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It was a hard choice to explain. It was hard at the time to realize what the choices were.

After my wife left I could have gone to Janet. I could have gone and I know it would have been easy. But since our children were grown and already muddying the waters of their lives, and my career was solid—proudly solvent— and steadfastly racing toward the pasture of retirement, I took a taxi to the airport.

I caught a plane to the Rockies and checked into a small hotel. I walked the pleasant streets, capricious at first, enjoying this new conundrum for several weeks—always clean-shaven, always ready to tip my hat. And the chambermaid, who spoke to me of her youth in Montreal, brought my breakfast to bed, often staying for coffee and a bite of sweet roll. It was simple and replete. There was nothing in general. There was no need for apologies or retractions for a misuse of speech. Only the one day at the station:   I had learned to feed the pigeons and wait trains like an old man. I even carried a cane which I propped against the bench. But a boy in a tuba tripped over it—a boy in a tuba. I began to notice the crowd gathering on platform 5. The barber, the bartender, the mayor in his ribbonsache and tails. So I watched as the high school band played badly; they were generally less interesting than the fringe on their epaulets. But when the sound swelled and she stepped from the trainstair, I too felt the hardrock behind her standstone cheeks.

It was Mother Snow. And I needed to walk a mile down the road.