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into each other's eyes and nearly kissed. Eric tually wound him back to the coast, and the lively
harbor town where Eric eventually stopped.
gauged nearly by a number of factors (breathing,
lips, and eyes), but he felt confident. He spent the summer there, fishing the
streams and the rivers of the area, awakening for
"Yes, tomorrow, and we'll have a picnic on predawn hatches, for trout that hit the surface. He
the bluff by the river that your mother told me typed in the afternoon. Then he went back to the
streams at dusk, wearing work pants and an un-
about," she replied. In the dark, you couldn't see dershirt and catching his dinner. The daily grime
washed off of him by the river, he'd head into the
the skin redden, the eyes close, the throat constrict. town at night, walking along the docks and the
wharves, talking to the bums and playing cards and
Eric grew cold, she had seen through him, her sec- dancing with beautiful women under streetlights
to wild horns and drums, finally walking the streets
ond "tomorrow sounds good" further stopping his alone, the mist swirling about his legs, searching
for lights left on in inky black shacks, sitting on
heart. What had his mother said he thought to him- tenement steps and thinking about the thing he was
self. Itbecame clear that he would never see Maria doing. He slept on the flatbed of his truck, buying
again, and he didn't tarry at her door when he bread or rolls, depending on the day, from a pastry
dropped her off. in town for his daytime meals as he fished and
typed.
***
***
Eric's mother's friend tied flies and lived
by the ocean in a nice beach house. Eric had met When he came back home in September,
there was a note tacked on the door from Maria, or
him a couple of times, eaten with him twice, and a partial note that said:
used his flies to fish the river with.
"I love your mother," he had said once. Eric
thought that it was good that someone did, but had
said, "Good" instead, leaving inflection and hear-
say as his meaning behind his words.
***
Dear Eric,
How is your writing? I look and look but
never see your stories, I wonder if you still work Eric,
at it like you said you used to. I hope you haven't Stopped by but you weren't in. Maybe
forgotten about me. Maybe you could send a pic-
ture, or parts of a story so I can show my friends then that was it, the note was gray and weathered
and half gone. "Maybe" Eric laughed, that was
and they will surely be impressed. Have you met the only solidity in his world, "Maybe." The term
"half gone" also seemed funny to him, but he had
anyone? How is your father, is he well? been gone a long time and thought that maybe he
would have to readjust to the life around him again.
Love Always,
***
Aunt Christina
It was in late September when his check
Tragically sad. came, the check for his new story, the story that
would make him "...the latest owner of literary
*** fame ..." It was in October, the early part of the
month, when the leaves were changing color along
Eric packed up his rod and his mother's the river, a fiery upheaval of order (a cry to the
heavens), that his mother's friend have come down
friend's flies and left in the predawn hours after he to the river, watching him fish the clear cool wa-
ter, then had said "I love your mother," and Eric
left Maria at her door. He drove over the river and had said, "Good," although that is not what he
wanted to say. His mother's friend held a maga-
towards the town, but took the left fork, crossing zine, and then read to Eric a portion of a story en-
the bridge and rising out of the valley that held his
life. He drove long and hard, his hat brim down as
he drove towards the rising sun, stopping only to
buy apples at a roadside stand from a dejected fam-
ily of dirt farmers with two prosperous apple trees.
Eric thought of home, but the shame landed upon
him, Maria's conversation with his mother, and he
drove again, reaching the small stream that even-
