There is one tree in the cemetery next door. An "oak," Neil says--a strong name. Its trunk is broad enough for us both to sit against it and face the same direction, facing the stones and the tiers of streets beyond. To our right the sun has fallen to a flat angle, low enough to reach under the canopy that had protected us from it the hour before, but its heat was now changed to a glow that offered a new protection as an apology to our former discomfort.
Neil said, "This is my favorite time of the day." We had not spoken for some time. I had become without thought, and my mind was reluctant to make words upon lips reluctant to form them.
"This light is like a wash," he said, "cleaning the dirty day away."
My mind slowly awoke. "I need that," I said.
The softened sunlight shone flat against the narrow sides of the headstones of the first two rows before us, connecting their sides with a thin, black stripe.
"It doesn't get easier," he said.
"It is hard to ignore her. I want to look at her."
Already, the stones were disconnected.
"She'll help you. And you'll become better at it than you ever really wanted to be."
"Then why would I want to continue?"
His silence was long--I am sure I saw the shadows move--before I looked up into a dark profile grinning to the distance.
"I think," he said, "I'm over May." He was not measuring his words but holding them up for inspection. "It's myself I'm not over." After a deep breath he turned to me and said, "You ask good questions. Do what feels right. What do I know?"
"What do I know?" i countered. Despite the lowering shadows, I was becoming warm again. "I know that I am a monkey in a world of humans--that I am physically one and emotionally the other--"
"Whereas I'm the other way 'round."
"I do not even know if I am either one, or both." Headlights shone from some of the cars of the thinning traffic, the sound of which reached up this gentle slope atop which we sat as a muffled, intermittent roar, as waves on a far beach. "Gail must know."
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