enough to sleep and that was a shame, but I could read a book or watch TV.

"Yes," he said. "Peaceful. A man needs that sometimes." He'd taken his hands out of his pockets and was rubbing his chin and staring out across the river.

I had the feeling he wanted to say more, or have me say something but my mind was blank. My ears were still ringing from the rifle concussion and I was numb in a different way too, void in the heart. I was turning over the picture of Tony holding the rifle butt against his shoulder for a moment after he'd squeezed the trigger. The look on his face could only be called grim. Doreen's mouth was open and her hands by then were in her hair, tearing at it. He looked crazy and she looked wild and I felt at that moment as if everything I'd known and thought had suddenly disintegrated, like I was about to die. It was an awful feeling and I hope never to experience it again.

Tony coughed and I was back on the riverbank with him, feeling hollow inside. It had been a terrible day. I imagined I would not sleep well and felt a twinge of sadness about that. On the way back to the house we didn't speak and when we came up to the stoop, Tony turned toward his motor bike. He was rubbing his gut with his palm, slow little circles just above the belt.

"Good night," I said as he walked away.

"Good bye, Jimmy," he said. "And good luck to you." I watched him walk toward his bike. When he got there, he turned and added, "Look after your mother now." I'd read somewhere that a fool was someone who didn't know what mattered to his life in the long run and I thought then that Tony was not a fool and I wanted to tell him but I did not and I felt sorry that I didn't.

"I will," I said. I felt alone then, which was not unusual and not a bad thing, though I was coming to wonder about that.

"Good," he said. "That's all right then."

He sat on his bike a moment before firing up the engine, a breeze raising the hair on his head. He was not a bad man but he had done an unforgivable thing, at least in the eyes of my mother, and he knew it and didn't know how to undo it. I wondered what I would do in his shoes. Does anyone ever think they're a bad person? It's difficult enough to admit you've made a mistake - I'm wrong, I screwed up. Much easier to do what we all do, find excuses for the crappy things we've done - the lies, the betrayal. Justification. We don't even do it consciously most of the time. We're blind to our faults, to our base desires and motives, and we want to believe we're good, we're decent, we only did that rotten thing because we were provoked, betrayed, done wrong. He started it! There are blind spots in the way we see others, in the way we see ourselves, and they are as dangerous as the visual blind spots that cause us to turn the car into the lane next over and smash up our lives and someone else's.

***

Much later that night my mother came into the room where I was watching TV and said, "Come outside and see something." She was wearing her housecoat and she looked pretty again, a girlish grin on her face, the hardness of her features softened by moonlight and the time that had passed since we'd come home.

We stepped out onto the stoop and she pointed into the sky. There was a meteor shower, tiny dots of light falling like fireworks, bright, and then diminishing to nothing. I followed one or two down their arc but it was impossible to tell just when they flared out.

"That's something," she said, "isn't it?"

"It is," I said. And it was. It was the first time I'd seen a meteor shower and I've never seen one again as bright, or that lasted so long.

"I love it out here," she said. "So did your father."

We stared at the sky and breathed in the cold air and that was good for both of us, cleansing to the spirit. After a while she said, "You don't mind me mentioning him, do you?"

"No."

"He was a kind man, a good man. I see something of him in you." She had never said this before and I found it strange that she'd chosen this moment to mention it.

"I suppose I'll get that big nose one day soon," I said laughing a little. "The old Baumer schnozz."

My mother laughed too, a little tinkle of sound. "I'm going to go to Vancouver," she said, "and go to college. They tell me it's nice there." It was the first I'd heard of this and I turned and looked at her. "Don't worry, next summer," she added, smiling, "after you graduate. That's okay with you?"

"It is."

"I'm still a young woman," she said, chuckling. "Well, young enough."

I nodded. I had noticed the way men looked at her. "Tony says that you're pretty and that you're a fine woman."

She snorted in a way that told me she found that amusing - and more, that she knew things that I didn't yet understand about men and women. She pulled the collar of her housecoat close around her neck. The wind was cold and her legs were bare. "You can come too," she added.

"I might," I said, though I think we both knew I would not.

"I have to get away from here," she said. "Men driving pickup trucks and waving guns in the air." She paused, waiting for me to say something. "Oh, Jimmy," she continued, "I just feel so out of sorts with the world these days."

"I know," I said. "Me too."

"I need something to happen in my life, something good, something that doesn't involve motorcycles and shooting."

I nodded. There was an intensity to her voice that told me I did not need to say anything. She was saying what she had been wanting to say for a long time and it didn't require an answer, only my silent presence.

"You won't hold it against me when I leave?"

"No, I will not. You have your life to lead. It's yours and nobody else's."

"There," she said. "That's exactly what your father would have said. Poor Ernie."

At the mention of his name, I felt a lump in my throat and could not speak.

We stood and watched the meteor shower for a few more minutes. It was running down and we were cold and we went inside. She may have said something else but I do not remember, only that we stood at the far ends of the hallway as we went to our bedrooms and looked at each other and grinned. I did not go to college, and I did not play pro hockey either. In the summer after graduation I signed on as a truck driver for a construction company and did that for a few years, drawing a weekly pay cheque, drinking in bars, meeting girls who took me to their places, none as pretty as my mother. She did go to Vancouver and works there as a paralegal in a big law firm. She calls late at night and we talk on the phone and each time she invites me out but I've never gone and I probably never will.