It’s no crime to sit in your armchair after dinner just listening to rain—the last dregs of wine settling in the glass, dishes undone. All day I stayed busy. I polished the table with orange oil, folded the clothes. The sky grew thick and darkened, dense as asphalt, deceptive as black ice. I’ve lived so long beside the ocean, my Ohio childhood seems like someone else’s now. I’ve listened to wind lament in the hemlocks, praised the goodness of spring as it loosened the winter dirt again. My parents are long dead. What have I learned by living so far from what I might have become? Out here, the view from any random curve in the highway might be the answer to a prayer. November’s dark days a scar that hurts as it heals. Even pain is temporary. I try not to want anything.