ALSOBY

GAILCALDWELL

AStrongWestWind

Contents

CoverOther Books by thisAuthorTitlePageDedicationEpigraphChapter1

Chapter2Chapter3Chapter4Chapter5Chapter6Chapter7Chapter8Chapter9Chapter10Chapter11

Chapter12Chapter13AcknowledgmentsAbouttheAuthorDiscussion Questionsfor Let’s Take theLongWayHomeCopyright

forCaroline

Thegoldenmomentsinthestreamofliferushpastus,andweseenothingbutsand;theangelscometovisitus,andweonlyknowthemwhentheyaregone.

—GEORGEELIOT,ScenesofClericalLife

IT’S ANOLD, OLD STORY: I HAD A

FRIEND AND WE sharedeverything,andthenshedied and so we sharedthat,too.Theyearaftershewas

gone, when I thought Ihad passed through themadnessofearlygrief, Iwas on the path at theCambridge reservoirwhere Caroline and I

hadwalkedthedogsforyears. It was a winterafternoon and the placewasempty—therewasabend in the road, withno one ahead of orbehind me, and I felt adesolation so great thatfor amomentmy kneeswouldn’t work. “Whatam I supposed to dohere?”Iaskedheraloud,by now accustomed to

conversations with adead best friend. “Am Ijust supposed to keepgoing?” My life hadmade so much sensealongsidehers:Foryearswehadplayedtheeasy,dailygameofcatchthatintimate connectionimplies. One ball, twogloves, equal joy in thethrow and the return.Now I was in the field

without her: one glove,no game. Grief is whattells you who you arealone.

1.

I CAN STILL SEE HER STANDING ON

THE SHORE, A towel aroundher neck and a post-workout cigarette in herhand—halfGidgetandhalfsplendid splinter, herrower’s arms in defiantcontrast to the awful pinkbathing suit she’d found

somewhere. It was thesummer of 1997, andCarolineandIhaddecidedto swap sports: I wouldgiveherswimminglessonsand she would teach mehow to row. Thisarrangement explainedwhyIwascrouchedinmyclosest friend’s needle-thinracing shell, twelve inchesacross at its widest span,looking less like a rower

thanadrunkenspider.Wewere onNewHampshire’sChocorua Lake, a pristinemile-long body of waterneartheWhiteMountains,and the only other persontheretowatchmyexploitswas our friend Tom, whowaswithusonvacation.“Excellent!” Caroline

called out to me everytime I made the slightest

maneuver,howeverfeeble;I was clinging to the oarswith a white-knuckledgrip. At thirty-seven,Caroline had been rowingformore than a decade; Iwas nearly nine yearsolder, a lifelong swimmer,and figured I still had thephysical wherewithal tograsp the basics of a scullupon the water. But asmuch as I longed to

imitate Caroline, whosestrokehadtheprecisionofa metronome, I hadn’trealizedthatmerelysittingin the boat would feel asunstableasbalancingonafloatingleaf.HowhadIlethertalkmeintothis?Novice scullers usually

learn in a boat twice thewidth and weight ofCaroline’s Van Dusen;

later, she confessed thatshecouldn’twaittoseemeflip. But poised there onwater’s edge, holleringinstructions, she was allgood cheer and steelyenthusiasm.Andshemightas well have been timingmy success, fleeting as itwas, with a stopwatch.Theoarsmyonlyleverage,Istartedlistingtowardthewater and then froze at a

precarious sixty-degreeangle, held theremore byparalysisthanbyanysenseofbalance.Tomwasbelly-laughing from the dock;the farther I tipped, theharderhelaughed.“I’mgoingin!”Icried.“No, you’re not,” saidCaroline, her face asdeadpan as a coach’s in alosing season. “No, you’re

not. Keep your handstogether. Stay still—don’tlook at the water, look atyour hands. Now look atme.” The voice consoledand instructed longenough for me tostraighten into position,and Imanaged five or sixstrokes across flat waterbeforeIwentflyingoutoftheboatandintothelake.By the time I came up, a

few seconds later and tenyards out, Caroline waslaughing, and I had beengiven a glimpse of therapture.

THE THREE OF US had gone toChocoruaforthemonthofAugust after Tom hadplacedanadforasummerrental:“Threewriterswithdogs seek house near

water and hiking trails.”The result of his searchwas a ramshacklenineteenth-centuryfarmhouse that we wouldreturn to for years.Surrounded by rollingmeadows, the place hadeverything we could havewanted: cavernous roomswith old quilts andspinning wheels, a campkitchen andmassive stone

fireplace, tall windowsthat looked out on theWhiteMountains.Thelakewas a few hundred yardsaway.Mornings and someevenings, Caroline and Iwould leave behind thedogs, watching from thefront windows, and walkdown to thewater,whereshe rowed the length ofthe lake and I swam itsperimeter. I was the otter

andshewasthedragonfly,andI’dstopeverysooftento watch her flight, backand forth for six certainmiles. Sometimes shepulled over into themarshes so that she couldscrutinizemy flip turns inthe water. We had beenfriends for a couple ofyearsbythen,andwehadthe competitive spirit thatbelongs to sisters, or

adolescent girls—each ofus wanted whateverprowess the otherpossessed.The golden hues of theplace and the easydays itoffered—river walks andwildflowers and rhubarbpie—were far loftier thanwhat Caroline hadanticipated: Sheconsidered most vacations

forced marches out oftown. I was only slightlymoreadventurous,wishingI could parachute intosummer trips withouthaving to fret about thedog or shop for fortypounds of produce. Bothwriters who lived alone,Caroline and I shared ageneral intractability atdisrupting our routines:the daily walks in

Cambridge,Massachusetts,the exercise regimens weshared or compared, themealsandphonecallsandhoursofsolitaryworkthatwereferredtoas“ourlittlelives.”“Parisisoverrated,”Caroline liked to claim,partly to make me laugh;when she met a friend ofmineoneeveningwhowasfamiliarwithherbooks,heasked if she spent a lot of

time in New York. “Areyou kidding?” she said. “Ihardly even get toSomerville.” Wedded tothesanctityofthefamiliar,we made ourselves leavetown just to check thevacation off the list, thenreturn to the joys andterrorsofordinarylife.

IHAVEAPHOTOGRAPH fromone

of those summers atChocorua, framing thebacks of my dog andCaroline’s,ClementineandLucille, who aresilhouetted in thewindowseatandlookingoutside.Itis the classic dog photo,capturing vigilance andloyalty: two tails restingside by side, two animalsgluedtotheirpost.WhatIdidn’t realize for years is

thatinthemiddledistanceofthepicture,throughthewindow and out to thefields beyond, you canmake out the smallest offigures—an outline ofCaroline and me walkingdown the hill. We musthave been on our way tothe lake, and thedogs,bynow familiar with ourroutine,hadassumedtheirpositions. Caroline’s

boyfriend, Morelli, aphotographer, had seenthebeautyoftheshotandgrabbedhiscamera.I discovered this image

the year after she died,and it has always seemedlikeaclueinapainting—asecret garden revealedonly after it is gone.Chocorua itself has takenon an idyllic glow: I

remember the nightCaroline nearly beat Tomat arm wrestling; themouse that sent me ontothe dining room tablewhile she howled withlaughter; the Best Camperawards we instituted (andthat she always won). Ihave glossed over themosquitoes, the dayCarolinegotangrywhen Ileftherinaslower-moving

kayak and rowed off intothe fog alone. Like mostmemories tinged with thefinalchapter,minecarryaphysicalweightofsadness.What they never tell youabout grief is thatmissingsomeone is the simplepart.

THETWOOFUSROWED,togetherand in tandem, for five

years after that firstsummer. We both livednear the Charles River, alabyrinthinebodyofwaterthatwindsitswaythroughGreater Boston for ninemiles, fromupperNewtonthrough Cambridge andinto Boston Harbor, withenough curves andconsistently flat water tobe a mecca for rowers.Because Caroline was

small in stature and couldbody-press more than herown weight, I got tocalling her Brutita, or“little brute.” Theboathouses we rowed outof were a couple of milesapart, and I couldrecognizeCaroline’sstrokefrom a hundred yardsaway—I’dbetherewaitingfor her near the EliotBridge or the Weeks

Footbridge by Harvard,ready to ply her withquestions about form andspeed and where toposition one’s thumbs.When she went out hoursahead ofme, she fired offunpunctuated e-mails assoon as she got home:“hurry up the water isflat.”We logged hundredsofmiles,togetherandsolo,from April to November;

she endured my calls, inthose first couple ofsummers, to discuss themechanics of rowing: “Iwanttotalkaboutthrust,”I would say, with insaneintensity, or, “Did youknow the human headweighs thirteen pounds?”“Ummmm-hmmmm?”she’d answer, and soon Iwould hear a soft click-click in the background—

evidence that she hadbegunagameofcomputersolitaire,her equivalentofa telephonic yawn. At theend of the day, when wewalked the dogs, wecomparedhandand fingercalluses(thebattlescarsofgood rowing) the wayteenage girls used tocompare tans or charmbracelets;becauseshewasand always would be the

better rower, I acceptedher continual smugnessand vowed to get even inthe pool. One year forChristmas I gave her aphotograph from the1940s of two womenrowers in a double atOxford,England.Shehungit on awall near her bed,above a framed bannerthatreadZEALISAUSEFULFIRE.

Both pictures hang inmy bedroom now, next tothe photograph of thedogs. Caroline died inearly June of 2002, whenshe was forty-two, sevenweeks after she wasdiagnosed with stage-fourlung cancer. In the firstfewweeks in thehospital,when she was trying towrite a will, she told meshewantedmetohaveher

boat,theoldVanDuseninwhich I’d learned to rowandthatshehadcaredforovertheyearsasthoughitwere a beloved horse. Iwassittingonherhospitalbed when she said it,during one of those earlydeath talks when youknowwhat is coming andare trying to muscle yourwaythrough.SoItoldherI’d take the boat only if I

could follow rowingtradition and have hernamepaintedon thebow:It would be the CarolineKnapp. No way, she said,the same light inher eyesas the day she had taughtme to row. You have tocallitBrutita.

BEFOREONE ENTERS THIS SPECTRUM

OF SORROW, which changeseven the color of trees,there is a blind anddaringly wrongassumption that probablyallows us to blunderthroughthedays.There isaway one thinks that theshow will never end—orthat loss, when it comes,will be toward the end oftheroad,notinitsmiddle.I was fifty-one when

Carolinedied,andby thatpoint in life you shouldhave gone to enoughfunerals to be able toquote the verses fromEcclesiastes by heart. Butthedaywe foundout thatCaroline was ill—the daythe doctors used thosedreaded words “We canmake her morecomfortable”—I rememberwalkingdownthestreet,a

bright April streetglimmering with life, andsaying aloud to myself,with a sort of shockedinnocence, “You reallythoughtyouweregoingtoget away with it, didn’tyou?”Bywhich Imeant that I

might somehow sidestepthe cruelty of anintolerable loss, one

rendered without thewillfulornaturalexitsignsof drug overdose, suicide,or old age. These I hadencountered, and therehad been the commontheme of tragic agency (ifonly he’d taken thelithium; if only he hadn’ttried to smuggle thecocaine) or ruefulacceptance (she had agoodlonglife).Butnoone

I had loved—no one Icounted among thenecessary pillars of life—had died suddenly, tooyoung, full ofdetermination not to go.Noonehadgottenthebadlab report, lost the hair,beentoldtogetheraffairsin order. More important,not Caroline. Not the bestfriend, the kid sister, theone who had joked for

yearsthatshewouldbringmesoupdecadesdowntheline,when Iwas too agedandfrailtocook.

FROM THE BEGINNING therewassomething intangible andeven spooky between usthat could make strangersmistake us as sisters orlovers,andthatsometimeshad friends refer to us by

each other’s name:A yearafter Caroline’s death, amutualfriendcalledouttome at Fresh Pond, thereservoir where we hadwalked, “Caroline!”, thenburst into tears at hermistake. The friendshipmust have announced itsdepth by its obviousaffection, but also by oursimilarities, muted orapparent. That our life

stories had wound theirwaytowardeachotheroncorresponding paths waspart of the earlyconnection. FindingCarolinewaslikeplacingapersonal ad for animaginary friend, thenhaving her show up atyour door funnier andbetter than you hadconceived. Apart, we hadeach been frightened

drunks and aspiringwriters and dog lovers;together, we became asmallcorporation.Wehadalotofdreams,someofthemsilly,allpartof theprivatecode sharedby peoplewho plan to bearound for the luxuries oftime. One was the tattingcenter we thought we’dopen in western

Massachusetts, populatedby Border collies andcorgis, because we’d betoo old to have dogs thatwere big or unruly. TheBorder collies would trainthe corgis, we declared,and the corgis would bewhatwe fondly called thepurse dogs. The tattingnotion came about duringone of our endlessconversations about

whether we were livingour lives correctly—anongoing dialogue thatranged from the serious(writing, solitude,loneliness)tothemundane(wasted time, the idiociesof urban life, trash TV).“Oh,don’tworry,”I’dsaidto Caroline one daywhenshe asked if I thought shespent toomuch timewithLaw & Order reruns. “Just

think—if we were livingtwo hundred years ago,we’d be playing whist, ortatting, instead ofwatching television, andwe’d be worrying aboutthat.” There was a longpause. “What is tatting?”she had asked shyly, asthough the old lace-making craft weresomething of greatimportance, and so that

too became part of theprivate lexicon—“tatting”wasthecodewordforthetime wasters we, andprobably everyone else,engagedin.These were the sort of

rag-and-bonemarkers thatcameflyingbacktome,ina high wind of anguish,when she was dying: Iremember trying to

explain the tatting centerto someonewho knewus,then realizing how absurdit sounded, and breakingdown. Of course no onewould understand thetatting center; like mostcodes of intimacy, itresistedtranslation.Partofwhat made it funny wasthatitwasoursalone.

ONE OF THE THINGS we lovedabout rowingwas its nearmystical beauty—thestrokes cresting across thewater, the shimmeringquiet of the row itself.Days after her death, Idreamedthatthetwoofuswere standing together ina dark boathouse, its onlylight source a line ofincandescent blue scullsthat hung above us like a

wash of constellations. InthedreamIknewshewasdead,andIreachedoutforher and said, “But you’recoming back, right?” Shesmiledbutshookherhead;her face was a well ofsadness.

2.

EVERYTHING REALLY STARTED WITH

THEDOGS.I had met CarolineKnapp briefly in the early1990s, when she was acolumnist for The BostonPhoenixandIwasthebookrevieweditoratTheBoston

Globe. A collection of hercolumns had just beenpublished, and someonehad introduced us at aliterary gathering that Iwas finding insufferable.“Caroline has a newbook!” our hostess saidbrightly, certain that weeach had something tooffer the other. After thewoman had left us, weexchanged half smiles and

rolled our eyes. I’d likedthat about Carolineimmediately—no self-marketerhere.Sheseemedto wear her reserve likesilken armor: the French-manicuredhandholdingaglass of white wine, theshy, resonant voice. Wepassed a few politewordsof mutual regard, thenmoved apart to make thenecessaryrounds.

WhenIsawheragain,afew years later, standingnear the duck pond atFresh Pond Reservoir inCambridge, we had bothdownscaledinappearance.Each of us had youngdogs,andadogtrainerweknew had recentlymentionedCarolinetome.“Do you know CarolineKnapp?” Kathy had said.“Shehasapuppy,too.You

remindmeofeachother—you should try to gettogether.”I had mouthed some

vague assent, thoughprivately I didn’t see theresemblance. TheCarolineI remembered had beenway toowell put togetherto match my presentationinthosedays.Ihadayear-old, sixty-pound Samoyed,

and Iwaswalking aroundwith grass inmyhair andfreeze-dried liver in mypocket.Ispentmostofmytime reveling in the wildpleasures of dog-raising,not much caring how Ilooked. But the woman Iran into at the pond thatlate-summerafternoonwasafarcryfrommymemoryof Caroline’s earlierrefinement. She was still

shy, to the point of mythinking she didn’trememberme. The veil ofclassy attire had beentraded for sneakers and acareless braid; hoveringover Lucille, her shepherdmixwhowasthesameageasClementine,sheseemedas passionatelymonothematic about herdogasIwasaboutmine.

I also knew, for reasonsthatwerepersonalaswellas public, that the whitewine Caroline had beenholding that night yearsbeforehadbeenhermagicscepter and dagger both.Public because Carolinehad revealed as much inher memoir Drinking: ALove Story. This was thesummer after the book’spublication, and she’d

beenonenoughtalkshowsand feature pages to be apublisher’sdreamgirl.Andshe“showedwell,”astheysayinthetrade:Therewasthe long blond braid, thebeautiful voice, therestraint that suggestedwells of darkness behindall that mannered poise.The general assumption isthat most writers wantnothing more than the

kind of success Caroline’sbook had just enjoyed. Ihad a differentperspective, fromexperienceandintuition.Ifwriters possess a commontemperament,it’sthattheytendtobeshyegomaniacs;publicity is the spotlightthey suffer for therecognitiontheycrave.The personal empathy

came from mycomparatively cloisteredpast: I had stoppeddrinking twelve yearsearlier, in 1984. ButwhereasCarolinehadgonemainstream with heraddiction,Iwasoldschooland deeply private aboutmy own struggles withalcohol. I believed the“anonymous” part of AAwas there as a protective

shield, and I had worn itassuchforyears.We traded a tentative

helloat thepondthatdaywhile the dogs introducedthemselves moreboisterously. “Caroline, doyourememberme?”Isaid,and she smiled and saidyes. I said, “God, you’vebeen going through itlately—are you all right?”

She lookedsurprised, thenrelieved.Shetoldmelaterthatshehadbeenwalkingaround that dayexhausted,halfundonebythe exposure she wasgetting,andthattalkingtome had been a balm—Iwasmoreinterestedinherdog than her book sales.So was she:Wewere likenew moms in the park,trading vital bits of

information about ourcharges that wasenthralling only to us. Imentioned a two-thousand-acre woodedreserve north of the citycalled Middlesex Fells,where I was training myheadstrongsleddogtorunoff-lead, and Carolineasked how to get there.Because the route wascomplicated,Iexplainedit

self-consciously, afraidthat she was being politeand I was being long-winded.Theplacewashalfan hour away, tough tofind even without traffic,andonlysomeonedevotedtotraining,asIwas,wouldeverbothertofindit.A week later, at the

Fells, I heard someonecalling my name across

Sheepfold Meadow, and Isaw Caroline on the edgeof the grounds, wavingand smiling. I wassurprisedandpleased—shemust have actuallyrememberedmybyzantinedirections, then followedthrough. Paying attention,Iwould come to find out,was one of the thingsCaroline did. She calledme a few days later to

propose a walk together;when she couldn’t reachme, she called again. Anintrovert with a Texan’saffability, I was wellintentioned but weak onfollow-through; notwithout reason did an oldfriend refer to me as thegregarious hermit. Iwanted the warmth ofspontaneous connectionandthe freedomtobe left

alone. Caroline knockedpolitely on the front doorofmyinnerspace,waited,then knocked again. Shewaspersistent,sheseemedsmart and warmhearted,and—to my delight—shewas writing a book, shetold me when we spoke,about people’s emotionalconnections to dogs. Sheseemed like someone forwhom I wouldn’t mind

breaking my monkishways.That book became Pack

of Two: The Intricate BondBetween People and Dogs,publishedacoupleofyearslater;CarolinegavemethenameofGrace, and recastClementine as an Alaskanmalamute named Oakley.Within weeks after ourencounter at Sheepfold

Meadow, we wereplanningoutingseveryfewdays;theFellsbecameoneofourregulardestinations.Weranthedogs forhoursin those woods outside oftown,and inotherwoods,searching out gorgeousreserves of forests andfields all over easternMassachusetts.Wewalkedthe beaches that autumn,and the fire trails in

winter, carrying liversnaps for the dogs andgraham crackers for thehumans. We walked untilall four of us were dumbwith fatigue. The dogswouldgochargingthroughthe switchbacks whileCarolineandIwalkedandtalked—overtimesomuchand so deeply that webegan referring to ourafternoon-long treks as

analyticwalks.“Let’stakethelongway

home,” she would saywhen we’d gotten to thecar, and then we wouldwendourwaythroughthedaytrafficofSomervilleorMedford, in no hurry toseparate.Attheendofthedrive, with Clementinesnoring softly in the backseat,wewould sit outside

thehouseofwhoeverwasbeing dropped off, andkeep talking. Then wewould go inside ourrespective houses and calleachotheronthephone.“What about the ponds

freezing?” I said oneevening after a walk inearly winter, when thedogswerestillblastingoutintothewater,obliviousto

anything but their ownjoy.“I’mworriedabouttheice being thin, and thedogs going out to chasebirds, and falling through—you know this happensto someone every winter.Some dog runs out ontothe ice, and the ownergoesafterher,andthedogmanagestogetoutandthehuman drowns. And youknow we would both go

afterthedogs.”Caroline listened to merant—I came to realizethather listeningcouldbeso intent, it almost had asound—and sighed beforeshe answered. “We’regoing to have to startwalking with a rope andan ax, aren’t we?” shesaid. She always knewhowtotalkmedownfrom

thetree.I suppose every

friendship has suchindicators—thechecksandbalances of therelationship that make itstrongerormoregenerousthan either of you alone.Forbothofus,indifferentways, the volume of theworldhadbeen turnedupa notch. Whether this

sensitivity functioned as afailingor an asset, I thinkwe recognized it in eachother from the start. Evenon that first afternoon wespent together—a four-hour walk through late-summer woods—Iremember beingmoved byCaroline:Itwasadifferentresponse from simpleaffection or camaraderie.She was so quiet, so

careful, and yet so fullypresent, and I found it aweightless liberation tobewith someone whoseintensity seemed tomatchandsometimessurpassmyown. Her hesitation waswhat tethered hersincerity: As much asCaroline revealed in herbooks, she was a deeplyprivatepersonwhomovedinto relationships with

great deliberation. I hadknown enough writers inmy life, including myself,to recognize this trait:Whatmade it to the pagewasneverthewholestory,but rather the writer’sversion of the story—anarrative with its creatorinfullcontrol.I also thought that first

day,more than once, that

Caroline wished she weresomeplace else, becauseshe kept checking herwatch—she must havelooked at it, she believedcovertly, a half dozentimes.Iwouldlearntolivewith this little ritual,which had nothing to dowith me. It was a markerfor Caroline’s anxiety, awaytoanchorherplaceinthe world no matter how

open-ended her schedule.But that day I found itunnerving, and I finallyaskedher if shehad tobesomewhere. She wasmortified, I think, andapologized,andwewalkeduntilduskpushedusoutofthewoods.Monitoringtheincrements of time,particularly since she hadstopped drinking, wasCaroline’s stopgap against

thefreefallofthedays.And one other repeatedgesture would touch methat day in a way Icouldn’t have articulatedatthetime.DeterminedtokeepupwithClementine,Ihadbecomeadevoteddogwalker; I also had hadpolio as a child and sowalked with a slight limpand imbalance in the

world. However much Icompensated by toughingmy way through, I wasfraileronlandthanIlikedto admit. When we wentout in late September, theforest floor was coveredwith newly fallen acorns,and I kept slipping onthem and fell more thanonce. I was used to mylifelong ungainliness andsaidso,makinglightof it;

whatIdidn’tsaywasthatIwas accustomed toawkward responses.WhenI explained the limp bysaying I’d had polio,people tendedtobeeitheroverly concerned oruncomfortable. Caroline,who never seemed todoubtmycapabilitiesforamoment, was neither.After that first stumble,whenever I slipped she

would put out an arm tobrace me; holding on toher became as natural asreaching for a branch. If Iwas an ambler by natureandability,Carolinewasasprinter—shewasfast,shewas agile, and she wasoften in a hurry, whethershemeanttobeornot.Butonce she ascertained myusual gait, she slowed herpace to mine and kept it

there.

EXCEPT FOR THE FACT that wehad both had sisters, ourchildhoods had little incommon. Caroline hadbeen born a twin,appearing a few minutesafterhersister,Becca,andthe two had stayed closethroughout their lives.Because I’d had a good

friendinTexaswhowasatwin, I recognized inCaroline the parallel traitsthat seemed born of thisprimal dyad—she had acapacity for intimacy thatcould sometimes seemprivate and absolute. Mysisterwas two years olderthan I, and I’d grown upaccustomed to being bothbossed around and lookedafter.Iwasthedaughterof

fourth-generation Texansfrom struggling farmingfamilies; my parents hadsettled in the desolateTexas Panhandle, and mydad had been a mastersergeant in the SecondWorld War. Caroline hadled what she called asheltered existence withinthe milieu of intellectualCambridge. Her father,whohad died a few years

before I met her, was anesteemed psychiatrist andpsychoanalyst; Carolinehad identified with himand adored him. She toldmeearlyinourfriendship,with no small degree ofamusement,thatwhenshewas a little girl of six orseven, he had sat on theendofherbedwithalegalpad,penattheready,andasked her about her

dreams. Her mother wasan artist and an introvert,and she had died a yearafter Caroline’s father. Soshe had lost both parentstocancerwhenshewasinherearlythirties,adoubleinjury that had beencataclysmic for her; shestayed drunk for anotheryear,thendroveherselftorehabin1994.

I knew much of thisfromherbookandsomeofit from what she told methatfirstlongafternooninthe woods; I also learnedthat day that she had justseparated from herboyfriend of six years—alarge-hearted man whowent by his last name,Morelli. The break turnedout to be temporary, andafterMorelliandIbecame

friends, Caroline and Ioften called him “the lastgood boyfriend inAmerica.” All of thispiecemeal story—thenarrative unfolding in theearlyfriendship—belongedto a sinewy, solemnwomanwhoseemedtomelike the kind of personyou’d pick to drive thetractor home in ahailstorm. She was tough,

shewasunassuming,andIsuspect her stalwartreliability, which revealeditself to me in more thanone crisis, came in partfrom practice: Havingsurvived both anorexiaand alcoholism, she hadalready walked throughherversionofworstfears.

IHADJUSTnavigatedmyown

crossroads. I was in myearly forties, at an agewhen the view from thehill can be clear andpoignant both. Theimagined vistas havebecomerealizedpaths,andIthinkyoumayliveinthepresentduring thoseyearsmore than any time sincechildhood. I’d spent mythirties in a big-citynewsroom where

adrenaline andtestosterone were aspervasiveasdeadlines,andI’d recently given up astintasbookrevieweditortogobacktomyordinaryjob as book critic for TheBoston Globe. Thistransition, as well as therecentshiftsintechnology,allowed me to work fromhome and hang aroundwith thedog,whoquickly

learned that reading wasmy equivalent of chewingon a bone. I had longthought that the gods hadhanded me work tailor-made for myidiosyncrasies: I was tooopinionated to be astraightnewsreporter, toogadabout to be anacademic. I was dreamy,stubborn, and selectivelyfanatical; my idea of a

productive day, as both achild and an adult, wasreading for hours andstaringout thewindow. ItwasmygoodfortunethatIhad found an occupationrequiringjustthesetalents;now, with Clementine, Icouldspendwholedaysinnear silence, reading orwriting or speaking in thesimpler, heart-surevernacular of human-to-

dog.The first severalmonthsthat Caroline and I kneweach other come back tome with the scent ofwinter: the crisp,distinctively East Coastaura of snow and citystreetsandradiatorheat.Igave her fur-lined mittensin November on herbirthday; a few weeks

later, we both begged offother Thanksgiving plans,then cooked a roastchicken together after adayinthewoodswiththedogs. The weather gotworse and colder and weadjusted our schedulesaccordingly:Shetaughtmehow towalkacross frozentrails and sideways downsteephills,diggingmyfeetinto the terrain. I taught

her the freestyle in anindoorpool,coaxinghertolayherfaceinthewatertolearn to regulate herbreathing,while shestoodthere cursing me andshivering.ItseemstomenowthatCaroline was always cold.After the anorexia of hertwenties, she had stayedonthethinsideofnormal,

andshewouldshowupforour walks swaddled inlayersoffleece.Asoftenaspossibleweheadedforthewoodsorthereservoir,butsometimes in the evening,when the New Englandsunhaddisappearedatanearly hour, we wouldsneak into the Harvardathletic fields, near whereI livedatthetime,sothatthe dogs could have an

open space to run. Thefieldsbackedontoapublichousing project, separatedby a high, dilapidatedchain-link fence. Gettingontothehallowedgroundswasatwo-personjob:Oneofusliftedthefencewhereit had come loose over aditch while the otherrolled under it with thedogs, thenheld itup fromthe other side. Our

trespasswasillegalaswellas rough—it was the kindofthingIhaddoneallthetime as a girl in Texas—and I was glad thatCaroline was willing; forall of her exploits in thedrinking world, she stillpossessed a good-girlquality that I had neverbeenable tomuster.We’dstand there in the frigiddark, thedogs illuminated

against the night sky byClementine’s whitenessand the lights from theball fields. It was likebeingencasedinacaveofquiet and cold, and westayed until we couldn’tbear it any longer, tellingeach other stories—Caroline in her new Uggboots, shivering andsmoking, with me gettingan illicit, still pleasant

whiff of the smoke (I hadquit four years earlier).Sometimes we’d sink ontothe ground and leanagainst the old tatteredfence, letting the dogsrummage in our pocketsfor biscuits before theywent tearing out into thedark again. We used tolaugh that people withcommon sense or withoutdogsweresomewhereina

warm restaurant, ortraveling, or otherwiseliving the sort of life thatall of us think, from timeto time, that we ought tobe living or at leastdesiring. But there wasnowhere else I wanted tobe,beyondsittingthereonthe hard earth under anight sky, watching thedogsandtalking.

THOSE FIELDS WERE also wherewe had our firstmisunderstanding, orconfrontation,orwhateveryou call the seeminglytrivial empathic failuresthat serve as a testingground and gateway forintimacy. By the end ofthat winter, it was clearthat we cared for eachother and the routineswehadsoquicklyestablished;

lessacknowledgedwasthecrucial place we werecarvingoutineachother’slives.ForafewdaysIhadbeen bearing a bruise insilencethathadtodowithour regard for each otheras writers: something socore to me that it stillgives me pause toremember my discomfort.As a reviewer for a bigdailynewspaper,Iwasthe

older and more seasonedwriter; Caroline was theyoung turk at thealternative paper who’denjoyedarushofattentionfor her memoir. Becausewe had known of eachother for a few yearsbefore we’d met, we hadrelied on that implicitassumption betweenwriters of recognizing theother’s achievement; in

most relationships, thiscommonality of purposewould more than suffice.But Caroline had neversaid anything directlyabout what I did or whatshe thought about howwell I did it, though shehadgivenmeacopyofhermemoir and askedrepeatedlyifIhadlikedit.Now I see this in a

different light: I believeshe saw me as the onewith more of the powerand less of the ego needsor demands. That day inthe field, I had no suchinsight. A long piece I’dwritten for the Globe hadjust been published, and Iwas exhausted. We werewalking along andCaroline had mutteredsome acknowledgment

about how hard I’d beenworking, though nothingabout the essay itself.Finally I blurted out, “Ihavetoaskyousomethingdifficult—I need to knowwhat you think about mywork.”Shelookedatmeaghast.

“Oh my God,” she said.“I’ve turned into mymother. I assumed you

knew how I felt, but Inever told you.” Sherushedtoreassureme,andwe talked for the rest ofthe walk about what aswampland this was: theworld of envy and rivalryand self-doubt (betweenwomen, and writers, andwomen writers), aboutinsecurity and powerdifferentials.Wefoundoutthat day, fairly quickly,

how great and complexour fondnesswas for eachother; I also had my firstsenseof somethingcentralabout Caroline thatwouldbecome a pillar of ourfriendship. When she wasconfronted with anyemotional difficulty,however slight or major,her response was toapproach rather than toflee.There shewould stay

until the matter wasresolved, and theemotional aftermath wasfree of any hangover orrecrimination.Myinstinctstoward resolution weresimilar:Iknewthatsilenceanddistancewerefarmorepernicious than head-onengagement. Thiscompatibility helpedensure that there was nounclaimed baggage

betweenusintheyearstocome.AsrelievedasIwasthatdayby the conversation, Iwas unnerved bymy ownvulnerability. It was asthoughCarolineand Ihadcrossed into a territorywhereeverythingmatteredand that we were in ittogether. “Oh no,” I said,half laughing but with

tears inmyeyes.“What isit?” she asked, concerned,andIsaid,“Ineedyou.”

3.

SHEWOULD SAY, I THINK, THAT THE

NEEDWASGREATERonherend.She was at the beginningof what would become atwo-year separation fromMorelli, with whom she’dbeen involved for yearsandwhomshewouldlatermarry; she had recently

lost both parents; and shesawme, probably throughan idealizing lens, as acompetent woman whohadbuilt a life alone.Themore complicated truthwas that I was also at apivotal point: I’d givenupa lot ofwhat didn’twork,anddrinkingwasonly thebeginningofthelist.“Youchose solitude,” anotherfriendhad toldme. “Well,

Ithinksolitudechoseme,”I said. “The old bride-of-Christ thing.” Still, I’dalways been comfortablein my own company,sometimes to thedispleasure of friends orromanticpartners.My lastlove interest of anyimportance had ended,badly, a few years earlier.One of my closest friendsfrom the past decade, an

artist and filmmaker, hadjust left Cambridge forNewYork.Ihadanumberof old and solidfriendships, male andfemale both, but thesedaysmostofthelocalonesbelonged in the secondcircle of intimacy—thepeople you’d call whenyouwerehitbyabus,butnot necessarily if you’dmerelysprainedanankle.

“Men don’t reallyunderstand women’sfriendships, do they?” Ionce asked my friendLouise,awriterwho livedin Minnesota. “Oh God,no,” she said. “And wemustnevertellthem.”Thefact was that I had beenweaned on intense andvaliant friendships amongwomen, thanks to themilieu in which I’d come

of age in Texas. I was inmy early twenties duringthe heyday of the antiwarmovement and the rise offeminism in the 1970s,which in Austin werecloselylinked.ThewomenI knew there had burnedtheold rulebook: theonein which women shoppedinstead of talked,competed for thesilverback through any

means, protected theirfears and longings fromoneanotherasiftheywereprofessional trade secrets.I’d beenpart of an all-girlrock-’n’-roll band that gotarrested together; we hadrelied on one anotherthrough whatever trialsthedecadepresented,frommedical school to drugaddiction. When I leftAustinforNewEnglandin

1981, intent on becominga writer, what courage Ipossessed came in partfrom those passionateconnections.Thewomen I gravitated

toward in the Northeasthad their own versions ofthe riotous years of the1960s and ’70s, but thedemandsofadulthoodhadbanked their fires. My

friendshipsinBostonhadatendency to be moredistant, less profound. Inthe predominantly maleprovince of the Globenewsroom, where I washired in the mid-eighties,mostofthewomenIknewwere too busy coveringwars or politics—sweetcost of victory!—to givemuch time to closeinteractions. My

independenceand solitudegaveprooftothis:Mostofmy emotional resourceshad gone intomakingmywayasawriter,whichhadsolidified my life andmaybeevensavedit.I had also realized,

graduallybutsurefootedly,that I didn’twant to havechildren. I had glimpsedthis possibility early on, I

think, even though I’dgrown up in theconservative TexasPanhandle, wheremarriage and motherhoodwere as implicit as prayerand football. My parentshad each come from largefamilies—my father theninth of ten, my mothertheoldestofsix—andtheircrowded childhoods hadconvinced them of the

calmer luxury of having asmall family. My mother,Ruby, had a youngersibling hoisted on her hipthroughoutheryouth,andIsuspectshewaswearyofthejobbythetimesheleftthe farm, at eighteen,during the height of theGreat Depression. She’dmade her way in theworkforce for a decadebefore marrying my dad,

then waited until her latethirties tohave children—a radical gesture for mid-twentieth-centuryAmerica. She celebratedany route towardcontentment: When mysister had her daughter,Rubywasoutofhermindwithjoy;whenIleftTexasfor theEastandbecameawriter,sheactedasthoughI’dclimbedKilimanjaro.

Whatever alternatepaths my mother mayhave envisioned for me,feminismbroadenedintoafour-lanehighway. I knewanumberofwomenwhoseemotional choices wereclosely linked to the ideaof motherhood; becausethat wasn’t a piece of myparticular dream, I wasfree to base my matingcallsonlovealone.Aspart

of the great wave ofwomen who no longerneededtomarryforsocialor economic status or forchildren, I had liberatedmyselfrightintothewide,bland pastures ofnoncommitment. This wasthe good news andoccasionally the bad. I’dmademy little odyssey tothe East alone andunencumbered,andIknew

I’davoidedtheyokeofanunhappymarriageorbeinghostage to someone else’spaycheck. On my betterdays, I could feel freeandtoughandproudofmyself;on the bad ones, I wasalone as hell. Sick of myCalvinist fortitude, an oldfriend in Texas sent me apostcard on which she’dscribbled a three-wordimperative: “LOWER YOUR

STANDARDS.”Thrilling or tiresome,

single women’s lovenarratives tend to bedesultorystories:Reader,Imoved on. I’d had severalrelationships through mytwenties and thirties thatrangedfromhighdramatocosmic misfires, but theybelonged to the same eraas my rabble-rouser

freedom—they werefleetingandfierce,orfauxrevolutionary andunfulfilling, or decentmatches with bad timing.Most of them werewrappedintheambermistof alcohol, which meantthat they rarely stood achance of trumping myaffection for the bottle.With whiskey in thepicture, it was always a

ménageàtrois.Even for awhile after I

gotsober,Ihadatendencytochoosepassionatelyandbadly. I laughed off theadvances of a youngreporter who’d beenhangingaroundmydeskatthe Globe until he got aforeignbureauassignment;assoonasIlearnedhewasheading for a hot zone in

sixweeks,wherehewouldbe stationed for years, Ihad an affair with him.ThenImetajournalistfora big-city daily who livedfive hundred miles away;when he told me he wassuffering shell shock froma bad divorce, I decidedwe were meant for eachother.If they weren’t

unavailable or leaving thecountry, I favored thePygmalion slow-deathtrap: choosing a wise,usually narcissisticmentorwho wanted to pull meinto his orbit. My lastseriousrelationship,withamannamedSamwhowasadecadeolder,hadfitthistemplate so thoroughlythat it probably ridme oftheinclinationforever.We

spenttwoyearstogether,asmalleternityofgoodandbad, and while I like tobelieve I would havesummoned the strength toleave him of my ownaccord, his moving toanother city was whatfinallybrokethespell.The night I left him I

saidgoodbyeinacrowdedairport, tears streaming

down my face, thenboardedalateshuttlebacktoBoston.WhenIwokeupthe next morning, insteadof feeling shattered, I feltsafe for the first time inmonths.Thesensationwasphysical,asthoughI’djustgotten off a sickeningsailboat ride through badweather. I had to go to aholidaypartythatevening,andIputonavelvetshirt

and cowboy boots andthrew cold water on myface.Whenthehostessmetme at the door, shefurrowed her brow withworry, and so I said,simply,“Ilefthim.”“Are you all right?” sheaskedme.“No,” I said, my nolonger tragic smile inplace.“ButIwillbe.”

I found myself a goodtherapist: a soft-spokenman so largehearted andinimitably wry that myinitial fondness for himvery soon grew to includetrust.HewasaJewishkidfromBrooklynwhoquotedtomefromBaudelaireandthe Song of Solomon; helaughed at my jokes, buthedidn’tlaughwhenIwasbeingawiseasstohidemy

pain. When I wept andtoldhimIwasafraidIwastoo intense, too much, heinterrupted my tears andsaid, “If someone camedownfromaboveandtoldme I could keep only onething about you, it wouldbeyourtoo-muchness.”So began one of the

finest connections of mylife, which charted,

sometimes guided, mynavigation toward thelight. I turned forty andquit smoking—a twenty-year pack-a-day habit—two days later. My lifeseemed spartan but solid:If Freud promised workand love to the well-integrated soul, I wasattempting a modern-dayversion of both. Theworksustained me; the love

belongedtoaconstellationof friends instead of thetrialsandconsolationsofaromanticpartner. Itwas abit hard on the bones atnight, but the rock I hadclimbed onto at this pointin the journey still had aprettygoodview.

AND THEN, IN THE SPRING OF 1995,

CAME A DOG namedClementine—anexperience so emotionallyhumbling that it rockedmy austere world. I hadwanted a Samoyed for aslong as I could remember—I even found an oldtraining guide for thebreed,abook that I’dhadas a child—but becausetheywere large sleddogs,I’d assumed it would be

unfair to keep one in thecity; I was also loath toleave a dog alone while Ispent long days in thenewsroom. Around thesame time that I startedworking at home, mydownstairs neighbors, ayoung surgeon and alawyer, brought home aneight-week-old Labradorretriever puppy. I offeredto look in on her during

the day and soon got intothe habit of carrying herupstairseachmorning.Shewould sleep in my lapwhile I read, anarrangement of suchmutual reward that itopened the door onto myold sled dog fantasy. MyagingPersiancattoleratedthe Lab, a reception thatconvinced me I couldintroduce another puppy

intohis domain. Sobegana Samoyed researchexpeditionthattookmealloverNewEngland.Italkedto dog trainers whoassured me it wasacceptable to have a Samin the city; I sought outbreed rescue and breeder-referralpeoplewhogrilledmetodeterminewhetherIwould measure up.Whenever I saw a

Samoyed beingwalked onthe street, I stopped itsownerandpesteredhimorherwithquestions.Idrovea hundred miles to see abreederwhoseblueribbondogs were nationalchampions; her kennelswere so crowded andobviously profit-orientedthatIfledindistress.ThenI went to Connecticut;more grilling, this round

made pleasurable by thefiveadult Samoyedsvyingfor space in my lap.Finally, after a series ofmishaps and unexpectedlysmall litters, I found awoman in upstate NewYork with a five-week-oldlitter of seven. She had ayearlong waiting list forher puppies, she told me,but someone had droppedout that morning, two

hours before I called. I’venever knownwhether thiswas fate or goodsalesmanship. But twodayslater,IdrovethetwohundredmilestoKingston,New York, with areservation inplaceat thenearlyemptylocalHolidayInn.Myhearthadalreadyleftthestratosphere.That trip was only to

meet thepups,andtogivethe breeder a chance tomeet me—to see if I wasworthytopairwithoneofherdogs.Anyonewhohastaken the labyrinthinejourney into the world ofpurebred dogs willrecognize thisasanormalcourse of action fromreputablebreeders,thoughforthenovitiate,itisbothintimidating and thrilling.

I’ve gotten jobs andmortgages more easilythanIgotClementine.Thebreeder had her humancandidates choose twopuppies,thenshematchedus with the dog shethoughtwouldbe thebestfit. I chose a feistytroublemaker who hadstormed her way ontomylapthemomentImether,andabig, sleepygirlwho

nappedduringmostofthevisit. I laughed when thebreeder called to tellme Iwas getting thetroublemaker.Twoweekslater,Imadethe round trip toKingstonandback in a day,with afriend driving her Saabwhile I stayed in thebackseatwithClementine,whoweighed eleven pounds

and within a year wouldgrow tobe five times thatsize. I brought her homeand began the franticreorientation that a newanimal always ensures: ItseemedasthoughIhadleta wolf cub loose on theplace. She wasunstoppable,stubborn,andfearless; when a 120-pound Irish wolfhoundcame to visit, Clemmie

stood underneath the dog,barking furiously,undaunted by beingoutweighed by a factor often. After the first sleep-deprived twenty-fourhoursofherinvasion,Isatonthebackporchwithhersprawled asleep inmy lap—Shehaswhiteeyelashes! Ithought—and tears startedstreamingdownmyface.Ihad had animals all my

life, but never had myheart been seized withsuchunequivocallove.

I UNDERSTOOD THIS attachmentfor what it was: theinstinctive and deep,probably maternal,feelings for a being whodepends on you for hervery survival. My respectfor the human-animal

connection was wellearned; dogs had alwaysgravitatedtowardmydad,and I had grown up withanimals.MysisterinTexashad an Airedale and aBorder collie. So Iwas nostranger to cross-speciesattachments; that mine toClementine came whenand how it did—singlewoman, doesn’t want kids,loves dogs—offered a

providential answer to theprimary relationships thatwe all require. Thismysterious, intelligentanimal I had brought intomylifeseemedtomenotastand-in,butablessing.My life changed in the

most gratifying andmundaneways. Instead ofhaving dinner out withfriends, I joined

neighborhood dog groupsin the park at night,hangingoutwithanarrayof people whose pathsweren’tlikelytocrossinadogless world. Aninveterate night owl, Istartedrisingatsixa.m.tokeep to thehousebreakingschedule;myapartment,aonce orderly world of oldPersian rugs andbookcases, was now

littered with squeaky toysand stuffed lemurs. Ipostponed the idea of thetrip abroad I’d beenplanning and rented ahouseonaWellfleetpondinstead, where I taughtClementine to swim.HavingcomeofageinthePanhandle, where youcouldsmell thestockyardsfromtenmilesaway,Ihadmissed that roughhewn

lifestyle ever since I’dmoved to the urbanNortheast.NowIwasbackin uniform, in jeans andboots, with dirt on myknees, and I felt as if I’dreturned to some long-forgottenplaceofshelter.My new friends—the

subterranean enclave ofdog people—couldentertain themselves for

hours with talk of fear-aggressive behavior orsocialization techniques; ifwewereseenas insaneortedious by our non-dogfriends,wepitiedthemforwhat they were missing.Long summer nights werenow spent outside, lollingin the fields watchingbaseball or walking theneighborhood. Mypriorities had changed,

often to the chagrin ofothers:AtaclassysoireeinNewton, I irritated myhosts by ignoring theguests and playing in thebackyardwiththeirgoldenretriever. I signed up forobedience classes, then asecond round and a third,and looked forward tothemallweek, reveling inthe clarity ofcommunication that

training an independentsleddogentailed.Bullyingrevealeditselfimmediatelyfor what it was; equallyuselessweremixedsignals,irony, or indecision. Dogscraved and responded tostraightforwardinstruction, recognition,and praise, all of it thedirect-arrow language ofthe heart. For a writer,who spent hours of each

day thinking through theintricacies and beauty ofwords, this link betweenthe specieswas a place ofeaseandliberation.

SOWHENCAROLINEtoldme,notlongafterwemet,thatshewas in lovewith her dog,it didn’t require anyexplanation. While I hadbeen immersed in the

challenges of Clementine,Caroline’s life was beingupended by Lucille, anexperience later capturedin Pack of Two, the bookshe had just contracted towrite. She too had takenon training as though shewereundergoingamissionfor NASA. I went over tothe Concord Armory inCambridge for two roundsofobedienceworkwithan

exmarine who wasconvincedClementinewasa blackguard male; everytime she misbehaved, hewould shout at me,battalion-style, “Tell himhe’s a rascal!” Carolinewassoinfatuatedwiththefamous monks of NewSkete, New York, mastersof German shepherd dogsandtheauthorsofseminaltraining guides, that she

found the monastery’sphonenumberandbeggedthem to let her bringLucille to visit. We wereprivately snobbish aboutourcanineknowledgeandraisedaneyebrowtoeachotherwhenwesawpeoplemakingmistakeswiththeirdogs—saying “no” whenthey meant “stay,” orusing the “come”command too loosely. But

wekeptour superiority toourselves,showingoffonlyto each other. Carolinewonthematchonthedayshe saw a soft-coated,pretty ambler at FreshPond,andcalledouttothedog’s owner, “Is that aNova Scotia duck tollingretriever?”Each of us had this

devotionput to the test in

thefirstfewmonthsofourfriendship: We hadcoincidentally signed upfor the same weeklongsessioninOctoberatadogcamp in Vermont. Hordesof dog lovers convened atacampandbarrackssetonsprawling green acres,wherepeopleanddogsgotto experience fullimmersion in training,agility, group meals, and

organizedplay.Inthemid-1990s,suchplaceswereananomaly,andCarolinehadscopedouttheplaceasanopportunity for research. Iwassimplythereonalark.It was like a nudist campfor dog lovers, where onemight indulge inanaturalstate away from theinhibiting pressures ofnormal society. If youwanted to dress your dog

in funny costumes, orpractice agility with anAfghan hound, no onewould laugh at you there,atleastnotovertly.From any reasonable

perspective, the campwasbedlam. About eightypeople and their dogsshowed up for the fallsession, and the carnival-like atmosphere of the

place was probably easieronthehumansthanonthedogs. Border colliescharged around in Frisbeecompetition, their eyesshining with evangelicalfocus. Welsh corgismarched up the hilldetermined as soldiers. Iwatchedmydogrunalurecourse at what looked tobefortymilesanhour;theCBS morning show was

there filming, soClementinehadhermediaday in the sun. Evenings,Caroline and I endured acafeteria-style supper andthenslippedoutbeforethescheduled lectures,heading for our off-siterooms to hash over theabsurdities of the day.Near theendof theweek,on a group hike over therolling Vermont terrain, I

looked behind me to seesome twenty wildlyenergeticdogschargingupthe hill, half of them onretractable leads, theirownerstryinghelplesslytocontain them. It lookedlike a Disney movie gonehaywire. Caroline and Isneaked away, found anisolated trail withswitchbacks, and let thedogs run. Clementine

spotted a deer on the riseandwentchargingafterit;to my astonished joy, shestoppedinhertrackswhenI whistled my long-rangerecall—shelookeddownatme, then up toward thedeer, and came chargingback inmydirection.Thiswas enough to convinceme that I was doing fineon my own; by then, I’dhadenoughofthesummer

campagenda.Iduckedouton the last day’s events,forfeited a night at thenearby B&B, and headedfor Boston. Caroline, everthe A student, wasunnervedbutimpressedbymymutinyandtookitasacue for her own retreat,thoughshepolitelysoughtoutthestaff(whocouldn’thave cared less) to letthem know she was

leaving.This was one of thedynamics between us wecametovalue:Shewasthegood girl and I was therebel, and each of uslearned enough from theother to expand ourrespective territories. Asthe daughter of liberalintellectuals who hadworshipped Freud and art

instead of God, she oftencomplained that she’dhadlittle to rebel against. Inthe Bible Belt, I’d had abountyofpossible reasonsfor my insurgency. Mymother had come fromsuch a strict Baptistupbringing that sheeschewed card-playing onSunday; my dad was aNixon Democrat who,protective of his teenage

daughters, had patrolledoursuburbanstreetwithashotgun—unloaded buteffective, particularlywhen the quarry was agroup of adolescent boys.Caroline loved hearingthese stories. Her ownfather, faced with suchrivals for his girls, wouldhave brandished aRorschachtestinsteadofagun.

THAT AUTUMN WE werewalkingthefiretrailsnearSheepfold Meadow atMiddlesex Fells; it was agloriousSundayafternoon,and dozens of people hadwandered out of bounds,past the No Trespassingsigns near the verbotenreservoir, to availthemselves of the view. Atownpoliceofficerarrivedand rounded up only the

peoplewithdogs,ignoringthe families with strollersand the solitary amblers.Heherdedusintoaqueueasthoughwewereagroupof delinquents and beganwriting citations forcriminal trespassing. Iwasplanning on using a fakename,whichseemedtomethe obvious course ofaction, but Caroline, whowas standing in front of

me, dutifully announcedwho she was and whereshe lived. I sighed andmade the decision to godownwithher.A few weeks later we

were summoned to courtintheneighboringtownofStoneham,where all of us—nineteen offenders—were given a comicallyharsh lecture for our

offense and sentenced tosix months’ probation.(“Where is Stoneham?”Caroline called to ask, themorning before court.) Istood toaddress the judgeand began complaining ofdiscriminatory treatment,as only the dog ownershad been cited. The judgemadeacursorynoteofmyobjection; Caroline lookedembarrassed to be with

me. Our friend Tom,having seen the particularhumor in her beingarrested, made her a silk-screened T-shirt with apicture of Lucille behindbars, bearing the legendFREETHESHEEPFOLD19.

KATHY, THE DOG TRAINER whohadfirsttoldthetwoofusto get in touch, had done

so based on a hunch; shewas a deeply intuitivepersonwhospentherdaysobserving dogs andhumans for all sorts ofbehavioral cues. A small,soft-spoken woman whohad twoGermanshepherddogs, she could stop awaywardordominantdoginitstrackswithhercalmdemeanorandno-nonsensevoice. She was equally

perceptivewithpeopleandhad spotted something inCarolineandmebeforeweever became friends. Oneday a few months later,when we were at a jointtraining session in Kathy’sbackyard, I reached overto fiddle with Caroline’scollar and said, “Oh myGod, I have that samevest!”

“Ofcourseyoudo,”saidCaroline, unimpressed.“Why wouldn’t you? Wehavethesamelife.”

DEEPERTHANMOSTofthemoreobvious parallels betweenuswasthedrinkinghistorywe had in common—thatempty room in the heartthat is the essence ofaddiction. Caroline and I

would soon enough telleachothereverything,butforthefirstfewmonthsofour friendship, I kept ourgreatest similarity tomyself.Thesummerbeforewe became friends, I hadread Caroline’s memoir,Drinking:ALoveStory,inarain-soakedcabininTruro,onCapeCod,where Ihadgone for a week withClementine. I would swim

the ponds during the dayand read on the screened-inporchuntiltwilight,andI still remember sittingthere, Clemmie sleepingnext to me, while I readthebookuntilduskturnedto pitch black outside. Itwas the seasonof the firstround of celebrityaddiction memoirs, whenPete Hamill and a fewothers had come out with

new tough-guyversionsofUnder the Volcano. Untilnow, though, most of thedrinking stories hadbelonged to a boys’ club.ThatnightinTruro,IreadCaroline’s book straightthrough. I knew it waswrenching, honest, andrevelatory.AndbecauseI’dpoured my last quart ofJack Daniel’s down thekitchen sink twelve years

earlier, Ialsoknewthat itwastrue.

4.

BY THE TIME I HADMOVED EAST, IN

1981, THE DRINKING hadrevealed itself as panaceaand problemboth, thoughI didn’t yet see that onealmost guaranteed theother. I came from a lineof Texas Protestantbourbon lovers who had

incorporated theiraffection for whiskey intoa way of life. Oneexception, at least as Iunderstood it, had beenmy maternal grandfather,a sweet blue-eyed farmerwhosangacappellainthechurch choir andpleasantly deferred to myintrepid grandmother’severy wish. Years aftertheyhaddied, I askedmy

mother to confirm what Ihadalwaysperceived as aharmoniousunion.“Were Mamaw and

Granddadhappy?”Iasked.“Why, sure,” she said.

“After Daddy quitdrinking.”Iwas stunned; I had no

memory of my granddadever touchingalcohol.Butmy mother told me that

dayaboutasummerwhenIwasaboutfour:Whenwewere visiting ourgrandparents’ farm nearBreckenridge, Texas,Granddad had infuriatedmy father by taking meandmy sister to a bar onhis way home fromerrands in town. Hisbingeshadbeeninfrequentbut legendary, mymothersaid.Hewoulddrinklikea

wildmanforafewweeks,then reappear in churchand stay sober formonthsata time.Afterraisingsixkids in the shadowof thisbehavior, Mamaw finallythreatened to leave him.He stopped drinkingshortly thereafter, andbecause I had been soyoung at the time, Irememberedhimonlyasateetotaler.

The rest of the familytree had a root systemsoggy with alcohol, andthememorieswere not soopaque aswithGranddad.Oneaunthadfallenasleepwith her face in themashed potatoes atThanksgiving dinner;another’s fondness forCoors was so unwaveringthat I can still rememberthe musky smell of the

beer and the coldness ofthe cans.Mostof themendrank the way all Texasmen drank, or so Ibelieved,whichmeantthattheyweretoughguyswhocould hold their liquoruntil they couldn’tanymore—a capacity thatoften led to some cloudyversion of doom, be itfinancialruinorsuicideorthe lesser betrayal of

simple estrangement. Bothsocialdrinkers,myparentshad eluded these tragicendings; in the postwarTexas of suburbs andcocktails, their drinkingwas routine butundramatic.From my first

experiment with drinkingat an overnight slumberparty,whenIwasthirteen

or fourteen, it was clear Iwould be lining up withthe blackguards in thefamily. Our young hostessmixed us a noxious blendof scotch and Diet-Ritecola; every other girl hadjustenoughtogetgoofyorsleepy. I had six tumblersof the stuff, then got onthe dining room table todance while my placidfriends snoozed around

me.Barelyonthevergeofadolescence, I was still ashy girl who preferredmathhomeworktoboys. Iwas neither daring norparticularly unhappy, butbooze flipped a switch inme I hadn’t even knownwasthere.By high school I was

knownforhavingahollowleg.Agoodfriendtoldme

what the circulated storywas on me. “‘Caldwell isthemostexpensivedateintown,’” he quoted theother boys as saying.“‘She’ll drink you underthe table and she’ll neverput out.’” My dad wouldhavenodoubtappreciatedboth traits as signs ofcharacter. In some of myearliest memories, he hadendedhisdayswithacut-

crystal glass of bourbonand Coke, and this magicconcoction seemed tomake his humor mellowandhisvoicea littlemorevelvety. By the time hehad switched to bourbonand branch water, as hecalled it, I was a brainy,wild teenager in a machoTexas town, and as muchas I foughtmydad, I alsoemulated him. Whiskey

took an ordinarilyrebelliousadolescenceandsheatheditingoldenlight.Ihada fake IDat sixteen;on my twenty-firstbirthday, Ibecameadailydrinker. By then I hadwandered through collegeandtheantiwarmovementand tried every drug andinsurrection in sight, butthe pendulum alwaysswung back to the sweet

promises of booze.Whenever I would gohome to Amarillo, myfather would stock theliquor cabinet with scotchandbourbon, then tellmeto show some restraint—the excellent duplicity ofTexas drinking etiquette,which counseled that youdrink like a man and actlikealady.“Therearetwothings aman can’t stand,”

my dad would say afterour first couple of belts,his voice gravelly and fullofself-satisfiedwisdom.“Awoman with round heels,and a woman who drinkstoomuch.”Wewouldbothnod sagely, and I wouldaskhimtoexplainthefirstpart. He would make apushing motion with hishand and shake his head.For years I thought that

round-heeled meantspineless, because he wastoomodestevertoexplainit.But he always knew, I

think, that drinking wasgoing to be my problem.HeknewbecauseIgottoohappy and animated evenatthesightofadrink,andbecause he shared thisdarkaffectionandyethad

managedtocapthegeyserat its source. If half thepeopleonbothsidesofourextendedfamilyhadlovedthe drink too much, Itended to laugh about itbecause I couldn’t bear toconsidertheconsequences.My relatives also had aconstitution that allowedthemtolivewellintotheirnineties, and in thecalculus of denial, I used

this longevity tocounterbalance ouraffliction.“Inmyfamily,”Iusedtosay,“ifalcoholismorsuicidedoesn’tgetyou,you’llliveforever.”Iusuallysaidthiswitha

tumbler of whiskey inmyhand. (“But you alwaysjust had that one glass,”mysistersaid,yearsafterIhad stopped, when she

was trying to piecetogether themosaicof thepast. “Yes,” I told her,“and it was always full.”)Because my toleranceallowed me to drinkhugelybutfunctionallyforyears—I survived most ofgraduate school with acache of scotch—Icultivated an image thatwaffled between tragedyand liberation. The self-

perception wasconstructedtofittheneed:With alcohol themandatory elixir, I woulderect a stage set to justifyits presence. I would bethe sensitive heroine, ordoomed romantic, orradical bohemian—I wasHamlet, Icarus, EdithWharton’s Lily Bart. Godforbid that I simply facewho I was, which was

somebody drunk andscared and on my way tobeingnooneatall.Most of this self-actualization wasunfolding in Austin in the1970s, when the streetsflowed with cocaine andwhiskey; I surroundedmyself, unconsciously butprobably intentionally,withpeoplewhodrankthe

way I did. Some of themgot straight and some ofthem died, and a few ofthem calmed down, grewup, and settled for onemartini insteadof seven. Idid my part for mygeneration’s collectivecrisis of adulthood bymoving east, with thebrazennotionofbecomingawriter—surely,accordingtomyth,awaytoreinvent

one’s life. When I leftTexas, IhadtwoquartsofwhiskeyinthetrunkofmyoldVolvo,which I figuredwould cover the five dayson the road that wereahead of me. I had a fewfriends in New York andknew two people inGreater Boston, where Iwas going, and howeverscaredIwas, Iknewtherewould be a liquor store

whereverIlanded.BythenIwasthirtyyearsold,andI’dlearnedthatcourageina bottle could get youthroughallkindsofdoors,and all kinds of trouble,and a lot of dead-endnightsalone.In the early 1980s,hordes of people wereleaving the Northeast forthe softer industries and

climates of the Sun Belt.New England was cold,dark, and unforgiving,people warned me; themoreprecarious truthwasthatIhadnojob,noplacetolive,andenoughsavingsto last a year.Mywritingrésumé consisted of acouple of rejections slipsfromveneratedmagazines;my confidence came froma few gruff

encouragements fromprofessors. But howeverfragile the externalscaffolding looked, IsuspectthatIwastryingtosave my life, not justrelocateit.Ihadgrownupstaring at the vast,imprisoninghorizonoftheTexas Panhandle, a regionI understood how much IlovedonlylongafterIhadleft it, and I had jumped

free of that place with akindofhigh-octane terror.If conservative Amarillo,with its oil rigs andchurches and cattleranches, promised aprovincial life, for years Ichallenged every dictum Iperceived my family topossess. A decade later, Ihad to assume an equallyresoluteposturetogetoutofAustin—toleavebehind

what I loved and what Ifearedwaskillingme.I was equal parts bluffand fear, I think, poisedthereonthevergeofalifeunfolding, not knowingwhether I would leap orfall. In my last couple ofyears in Austin, when Ihad been teaching at theuniversity and pretendingto read for doctoral oral

exams, I had letmy heartlead me to the water’sedge of a writing life—aninner sanctum of suchpower and solace that itstaggered me with itsreach. I lived in a fewrooms of an old southernmansion with ten-footceilings and poured-glasswindows, and I would sitthere at night before mytypewriter, primed with a

glassof scotchandapackof Winstons. One nightbefore the drink kicked inI had written somethingthatsoexcitedme—Ihavenomemoryofwhatitwas—that I leapt up frommychair and kept typingstanding up. Probablyevery young would-bewriter has such moments,the crystal-clear elationthat keeps one going. But

now I see the moment aspivotal andevenFaustian:the amber light, thewhirring typewriter, theyoung woman full ofyearning and joy. Thewriting was the life forceand the whiskey was thesnake in the grass. For aslong as I could, I chosethemboth.

YOUTH AND PRIDE can bedecent weapons againstthe woes of alcohol, butonly for a while. I keptjobs,Ithrewcoldwateronmy face each morning, Iswam laps to counter theeffects of the booze andthendranktowipeoutthegains of the swim. Foryears the psychic balm ofalcohol—its holy grailcertaintythatitcouldtake

me through anything—eclipsedthehangoversandemergingfearthatIwasintrouble. I had a silverpocket flask that I filledwith whiskey for backupdrinks;IfiguredifIlookedthe part, then I could getawaywiththereality.Thebooze took the roughcorners off, and I tried toright the equation withcoffeeandproteinandfive

milligrams of Librium toease thecomedown. Iwasawell-oiledmachine,witha 4.0 grade-point average,andnobodyknew.Or so Ibelieved.Why did I drink?When

mytherapistaskedmethisseveral years after I hadstopped, I thought it oneof the most ludicrousquestionsIhadeverheard.

Whywouldn’t onedrink? Ididn’t want to hurt hisfeelings,soIshruggedandanswered as honestly as Iknew how. “Becauuse,” Isaid, with a little scorn.“The whole world turnedgolden.” It took mehearingthewordsoutloudto realize that the hue ofthesublimehaditselfbeenanindicatoroftrouble.

Afewprofessionalsovertheyearshadmade feebleefforts to address theproblem; in Texas in the1970s, “substance abuse”wasn’t even a phrase yet.My last couple of years ingraduate school, Iwent tosee a nice womanpsychologisttoaddress,orso I thought, the ordinarystressesofworkandlove:Iwas in a demanding

academic program, I hadjust broken up withsomeone, I was havingdifficulty sleeping.We ateMilano cookies together,the therapist and I, andlaughed about how hardlife was. “I think I drinktoomuch,”Isaidoneday.“I’m throwing down fiveorsixglassesofwhiskeyanight. Maybe I need tocheck in to Shoal Creek.”

ShoalCreekwasthepsychhospital in Austin wherepeople went to dry out; alawyerI’dworkedfor(andwho taught me how todrink scotch and eat rawoysters) had considered ithis spa. “They wouldn’ttake you,” my lovely,nonconfrontationaltherapist said. “You looktoogood.”

BywhichshemeantthatI was still vertical, stillfunctioning in superdrive,and that I hadn’t yet hadtheexternalcalamitiesthatsuggested a problem: nodrunk driving citations,crashed marriages,employment woes. Thesame year I had a routinephysical with a maleinternist who was lessbenevolent and more

obtuse.Whenheaskedmehow much I drank, I toldhim about four drinks anight, not yet aware thatthe medical profession’srule of thumb, if apatient’s consumptionseemed problematic, wasto double whateverquantity the patientconfessed. “You’ll want tobe careful with that,” hesaid,refusingtolookmein

the eye. “There’s nothingmore unbecoming than ayoungladywhodrinkstoomuch.”Suchidiociesonlyfueledmyintake.Iwasinmylatetwentiesbythen,aveteranof the counterculture andthe women’s movement,and I clung to the beliefthatmydrinkingwaspartof the sine qua non of a

new day—it was howwomenlikemefunctionedin the world; it was ananesthetic for high-strungsensitivity and a lubricantfor creativity. Thealternative truth was fargrimmer. Alcoholics—awordIcouldn’teventhinkof without shame andterror—were brokenpeople who had drunkthemselves into a corner,

and the only way out forthem was to give up thedrink. That wasunthinkabletome,agray,gray room without anyhighs or relief or evenchange,andso I clung foryears to what I believedwas the border betweenalcoholismanddrinkingtoexcess.EverytimeIvoicedmy fears it was in theguise of humor, or

machismo, or nonchalantrebellion. “I’m afraid thatif I stopped drinking, Iwouldn’t be interestinganymore,” I saidoffhandedly to a friend inAustin, an RN whosefather had died ofalcoholism after sitting inachairsurroundedbybeercansfordecades.“Don’tbesosure,”shetoldme.“Dayin and day out, boring is

where all alcoholics areheaded.”No one whose firstallegiance is to the sourceof the problem can hearsuchwarnings,atleastnotuntil they’ve draggedthemselves through a fewmilesofbrokenglass.Helpin its most benign andunthreatening form—ifthere is even such a thing

for an alcoholic—wasn’texactly beating down thedoor;ifithad,I’dprobablyhave moved out in themiddle of the night. Ididn’twanthelp;Iwantedreassurance. Which is tosay that I wanted theconsolation, howevertransient or artificial, thatI would be able to drinkforeverandgetawaywithit. It’s like the old joke

about the guy on thedesert island with thegenie who offers him twowishes.Theguyasksforabottle of beer. The genieinstantly produces, andtells the man that thebottlewillneverbeemptyand will always be cold,and that he still has onemorewish.Justtobesure,the man tells the genie,you’d better give me

anotherone.

WHEN I WAS STILL young andbrave enough to craveadventure, I came to theEast Coast. I had been anadultthefirsttimeI’deversetfootinNewYork,afewyears earlier, and the cityhad offered the usualelixir. I walked eightyblocks, from the

Guggenheim Museum toGreenwich Village, in adaze of happiness. I stoodonacorneramidwhirlingsnow and fleets of cabsand all the other popculture icons that I hadgrownupseeingonmovieand TV screens; the ideathatthesethingswerereal—thatyoucouldwalkintothis luminous scene andbecome a part of it—was

humblingandlife-altering.I went to the Museum ofModern Art, wherePicasso’sGuernicawasstillhoused,andIhadtohangon to the railing when Iturned on the stairs andsaw it for the first time.However sophisticated Ideemedmyselftobe,Ihadgrown up with wheatfields and suburbs as thevisualconstant,withartas

something that mostlybelonged in books. Beingin Manhattan was likerunning headlong towardyour own life, or findingoutyoucould fly.To turnaway from it would haveseemed the failure of achancenottaken.Cambridge had its own

gorgeous,ifmorereserved,version of seduction. On

my first trip there I hadgone to the Orson WellesCinema, with its artydocumentaries andcappuccino machine, andI’d wandered throughHarvardYardinabatteredleather jacket, trying topass as a local—sensing, Ithink, that I had found aplacefargreaterandmoreconsuming than theconfines of my own sad

heart. Maybe this is acommon perception ofyouth, holding back fearwith exhilaration. But Ilook back now and seemyself as shadowsbumping into light. Thelight was trying itsdamnedest to win, andpartoftheplan,Ibelieved,wastogetoutofTexas.

THAT FIRST SUMMER in NewEngland, I lived in asprawling three-storyhouse with six otherpeople. The householdincluded a physician, aphysicist, a dancer, and acouple of puppet makers,and somehow thisglamorous cast found meexotic—partly, I feel sure,because of the hard-drinking image I was still

tryingtopulloff.Ihadtheboots and machocountenance and twobottlesofwhiskeyIkeptinbrown bags on a closetshelf, and my housematesseemed amused by thedrawling Texan who hadinvaded their genteelcounterculture. My closestfriend in the house wasJackie, the dancer, whoattiredherselfforanormal

outinginfauxleopardhatsand pink elbow gloves,and each evening at thedinner table would beginthe recitation of her daybysaying,“First,Igotup!”We adored each other—she was the revolutionaryDr. Joyce Brothers to mytragic heroine—and oneafternoon, the day after asummer party at thehouse, we were sprawled

in the backyard,comparing notes. I had aworse hangover thanusual,andinamomentofcandor, said so. Besidesbeing a dancer and aneccentric, Jackie was alsoanRN; shehadworked inthetrenchesofthemedicalfield and seen the psychiccasualties of the sixtiesand seventies. We werelying next to each other

with our eyes closed—thepeer-analytic position—and out of the blue shesaid, “Are you analcoholic?”She might as well havebeen asking if I were aPisces,thequestionwassogentle. And I was sosurprised that I answeredhonestly.“Idon’tknow,”Itold her. “I know that I’m

psychologicallyaddicted.”The exchange hoveredthrough my consciousnessfor the next three years Iwould drink. Jackie haddared to askwhat I couldnot; my answer had letsomeone else in the roomwith all that fear, if onlyfor a minute. A fewmonths later, I moveddownthestreettoanattic

garret,aplacewithalltheromantic underpinnings ofthelifeIhopedtoleadandall the bleak corners ofwhat I first had to leavebehind. Jackie had theforesight and kindness tounderstand this darknessand stay nearby while Ilived through it. I bravedthe streets of Boston,landed some freelancewriting assignments, came

home and poured downdrinks while I hammeredaway on the Adlertypewriter. I got aPersiankitten and named himDashiell Hammett, and hesat on the pillows of mybed while I drank, hishuge eyes witness to thestaggering and the late-night blackouts I couldn’tstandtoendurealone.ThePhoenix, an alternative

newspaper inBoston, tookme on as a regularcontributor, and I wrotemycolumnsinthelightofmorningwhenIwassober;ifIwasadrunk,Iwasalsoaperfectionist—two traits,I believed, that wouldultimately balance eachother out. I smuggledpamphlets on alcoholismoutofadoctor’sofficeandtook the twenty-question

test with a glass ofbourbon in my hand. Inthe early 1980s, thequestions still madetraditional socialassumptionsaboutwomen;one of them,unforgettably, was “Haveyourhusbandandchildrenever expressed concernabout your drinking?” Ichecked off “No” with aflourish. No husband, no

children,noworries.Themore looming truthwasthatwhathadseemedlike liberation—the flightfrom Texas, the brownbags of whiskey, thereinvention of a life—wasrevealing itself to beunmoored terror. On theadvice of an internist, Iwent to see apsychotherapist and

hypnotist who specializedin substance abuse. Heplaced me in a recliningchairasthoughIwereinadentist’s office, and everytime he hypnotized me Ibegantoweepsilently,thetears streaming down myfaceuntilmyhairwaswet.This initselfwasevidencethatsomedeepsorrowwastrying to get out, but thehypnotist seemed to think

aversion therapy was inorder.Heinstructedmetogo home and drink asmuchasIpossiblycouldinthe following week, thenbringhimaquartofscotchto pay for our nextappointment.I like to think that mycompromised state—thedrinking,thesoggytrances—waswhat keptme from

fleeingthisstrangemilieu.For weeks I went back,hoping somehowhe couldhit the magic switch thatwould end my paralyzedattachment. Then one dayhe came into the roomsmiling. He told me thathe had taken LSD theprevious week and hadhad a vision of me; heknewnow that everythingwas going to be all right.

Hewentontodescribethesexual infatuation hebelieved existed betweenus, one that, he wascarefultosay,wouldneverbeactedon.“Onascaleofonetoten,”hetoldme,ina mode of cheerfulconfession,“you’reaboutanine.” After assuring himthatthisnumericaffectionbelonged to him alone, Ifled. I never paid the bill

he sent me for that lastmystical instruction; Inever answered hisquerulousletters.ForyearsIpondered thedamagehecould have done, or atleast the failure he hadvisitedonme.

BECAUSE I HAD the sense andthe pride not to drivedrunkorappearblastedin

public, my world gotsmaller and smaller. I hadbruises onmyupper armsfrom running intodoorways;whenIsprainedmyankle,Itiedtwoplasticbags to thecrutchhandles—one holding ice, theother,aflaskofbourbon—and hobbled with myportable bar from thekitchen to the desk. Thenone night I went beyond

these amateur foibles andtooka fall that landedmein theER.Standingbeforethe bathroom mirror inone of those LeonardCohen tragic moments, Ihad collapsed, deadweight, with a glass ofscotch in my hand. Ilanded crosswise againstthebathtubandbrokefourribs.Itwasfoura.m.Eventomydenial-rackedmind,

this was no longer socialdrinking.The cultural dictates of

time and space—of Texasanditsdrinkingculture,ofthe still provincialunderstanding aboutaddiction—had alwaystold me that alcoholismwassomethinguntreatableand reprehensible. Ithappened to people who

were broken in otherways, or weak, or whodidn’t have the willpowerto straighten up and flyright, as my dad wouldhave said. What thisversionalwaysleftoutwasthe inner struggle—thewant for drink trying toeclipsethelightofsurvival—that someone in thethroes of addictionendures. Every morning,

waking to the sorrows ofanother night’s failures, Iwould swallow my fearand swear that this time,today, I would have onlyfourdrinks.Iwouldswitchtovodka,orgotoamovie,or call Jackie, who nowlivedinNewYork,andtellher how bad it was. Thetape would play all daylong—courage/terror,resolve/yearning,

bargaining/surrender—and then I would crackopenthefreezerfortheiceandmywholebodywouldexhale in relief, and thecycle would start to playitselfoutagain.The worst psychiclegacyof thisendless loopwastheongoingfeelingofbetrayal. Eachday Imadea contract not to drink,

andeverynightbyeightornineIhadbrokenitagain.Theerosion, likewateronstone, was gradual andconstant. I had beenblessed with parentswhose separate strengthshadbeenpassedontome;I had my mother’sindependence and myfather’s tough-mindedresolve. And I had a trustin myself that was based

on threedecadesofprettygood outcomes. But thisadversary was far crueler,stronger, more persistentthan any challenge I hadfaced. The last year hadproven that it was nolonger a deadlock; I hadactuallyhadadreamthatIwas in the ring with abottleofJackDaniel’sandI was being beaten to apulp. For more than a

decade I had negotiatedwith the gods so that Icould keep the booze:Meet thedeadline,get thebottle. Get the writingassignment, have thedrink. The better I feltabouttheproseattheendoftheday,thegreaterthereward.

WHICH MIGHT EXPLAIN the

cliffwalker behavior Iengaged in as a writer,going after stories that Ithought would somehowlegitimatemyintake.Ihadbeen scheduled to leavetwo days after my fall onan assignment to theweather observatory atopMountWashingtoninNewHampshire, a moonlikeoutpost that boasted theworst weather in the

world. Because of thebroken ribs, I postponedthe trip for six weeks.When I made the three-hour bus ride in Februaryto Gorham, NewHampshire, at the base ofthe mountain, my ribswere still wrapped and Ihad painkillers and twoquarts of whiskey in myluggage.We leftBostonatsix p.m., and the bus

headed north into thedark. I sat on that lonelybus in the cold with myaching ribs and myPercocet, eating a bleaklittle ham sandwich I hadpacked for the trip, tryingnot to think about thefrightening state I foundmyself in. By the timewegot toGorham, theendofthe line, there was onlyone other passenger, a

creepy-looking man whomade eyes my way andacted as though he mightfollowme.Igotoffthebususing a walking stick tonavigatetheiceandmadeit to the local hostel, andas soon as I got to myroom I threw down eightounces of bourbon. Thenext morning when theSno-Cat arrived to driveme and a couple of

geologists up themountain, I was moreworried about the glassbottlesIhadstashedinmybackpackthanIwasaboutmy own fracturedanatomy.Consciously or

inadvertently,Ihadpickeda drinker’s hermiticparadise at theobservatory. The

meteorologists were usedto being locked in byinclement weather forweeks at a time, and theyhad a full liquor reservealongwiththeirgallonsoftomato sauce andindustrial-size spices. Mytwohousematesgavemeaglass-lined officeoverlooking the ravines ofMount Washington;evenings, we would meet

to cookdinner over a fewdrinks.Theirmorningshiftbegan at five a.m., so byeight every night I couldretiretomybunkbedsandmybottleofbourbon.Andevery night I made ascratch on the bottle so Icould be sure the rationswouldlast.The next few months

were a blur of adrenaline

andfear,alast-ditcheffortto maintain the facade. Iarranged to do a storyaboutBostonLight,oneofthe last mannedlighthouses in America,which entailed myspending the night onLittle Brewster Island inBoston Harbor with thelightkeeper and his dog. Istill had the morningshakes when the Coast

Guard’s cigarette boatarrivedtotakemeovertothe island. There werethreeorfoursweet,rowdyfellows in the boat,showing off and gunningthe engine, and because Ididn’t want them to seehow nervous and sick Iwas, I employed the oldTexasmaneuver of raisingthe stakes. “So,” I askedthem, “how fast can you

guysmake this thinggo?”They grinned at me andthen at one another, andtookmeacross theharborat about sixty miles perhour.IwaspalewhenIsetfootontheisland,buttheythought I was tough—atleast I thought theythought I was tough—andtomyaddledsenseofself,thatwaswhatmattered.

But the lightkeeperknew. By now my pridewas a tattered camouflagefor the problem. At theend of our afternoontogether I went upstairsand drank six ounces ofvodka in about twentyminutes, then reappearedin the kitchen to watchhim cook me a T-bonesteak. We were the onlypeople on the island, and

he was a big, strapping,shy fellow in hismidthirties, and we satthat night in his brightkitchen, drinking Pepsiandeatingsteak,whilehetoldmeastory,seeminglyoutofnowhere,abouthowhehadgivenupdrinkingafew years earlier. I smiledand noddedsympathetically. I hadchosen vodka so he

wouldn’t smell it, but heknew. The next morning,hungover, I forced myselftoclimbthedizzyingstepsto the top of the ninety-foot tower, and I mademyselfcountthestepsasIwent so I could put thenumberinthestory.Whenpeople sayalcoholicshaveno willpower, they havenoidea.

FOR ALL MY MOCK heroics, myconstant recalibrations ofthe fuel and the facade, Iknow now that writing iswhatthrewmearopeandlet me drag myself toshore:TheideaofaworldwhereIkeptthedrinkbutlost the writing was evenmore unbearable to methan one without booze.Duringthosewretchedlastmonths, I’dstartedfinding

boozy, half-comprehensible notes Ihad scrawled to myselflate at night. By day mysober prose was at leastlucid and legible; thesenotes from the dark sidewerelikecomingacrossanex-Broadway floozy in agin palace who had seenbetter days. I was thirty-three years old. It seemedwaytoosoonforthetragic

decline,howevermuchthetortured-romantic mythhad driven me onward. Ihad fostered for years thesodden hall of fame ofthose writers who lassoedtheirtalentwithabottleofwhiskey: Faulkner andHemingway and Hammett(tellingly, my innerreferents were mostlymale). What I hadconveniently left out of

this self-told talewere theendnotes that proved thelie: Faulkner’s discipline,Hammett’s long sobriety,Hemingway’s shotgun.Whiskey didn’t stoke theflame of creativity; itextinguished it, sometimesoneslowdropatatime.The garret where I had

thought to live out mywriterly fantasy was a

third-floor walk-up on atree-lined city street. Mytypewriterwasinthefrontroom of the apartment,and I could look out thefront windows ontorooftops and the NewEnglandsky,andbelowtothe street scene of peoplegoing about their lives—the mail carriers and dogwalkers and familiarstrangers that form the

background canvas ofurban life. One winterafternoonwhen Iwas stillhousebound with brokenribs,wantingnothingmorethan towalk to the liquorstore for a bottle ofbourbon, I stood therewatching the snow flyoutside and my heartseizedwiththedisparityofthedreamdelivered:Ihadcome here, all this way,

with no job or family orscaffolding, intent onmaking it as awriter, andnow I was trapped threefloors up inmy own littlecellblock,removedutterlyfromthepeoplebelowandwaitingforthedaytoendso I could drink. The freefall I’d been in for yearshad ended, and the fearhadbecomedespair,andIsimply couldn’t bear it

anymore.

VICTORY STORIES ARE usuallypretty simple: As I onceheard a man in an AAmeeting put it, “I gotdrunk, it got worse, I gothere.” By spring I hadsigned up for analcoholism education classat my Cambridge healthplan, where a tall,

easygoing fellow namedRich, a few years olderthan I, talked each weekabout the ravages of thedisease.Ithoughthewasafool. I would go homeafter class and pour hugetumblers of bourbon andbrood about what he’dsaid. He was too tall, tookind, too unhip. Clearlythere had been somemistake—the medical

literature had left out acategory for tragicheroines with brilliantfutures who loved theirwhiskey. Then the nextweekIwouldstaggerbackin to continue myeducation.My gentle teacher did

two things that wereinvaluable. The first wasthat he seemed to expect

nothingfromhisaudience:He didn’t browbeat us ortry to herd us intosobriety,orevenaskustocome back. The secondwas that he gave aBuddhist-likeinterpretation of how tosurvive life withoutalcohol that had been leftout of every pamphlet I’dever read. Throughoutmydrinking I had assumed

that the slide intoalcoholism was a faitaccompli failure—thatyou’d already lost thebattle and wereconsequently beyondredemption. The best onecouldhopefor,Iassumed,was a shaky, vigilant lifeof bleak anxiety. Richacceded the battle butnone of the rest. Theconcept of AA, he told us

in the final class,was oneof surrender. I rolled myeyes; I had heard thisbefore. And, he went on,surrender—deciding to laydown the weapon andwalk away from the fight—was a way to get backallyourpower.The fluorescent lightssoftened a little, and thatgrim classroom where I

had sat for weeks withotherdoubtersgaveoffanaura,howevertransient,ofhope.Irecognizedwhathewas talking about: Thiswas the old mythicstruggle that had definedheroism throughout theages. Somehow that nighttheconceptofsobriety,forthe first time, had arevolutionary tinge to itsmessage—the idea was

life-saving, anti-mainstream, even daring.It might be possible, Ithoughtthatnight,togiveup drinking and still becool. For a frightenedyoungwomanwho’dspentadecadecultivatinganaucourantarmortomaskherdrinking, this was asradicalasitgot.He saved my life, of

course,thiscompassionate,low-key man who didn’tgive a whit about beingcool but caredtremendously abouthelping people. Havinglaid down my defense ofdisdain, Iwent to seehimone afternoon after theclass was over, with theostensible purpose oftalking about thealcoholisminmyextended

family.Andeven though Iwas cold sober that day,afterward I rememberedalmost nothing from thehour we spent in Rich’soffice. I know that in thefirst few minutes I brokedown, to my own horror,and said, “I think I drinktoomuch.”Therestwasawash ofmemory, until hegotupnearlyanhourlaterandrushedouttoschedule

me for outpatient detoxthe following week.Months later, I asked himabout thatdayandwhat Ihad said. He smiled,having seen this amnesia-in-crisis before. “Mostly,”he told me, “you tried toconvince me that youweren’tworthsaving.”Thisshocksmenowasitdidthen,becauseIalways

clungtotheflickerofself-regard that I assumed gotme in to see him. Butalcohol, and thedesperation andexhaustionthatwentalongwith it, had so worn medown that I didn’t havemuch fight left in me. Iwent home that day tofinish a deadline for theVillageVoice.Then Idrovetotheneighborhoodliquor

store for what I hopedwould be my last stash. Igot a quart of JackDaniel’s and—a splurge,onmy freelancer’s income—a quart of JohnnieWalker Red. “Would youlike the gift box?” theinnocentcashieraskedme.“Sure,” I told her. “Whynot?” Three days later, Ipouredwhatwasleftdownthesinkandstaggeredinto

Rich’soffice,hungoverandhalf an hour late, for anappointment that wouldletmestartagain.

IT WAS THE SUMMER of 1984,andAA in thosedayswasstill removed from thesocial order—it hadn’t yethit the covers of thenewsweeklies, the sloganshadn’t been turned into

bumper stickers, andcelebrity redemptionconfessionswereathingofthe future. Armed with ascheduleoflocalmeetings,I slunk into a Cambridgemeetinga fewdaysbeforemy last drink and satweeping near the backuntilasoft-voiced,elegantwomanelbowedmeintheribsandwhispered,“Don’tworry—it’sbiochemical.”I

foundthisuplifting:afour-word answer, deliveredcasually butunequivocally, to thebiggestprobleminmylife.IleftthereandwenthometotheJohnnieWalker,butIwentbackthenextnight,and the next, and by thetimeMondaymorninghadrolled around and I wasscheduled to be back inRich’s office for my

syllabus of a new life, Ihad finished the scotch,throwninalotofbourbonjusttobesure,andhauleda bar’s worth of emptybottlesdowntothestreet.Partly because twelve-step programs hadn’t yetsaturated the culture, themeetingsIwenttoseemedclandestine andhardscrabble; most of

themwere held in churchbasements. There wassomething incrediblyromantic about this—itwas like being a Masonwith a bad rap sheet. IngraduateschoolIhadbeenimmersed in the memoirsofwriterswho had joinedthe Communist Party inthe 1930s and who stolearound to secret meetingsof their cell groups,

smoking and talking andconvinced they werechanging the world. I’dalways envied theirpassionate focus. Onesummer evening I wascrossing the BostonCommon toward anotherchurchbasement,withthegrounds full of people ontheirway somewhere. Foryears I had felt removedfrom this stream of

humanity,chargingtowardmoments of what seemedlike a realized life. Now Iknew the deeper, morevaried truth: that a fewmembers of the crowdwere headed to an AAmeeting. Thiswas a hard-won but brillianteducation: I had realized,as life isalwayswilling toinstruct, that theworld aswe see it is only the

published version. Thesubterranean realms,whether churches orhospital rooms or smoke-filled basements, are partofwhatholduptherest.Ihad gotten ahold of askeletonkeyandfoundmywayinside.

I’D KNOWN SOMEONE in Austin,years before, who had

joinedAAandputher lifebacktogether,butwhatnoone could have told mewas how uproariouslyfunnythemeetingswere.Iwalked into shabby roomswith folding chairs andcoffee urns, where peopleweregettingsugarfixesongrocery-store cookies andusing old tuna cans asashtrays. A people’stribunalofdrunks!AAcut

across every class line Ihadeverhoped tobreach.There were men inbusiness suits and tough-talking blue-collar womenand diffident souls you’doverlook on a subwaytrain; there were scary-looking guys who, oncethey started talking, you’dhavewanted tohaveyourback forever. The storiesthey told were wrenching

and outrageous andsometimes profound, andforthemostparttheyhadhappier outcomes, at leastso far, than what youcouldexpect froma lotoflife. Imade friendswithabeautiful young woman,an artist and filmmaker,who shredded Styrofoamcups throughout themeetings; she did this forabout a year, while I

chain-smoked next to her.She had discovered themagic Molotov cocktailthatwasalcoholwhenshewas barely an adolescent,and had recentlygraduated magna cumlaude from Harvard whilenearly drinking herself todeath. For years we hungoutinthefrontrowsofthemeetings together,fancying ourselves the

Thelma and Louise ofCambridge AA, until herwork took her to NewYork,whereshebelonged.Elizawastough,butinsidewas a woman of suchgentleness and depth thatshe could lowermy bloodpressure just by walkingintotheroom.Shetoohadfound her way to AAthrough the BenevolentAlcoholCounselor,andfor

years we referred toourselves as graduates ofthe Rich Caplan FinishingSchool, where we hadlearned the carefuletiquette of how to avoidconsuming a quart ofwhiskey in one sitting, oratall.

I USED TO THINK this was anawfulstory—shamefuland

dramatic and sad. I don’tthinkthatanymore.NowIjust think it’s human,which iswhy Idecided totellit.Andforallthewisewords about drinkingheard and forgotten overtheyears,particularlythatfirstblurredhourinRich’soffice, I’ve alwaysremembered one thing hesaid that day,when Iwasburied in fear and shame

at the idea that I haddrunk my way intoalcoholism. He asked mewhy I was so frightened,and I told him, weeping,the first thing that cameinto mymind: “I’m afraidthat noonewill ever loveme again.” He leanedtowardmewithasmileofgreatkindnessonhisface,his hands clasped in frontofhim.“Don’tyouknow?”

heaskedgently.“Theflawisthethingwelove.”

5.

SOME OF THE EFFECTS OF STOPPING

DRINKINGWEREimmediateanddramatic. I cleaned thehouse, swam amile everyday, nursedmy newfoundcravingforsugar.IwenttoscoresofAAmeetingsandread stacks of novels atnight when I couldn’t

sleep. I got a job as aneditor at a local literaryreview,where on the firstday of work I metMatthew, a tall, gentleman with a timbre-richvoicewho became a goodfriend,andwhoseemedtopersonifymylifeofsecondchances—with him, theworld had turned from anobstacle course into anamusementpark.Matthew

and I would sit in theoffice late into theevening, smoking andreading the slush pile ofunsolicited manuscriptswhile the snow flewoutside the windowsoverlookingMassAve. Sixmonths later, The BostonGlobe hired me as itsunderling book critic. Thefirstday in thenewsroom,my colleagues presented

me with a bottle ofchampagne, a civility sounnerving that I carried ittothetrunkofmycarthatnight as though it wereplutonium, then unloadedit at a friend’s house onthe way home. In 1985,the reputation of thenewsroom as a hard-drinking place was stillwellearned,andIwasjustlearning the skill of

meeting deadlineswithouta drink at the end of theday. One night I asked afellow critic how helanded the plane after hehad filed. “Oh, I just gohome and have a fewscotches and a couple ofLibrium,” he told me.“That prettymuch does itfor me.” I lit anothercigarette,filedthereviewIwas writing, and went to

anAAmeeting.The self becoming: In

myfirstyearofsobriety, Iheard a woman at an AAmeeting describe the dayin, day out pact withtedium and despair thatalcoholism had meant forher. “I would go out andlive my life,” she said,“and then come home atthe end of the day and

drink six beers tomake itall go away. It was likecovering a blackboardwith writing everymorning and then thatnight erasing everythingyou’dlearned.”This story stayed withme as a mantra and anexplanation. What Icouldn’t have known, inthe drinking years, was

that alcohol was myshortcut to the stars, andthattherearenoshortcuts,not without a price. Thedrink had salved, notsolvedtheproblems;ithadblurred the lessons of abaddayoracelebrationorany of the incrementalturtle steps that constituteexperience. To allowmyself to drink all thoseyearsandnotgomadwith

the psychic damage I wasinflicting, I created awhiskey-tinged artificethat sweetened the myth.Now I had laid down theprops, andas terrifying asthiswas,itwasalsoalittlelike releasing a heliumballoon. Ihadno idea theworld could be so light,the flight so internallypropelled.

Still, my walkingthrough fire didn’t stopovernight. When I was acouple of months sober Ihad proposed an essay tothe Globe Magazine aboutthe seamier side ofAtlantic City, and gonethere and stayed up halfthe night playingblackjack, drinking clubsodaat the tablesat threea.m.whilewaitressesplied

the gamblers with freebooze. My sponsor in AAhad pointed out thefoolishness of thismaneuver, but I made ithome unscathed,particularly afterwitnessing the predawnwreckagethatprowledthecasinos.Butiftheneedforsuch mock heroics wanedover the next few years, Iwas still horrified at the

ideaofpeoplefindingoutIwas an alcoholic. And onsome level I still believedthat people who coulddrink socially had accessto a private club of risk-free, glistening highs fromwhich I had been foreverbarred.This is a dangerous

myth for an alcoholic,though I suppose we all

have some version of it,the old Gatsby spin inwhich the light throughthe windows is alwaysmore enchanting whenviewed from the streetoutside. It’s the commonequation of yearning, andGod did I yearn: forbourbon,forthemagazineadlifethatattendedit,forthe golden, ever-elusivebalm that had stoked the

firesofaddiction fromthebeginning.OnenightIhadto go to a tony dinnerparty that epitomizedthese images: the eleganthouse, the bar in thelibrary, the seeminglydazzling table talk andconstant flow of wine. Iwas the only person notdrinking, and afterconsuminggreatquantitiesofPerrier, I got inmycar

atmidnightandcollapsed.In tears, I called a friendwho was a late-night DJand always awake in thewee hours. “Those peopledon’t matter,” he said tome. “You’re stronger andbetter than all thosepeople.”Thiswasthesameman who, with care andpatience, had listened ayear earlier when I wascontemplating lifewithout

alcohol. “I’mafraid that ifI stop drinking, I’ll bedreary,andanxiousallthetime,anddull,” Ihadtoldhim.“Well,youmightbe,”he had said matter-of-factly.“Theonlythingyoucan know for sure is thatyou’ll be a whole lot lessdrunk.”After a while, a whole

lot less drunk was what I

aspired tobe. I learned tonavigate the alcohol-sodden social terrain andsometimes avoid italtogether;what had oncebeckonedasacharmedlifebecame less enviable overtime, and even alien. Iknew somethingfundamental had shiftedone night in downtownBoston, where I was partofawelcominggroupfora

visiting luminary.Wemetat the Ritz-Carlton, andeveryoneelse—allofthemmen—ordered two-fisteddrinks of Polish vodkasand double scotches. Ismiled at the waiter.“What sort of designerwater do you have?” Iasked,andafterhe’dtakenour order, the luminarycast me a look of scorn.“Youdon’tdrink?”hesaid.

“Howboring.”“Not to me, it isn’t,” I

shot back. Rather thanfeeling exposed as thefragile woman with theclub soda, I was insteadstunned by the man’srudeness. I had stoppedcaring what he, or maybeanyone,thought.

BY THE TIME Caroline and I

became friends, we wereeach fairlywell outof thecorridors of isolation thatwent along with alcoholicdrinking.She’dbeensobera coupleofyearsandwastrying to maintain herfooting, particularly giventheexposurethatDrinking:ALoveStoryhad received.Someof thispublicityhadbeen as absurd as it wasgrueling: One TV news

crew tried to arrange aninterview in a bar, thenasked her if she could cryon camera. I had morethan a decade’s worth ofmeetings and sobrietybehind me—we had bothstoppeddrinkingwhenwewere thirty-three—and Icouldwellrememberthoseearly, new-colt efforts atreorienting a life. Butwhile Caroline had, in

many ways, protectedherself by going public, Ihad chosen the oppositepath; theonlypeoplewhoknew what I’d beenthroughwereclosefriendsand family. Because Ihadn’t wanted her candorto dictate my owndisclosures, I waitedmonthsintoourfriendshipbefore I told her. I wassitting in her living room

oneautumnafternoonandsaid, “There’s something Ineed to tell you,” and shelooked apprehensive—WhathaveIdonewrong?—and I smiled at herworry and said, “Thisprobably won’t surpriseyou, but I haven’t had adrinkintwelveyears.”Thelookonherfacewas

of relief and happy

surprise, the oh-my-Godsmile of connection.Months later, we weretalking about the nightwe’dfirstmetyearsbefore,whenwehadbeen foistedon each other at a party.Unbeknownsttoher,Ihadbeen sober several yearsbythen.“Irememberhowshyyouwere,” I said.Shelaughedathermemoryofme, even though I had

been holding a glass ofclub soda at the time. “Iremember thinking,” shetoldme, “that here was awoman who couldprobably drink the wayshe wanted to and getawaywithit.”So much for firstimpressions; that was oneof the few times I sawCaroline’s instincts about

people fail her. If ourindividual pasts withalcohol were familiar, themore intricate and lastingtruthwesharedwasaboutthe ability to change—thebelief that life was hardand often itsworst battleswere fought in private,that it was possible towalk through fear andcomeoutscorchedbutstillbreathing. This was the

melancholic’s version ofhope, but a studied one,and we carried it with uswhether confronted withreal difficulties or themundane fender bendersoflife.Carolinehadrowedherwayoutofanorexiainher late twenties; I hadcrawled and then limpedmywayoutofpolio.Thatlong climb had made meboth determined and

stubborn, traits that hadbeen essential to mygetting sober. BecauseCaroline and I recognizedineachotherthismodeofsurvival, we gave eachother wide berth—it wasfareasier,welearnedovertheyears,tobekindtotheother than to ourselves.When Caroline insistedthat she walk Lucille fourmiles, I assured her that

two was plenty; when Iinsistedontryingtoliftanunwieldythirty-five-poundboat over my head on adownward ramp, shedrove to the boathouse tohelp me carry it. Wenamed the cruel innertaskmaster we eachpossessed the InnerMarine, which took awaythestingwhenIgotbeatenon the river or she wore

out in the pool, and weinvented the character ofSarah Tonin to personifyour quasi-dramatic selves.Each gave the otherpermission to lower thebar—Iwouldcallherfromthe boathouse when thewind was fierce, and shewould convinceme not torow. This latitudeextendedtoourself-doubtsabout the lives we had

chosen, the ambivalencewe shared about beingmoody introverts whooften preferred thecompany of dogs. Onenight when Caroline wasmaking tea in her kitchenalone, she was floodedwithasenseofwell-being.She reported this the nextmorning with a sort ofconfessional delight. “Ohmy God, I’m the merry

recluse!” she told me shehad said aloud. “AndGailisthecheerfuldepressive!”Asusual,Caroline got acolumn out of thatevening’s epiphany—themerry recluse became acharacter in her printchronicleofherownfears.“Is there a column inthis?”shewouldaskinthemiddle of a conversation

funny or profound, herever-present omniscientnarrator trolling formaterial.Likemostfriendsof writers, I found thisdual scrutiny by turnsflattering, amusing, andirritating, even thoughCaroline went to greatlengths to protect hersubjects’ privacy. One ofthe worst fights we everhad happened after she

had lent me her boat torow on an Octobermorning. Pulling the scullout of the cold, murkyCharles River, I had lostmyfooting,andtheboat’ssliding seat had come offits tracks and gone flyingintotheriver.I was heartsick at my

clumsiness, and Carolinehad to talk me out of

diving into the filthy rivertosearchfortheseat.“It’snot like you lost Lucille,”she consoled me, but shewas still annoyed, and ittook us both days torecover. She wasexasperated that Ihadputtheboatoutofcommissionfor a couple of weeks; Iwas upset that she wasupset. But the laterdissonance came in

Caroline’sefforttodisguiseme.Whenshewroteaboutthis tempest—an essayabout intimacy andconflict for a women’smagazine—she turned thelost object into a pair ofgold earrings. Now I wastheonewhowasannoyed,even though no one in amillion years wouldmistakeme for an earringborrower. I was angry

because I thought that intryingtogranttheessayawider appeal, she hadtradeddownourtools.Wedidn’t borrow jewelry; wetook it off or stoppedwearing it altogether.Masters of our ownuniverse, we were, acountry small and self-determined.Formetheterritoryhad

been hard won, which isone reason I was soprotective of it. Theyounger daughter of awarm-hearted Texaspatriarch,Ihadadoredmyfather and, in the classicOedipal dance, had triedto find a romanticpartnerwhomeasured up to him.Maybe suchefforts alwayscarryahintofdoom;asafirebrandwhosoughtboth

to imitate her dad anddefy him, I was bound toget equivocal results.Caroline too had beenbeholden to thecommanding presence ofher psychoanalyst father,and had been hurt inrelationships with men.TheexceptionwasMorelli,who because of theirseparationIwouldn’tmeetuntilmorethanayearinto

our friendship. The springof the publication of Packof Two, we threw a bookparty in themiddleof theFells.Ilookedovertheriseto see a soft-eyed manwith a gentle demeanorapproaching with acamera slung over hisshoulder.WhenLucillerantoward him, he got downon one knee to greet her.“Oh my God, is that

Morelli?” I asked, andCaroline nodded with afamiliar wistful grin—onethat translated into Whatdoyou think? “I think youshouldmarryhim,” I said,“and let him raise thekids.”My half-cocked remarkheldalotoftruth,andwasless reckless than itsounded. Caroline had

written about Morelli foryears, in columns and inher memoir; even duringtheir faux breakup, theyhad stayed connected in away thatmost ex-partnerscan’torwon’t.SoIalreadyknew, given her historywith men, that hisgenerosity and caretakingboth sustained andconfused her. But I alsoknewthatdaybytheway

Lucille responded to him,and he to us, thatMorelliwasdifferentfromthemenCaroline had beeninvolvedwith,particularlythe horrid character ofJulian, the controllinglovershehadportrayedinDrinking.Weusedtolaughwith relief at the trapswe’d avoided; in a typicalincident from our parallellives, it turned out that

we’d even fled the sameman years before. Whenthe guy started describingthe sunsets he planned toshowme, I had rolledmyeyes and broken our date;Caroline had gone outwith him later that yearandwoundupchaufferinghim all over town at herexpense. Our agedifference, along withcircumstance, had placed

usonseparatepointsalongthesamepath.Inthewakeofherparents’ deaths andher stopping drinking,Carolinewasatthestartofawholenewrealmofself-reliance; like me, she hadfound that a dog hadelicitedinherasustenanceand warmth she’d neverimagined. In some waysMorelli’s very kindnessand staying power got in

the way of thosediscoveries—I suspect sheneededhimtogoawayfora while, but not too far,whichiswhathedid.

WHEN I WAS IN the throes ofleavingSam,myversionofCaroline’s Julian, he hadlooked at me across thedinner table one night,miredinhisowndramaof

defeat, and said to me,“Youknow,sometimesthelight of you is just a littletoo bright.” This was acharming spin on the oldit’s-not-you-it’s-meroutine,and it took me monthsafter our breakup to sortout my wants from hisfinely scripted sorrows.The women’s movementhad givenme a leguponall kinds of rough times,

andyet,tomychagrin,I’dbrought few of thoseresources into thisrelationship.Theshardsofmy fallen-heroine mythwere part of the problem:Playingonagenderthemethroughout history, I’dconfused need with loveand love with sacrifice.Finding my way out ofthat crevasse, onto thesolid ground of my own

quiet life, had been asliberating and hope-filledas stopping drinking hadbeen five years earlier.Fromtheoutside thismayhavelookedlikeadecline,oratleastaretreat:IntheyearssinceI’dleftSam,I’dgivenupdowntowndinnerparties (and Sisypheanefforts at being constantlydivine) fornightsathomewith thedog; I carednow

about work, andfriendships, and thewhitecreature in my livingroom, and none of theseassets was subject anylongertonegotiation.These life lessons—about grace andautonomy, about how tolove without giving awaythe farm—werecrystallized for me in the

woods with Caroline andthe dogs. If the two of ushad had our trust shakenin lousy relationships, itwas being rebuilt here,with toolswehadn’tquitebeen aware we possessed.Forus,dogtrainingwasashared experience of suchreward that the educationwas infused throughoutthe friendship. Much oftraining a dog is

instinctive; it is also acomplex effort of patienceand observation andmutual respect. Carolineand I could spend hoursdiscussing conditioningand the intricacies ofattachment; only twowomen who had spentyears in the revelatorylightoftherapycouldhavefoundsuchrichbountyin,say, the equivocal use of

the word “no” in caninecommunication. Webolstered each otherthroughmiles andmonthsof training andinterpretation; what hadbeenaprivatepleasureforeach of us was now anongoingdialogue.A less consciousinstruction was takingplace alongside the

articulated one. Thewoman I felt myselfbecoming, withClementine beside me,appearedinpartbecauseIhad something to protect.Now I understood how awoman could lift aVolkswagenoffher child’sfoot, or all the otheradrenaline-soaked storiesinthecultureaboutpowerand love. I was learning

firsthand that nurturanceandstrengthwereeachthelesserwithouttheother.I had first encounteredthis truth during avulnerable time inClementine’s life, when Iwas trying to make hersubmit to what iscommonly known as an“alpha roll”—aquestionablepracticeoften

prescribed for unrulypuppies, in which thehuman rolls the pup onher back and contains heruntil the dog stopsstruggling. Most puppieswill acquiesce within oneor two tries; Clementine,whose temperament wasbothdominantandgentle,was having none of it. Iwould roll her over andshe would struggle

relentlessly, then, oncereleased,springtoherfeetand bark in protest. Everconscious of the need toestablishmy authority, I’dtry again. The third time,in the middle of thestruggle,Ihadabird’s-eyeviewofwhat Iwasdoing.Crouched there on thefloor, I saw myself as myfather, who had beenflummoxed and enraged

by his daughters’adolescence. He couldn’tkeep us from growing upandaway,andsoheyelledand threatened and triedto get us to back down,which had only made itworse.My mother had askedmeonceafterIwasgrownwhat my dad could havedonedifferently,insteadof

bullying his way throughmy rebellion. “Iwish he’djusttoldmehowmuchhelovedme,”Iansweredher.“Iwishhecouldhave justsaid, ‘You are precious tome; I won’t let you putyourself in danger.’” ThisexchangecamebacktomeinasorrowfulflashwhenIhad my small, intractablesled dog on the floor. Didshe really need to be

convinced that I was incharge? I was ten timesher size; I had language,consciousness, and historybehind me—my specieshad been domesticatinghers for thousands ofyears.Iwasplayingmastersergeant when there wasno need for any standingarmy.My agenda disappeared

in that moment, andClementine’s burgeoningtemperament was giventhe room it required. I lether go and hoisted herontomyshoulder,andshefellonmelikeakidbeingcartedhomefromthefair.From that moment on,everything changedbetween us. Wherever Idanced,shefollowed.

ItoldCarolinethisstoryone afternoon at the Fellswhenwewerecirclingthefire trails in autumn. Wewere talking that dayabout the realized lifeversustheexternalpictureof it: the assumptions andprojections that we allmakeaboutotherpeople’slives. Each of us hadendured complaints fromour non-dog friends about

ourdisappearanceintothewoods, but what ourcritics couldn’t see werethe glorious recesses ofthis new place: the colorsand smells and hints ofsublimity that thesewalksensured.Caroline,sooftena captive to her ownreserve, was now rollingaroundontheforest floor,laughing and wrestlingwith the dogs without a

shred of inhibition. I wastraining Clementine off-lead,usinghandsignalstoget her into a down-stayfrom ten yards away, andshe would start towhimper after a fewseconds, then break thestay and come chargingtoward me. Pack of four,wewere,plantingflagsallover the province of ourrearranged lives. Somuch

of what we valued wasbeing played out in thosewoods, in what we werebuildingwiththedogsandwith each other. And so Ilooked at Caroline at theend of that fine day andsaid,“Youknow—afterallthis,Idon’tthinkthatanyman could ever treat mebadlyagain.”

TO PEOPLE WHO have spenttheir lives thick with thebounty of other people,attachment itself iscomplex but assumed. Forthe introvert, it is amorenebulous territory. I wasable to be effusive andwarm in my humaninteractions because Iknewwhen and how theywould end: end of day,endofparty,endofwalk,

endof relationship. In thedrinking years, thebourbonwasthesoulmatewaiting on the trail, thefixedloveobjectthatmademe eschew or shrug offothers. Butwalls,whetherbuiltbybrickor isolation,don’t come down withoutacorrespondingamountoflabor. Without evenknowing it, I thinkCarolineandIcoaxedeach

other into the light. Wedid this slowly, and withsuchpronouncedattentionto the other’s autonomythat neither of us had tomovean inch toget awayfromtheother.I thinkbacknow to the

small measures of trustgainedinthatfirstyearofthe friendship, the wayswe went from mutual

caution to inseparableease, and so much of itnow seems like a careful,even silent exchange. Iknew about Caroline’shistorywithanorexia, andon our long excursions inthe woods, I would taketwo graham crackers outofmypocketandhandherone matter-of-factly,without even looking ather. I must have realized,

half consciously, that shewas too polite to refuse;wewere both on the thinside,andsomyoffering,tothe anorectic mind, wasrelatively unthreatening.Then I started addingsmall chunks of chocolateto the stash. The primaland mutual pleasure ofthis act touches me now,though I couldn’t havearticulated it, or maybe

even recognized it, at thetime. After years ofstruggling with a harshinner voice of denial andcontrol, Caroline wasletting me feed her—reluctantly at first, thenwithsomerelief.AndI,solong afraid of havinganyoneneedmetoomuch,was foraging around fornuts and berries, bringingthembacktothecreatureI

loved.Counting on each other

becameautomatic.WhenIfoundasweaterinTexasIwanted, I learned to buytwo,whichwaseasierthanseeing the look ofdisappointment onCaroline’s face when Ireturned home with onlyone. When she went outfrom the boathouse on a

windy day, she gave meher schedule in advance,whichassuagedherworst-case scenario of flippingthe boat, being hit on thehead by an oar, andleavingLucille strandedathome.Istillhavemysetofkeystoherhouse,tolocksand doors that no longerexist, and I keep them inmy glove compartment,where they have been

moved from one car toanother in thepast coupleof years. Someday I willthrowthemintheCharles,whereIlosttheseattoherboatandsomuchelse.

“WHATAREYOUDOING?”Iwouldsayintheearlyafternoon,when I called after thewriting hours were doneand before the walking

ones began. “Waiting foryou to call,” she wouldanswer, half kidding, andwe would dive in: themorning papers (twoeach), the rowing andswimming ledger (fivemiles on the water, 1,500meters in it), the twenty-four-hour chronicle ofdramas and annoyancesthatbookendaday.Whenwe’d gotten to the pond,

after the phone call andbefore dusk, Carolinewould link her arm intomine and say, “Sooo…?”as we wound around thereservoir, starting yetanother sentence in theinfinite conversation.According to the old rulebook,men had sports andwomen had talking;Caroline and I cultivatedboth, finding that our

logging of miles on riveror land enhanced theinternal ground wecovered. And yet I findnow that writing about afriendship that flourishedwithin the realm ofconnectionandroutinehasall the components oftrying to capture air. Thedailiness of our alliancewas both muted andessential: We were the

latticethatmaderoomfortherose.

6.

IF COMPATIBILITY IS PART LUCKAND

PART LABOR, our mettle hadbeentestedbythesummertripswetook,togetherandapart. More than one ofthosevacationsturnedintorescuemissions.Shebailedme out from a miserable,rainy couple of weeks in

Trurowhensheshowedupwith a tape of TheSopranos and a breadpuddingfromFormaggio.Ireturnedthefavoramonthlater, when she andMorelli were stranded inbad weather in NewHampshire, by sendingthem a tape of Survivor—Caroline’s secret pleasure—by overnight mail. Oneyear when she and Tom

got to Chocorua a day ortwo ahead of me, shecalled me in Cambridge,beggingmetocomeadayearly. “You’ve got to getup here,” she whispered.“Themanmademegoona nine-mile hike today. Icanhardlymove.”God forbid Tom should

learn her limitations;Carolinehadnearlypinned

himarmwrestlingtheyearbefore. I was an easiercompanion, at least whenitcametomountainhikes;we had also learned thatwe could exist on paralleltracksinsilentspace.Earlyin our friendship we hadgone to a house of herfamily’s on Gay Head onMartha’s Vineyard, in lateMarch. The landscape onthat end of the island is

wildeveninhighsummer;at the start of spring, theplace was cold anddesolate. It was a hardtrip.Therewerenewcropsof ticks in the marshessurrounding the house,and after a run the dogswould emerge from highgrass looking as thoughthey’dbeensprinkledwithpoppy seeds. Caroline andI bundled ourselves in

sweatshirts, armed withbrushes and rubbingalcohol, and sat on thefloor in the waning light,combing dozens of ticksoff the dogs’ coats. I hadsuch a case of cabin feveraftertwodaysofrainthatI drove twenty milesacross island to swim in ahotel pool; Caroline spentmost of the time I wasgone talking toMorellion

the phone, distraughtabout the memories thehouseheld.Bythetimeweclosed up the house andheadedtoVineyardHavenfortheferry,wewerebothworn out and beyond anyefforts at good cheer. Anhour before departure,wedrovethecarintothelongferry queue that is part ofVineyard life, and got outwith the dogs to hang

around in the parking lotuntilweleft.Then on the boardwalk

across the way, I saw asilhouette that sent mystomach intomythroat.Aman was sitting on abench reading The NewYork Times, and I wasconvinced itwasSam, theman I had split up withfive years earlier—whose

letters I had neveranswered, whom I hadn’tseen since that day I lefthim in an airport inanothercity.“OhmyGod,Caroline,” I said, “that’sSam.” She knew all thestories about this piece ofpain, including the factthathespenta lotoftimeon the Vineyard, and sheknew with one look howunhappy I was at the

prospect of running intohim.“Hold the dogs,” she

said abruptly, giving meLucille’s leash. “Don’tfreak out. I knowwhat todo.” She moved too fastformetorespond,andsoIstood there while shemarched toward the manon the bench. She gotwithin about ten yards to

his right, and then yelledouthisname—smilingandwaving at a nonexistentperson beyond him. Shewas acting on theassumptionthatifthemanwas Sam,wewould knowitimmediately,becausehewouldstart inrecognition;if I was mistaken and heignored her, then wewouldn’thavetospendthenext two hours dodging

ghostsfromthepast.Themanbarelyglanced

her way before returningtohispaper.Buteveryoneelse—well, Caroline washollering and wavingwhile no one was wavingback, and she had anaudience of sixty orseventy people staring ather.Thiswasawomansoshy she could barely

endure any kind ofspotlight.Butnowshehadmade me laugh until mystomachhurt, andmadeafoolofherself inpublic togivemesomepeace.Ihadneverlovedhermorethanin thatmoment.Shecamestriding back to where Istood, proud of her anticsand glad to see melaughing. “That guy’sabout a hundred years

old,” she said, shrugging,andtookaholdofLucille’sleashandlitacigarette.

THOSECIGARETTES.Iwouldliketo leave them out of thisstory but cannot. I hadlearned on the Vineyardtrip to grant Caroline thetime she needed each dayfor the New York Timescrossword puzzle—a sine

qua non forwhich, as theweek progressed and thepuzzles became harder,she required absolutesilence. If you interruptedher focus shewould shootyou a look of suchwithering scorn that itcould stop a preacher inhis tracks. My rules oftogetherness were equallydemanding. She couldsurvive a three-hour car

trip with me only bychewing nicotine gum; itwas a testament to ourimmediate fondness foreach other that Iunderstood her smokingand she tolerated myaversion to it. I had quitfour years earlier, and ithad taken me years ofwanting to quit before Iwas able, and so I knewthat cultivating her desire

to stop was far moreeffective than any threatsor scare tactics I couldthrowherway.This equanimity didn’t

alwaysreign;thecloserwebecame,thelessIwasableto bear her smoking. Istartedholleringatheronthe phone one day, afterI’d been pressuring herabout trying to quit and

she’daskedmetobackoffand I couldn’t, and I saidsomething that makes meache to remember it.“You’re eight yearsyounger than I am,” Icried. “I don’t want tohavetoburyyou.”Iwashardlyaloneinmy

worry. Caroline’s mother,before she died, hadbegged her to stop

smoking,andCarolinetoldme more than once thatshe was no match for thecoalition of her sister,Becca, and me—with thepressure from the two ofus, she knew she wouldhavetoquit.Butshelovedsmoking the way my dadhad loved it, with histhree-pack-a-dayhabitthatwentonfordecades.Ihadgrownupwiththesmellof

his coffee and his Camelselicitingafeelingofsafety,and I knew thisattachment could be atangle of poison anddesire. Most addictions,Caroline’s included, areboth intricate andpredictable. The ever-complicit brain turns thecraving into a narrative:The cigarette or bourbonor obsessive relationship

becomes the guide rope,the way we navigate theday.Carolinebelieved shecouldn’t write without acigarette, couldn’t endurea night or an hourwithinthe vast caverns of atobaccoless world. Shetried nicotine gum andtried staring at photos ofsmokers’ lungs; sheresearched in-treatmentfacilities for nicotine

addiction. And she finallymanaged to stop on herown, just before she hadto.It was not a source of

trouble between us, butratherofmutualdistress.IfCarolineandIsharedsomeofthemostidyllictimesofbothour lives, the coreofour friendship came fromthe rougher excursionswe

endured together. Fromthat first winter afternoonin the Harvard ball fields,“Oh no—I need you” hadbecome an admission andaclarioncall—thetenetofdependencythatformstheweft of friendship. Weneeded each other so thatwe could count on theendlessdaysofforestsandflat water, but the realneed was soldered by the

sadder, harder moments—discord or helplessness orfear—that we dared toexposetoeachother.Ittookmeyearstograspthat this grit anddiscomfort in anyrelationship are anindicator of closeness, notitsopposite.Welearnedtofight well and fairly fromthe beginning:When Tom

witnessed one of ourstraight-on conflicts, hegrabbed his book andheaded up the stairs. “Igrew up with sisters,” hesaid as he retreated. “Iknowwherethisisgoing.”We had great power tohurt each other, andbecause we acknowledgedthisweaponwetriedneverto use it. Besides thesmoking,Idon’tknowthat

we ever fought aboutanything important. Wecouldbothbehaughtyandsnappish and overlysensitive, and yet weforgavethesetraitsineachother almost immediatelyand without much of astruggle.Our trust allowed for a

shorthandthatletusgettothepointquickly.Caroline

knew that when I headedtoward my basementcorner of worldviewmelancholia, it manifesteditself in ways both comicand treatable. For years alovely young Guatemalanwoman cleaned my houseeverycoupleofweeks.Sheadored Clementine andwouldregularlysay,“Ooh,someday I’m just going totake her with me!” One

afternoon after Lilian hadleft, when I was feelingassaulted by life’s littletreacheries, I becameconvinced that she wasserious.Inafitofmaternalanxiety, I called Caroline,who knew Lilian and hersweet, teasing spirit. “Doyouthinkshemeantit?”Iasked. “I mean, really, doyou think she might takeher?” Caroline was kind

that day—she neitherlaughed nor scoffed—butfor years afterward,whenever Iwould start togo off-kilter about theworld and its potentialevils, all Caroline had todo fora reality checkwassay, with diagnostic calm,“I’m afraid Lilian isstealingthedogagain.”These were the day-to-

day dramas we confessedtoeachotherandlessenedby their expression alone.Caroline would callfretting about a potluckdinner;shewassoshy,shedreaded it for days. I toldhertomakeanappearanceand duck out early; shemanagedtostayforelevenminutes. She speeded meupwhen I dawdled, and Iconsoled her when her

hyperefficiency got herinto trouble, as when sheplowed ahead into aparkinggarageandalmosttook the boat rack off hercar.Wedivided theworldup intoseparate strengths:Iwasgoodwithcomputersand veterinary tasks;Caroline was in charge ofhome repair and any featrequiring physicalstrength.When it came to

matters of the soul andpsyche,weeachknewhowto tend to the other. ButCaroline’s range ofacceptancewaslargerthanmine, and so were herskillsofdiplomacy.

PRIVATELY, AND NOT altogetherinjest,webelievedthatallpeoplecouldbeconsignedtodogbreeds. “God,he is

such an apricot poodle,”Caroline would say aboutsomeone vain or entitled,or, between her teeth,about a woman whobrayed: “Beagle.” Morellilistened to us doing thisduring a walk oneafternoon and stopped inhis tracks; he had gonefrom amused toincredulous:“Youguysarereally serious about this,

aren’t you?” Thistaxonomy became a codeforhumanpersonality,andwhenever anyone wouldwander onto our field ofattention, the inevitablequestion became whichbreed he or shemight be.We enjoyed makingMorelli a chocolate Lab(great heart, sense ofhumor) and I insistedCaroline was a collie

(smart,high-strung,loyal),but foryearsweponderedwhere I belonged. Finallyone day at the beginningofawalkshedeclaredherresearchover.“I’vedecidedwhatbreed

youare,”shesaidwithdrycertainty.Iswallowed;thiswas important stuff. Shepaused before giving methe verdict: “A young

female German shepherddog.”“Oh—but …” I wasflustered and a littleunnerved.“Imean,they’rereally great dogs,” I said,“and Iknow they’re smartand everything. Butthey’re so serious. Andthey’reherders—they’resobossy, they run everyother dog into the

ground.”Her smile was heranswer.“Well,that’swhyImade you a youngfemale,” she said. “Tosoftenitalittle.”

7.

THE COMPETITION WE FOSTERED,

ALONEANDTOGETHER,becameapleasure rather than ahindrance:Webroughtourrivalry into the light andtriedtotameit.EverytimeIswam,Ichosealanenearan unwitting opponent,preferablyaman,whowas

faster than I; then I flungmyselfthroughmylapsforthe next half hour, tryingtocatchhim.EachOctoberafter theworld-classHeadof the Charles regatta,Caroline would go out onthe water alone and rowthe three-plus-mile course,timingherselftoseewhereshe fell in her age andweight group. The raceitself was too nerve-

racking for her, and shedidn’t care aboutcompeting publicly. Likeme,shesetananonymousgolden mean and racedagainstit.Caroline always said

thatsheandhersisterhadnavigated their sharedterrainbydivvyingup thegoods. “Becca got mathand science, I got English

and history,” she liked tosay,andwedidsomethingsimilar with ourcurriculum in the writinglife: Our sublimationwithin the safer realm ofathletics allowed us tobolster each otherprofessionally. Accordingto our unspoken rule,Carolinewasthecolumnistand I was the critic; shewrote about the personal

and psychological, while Iclaimed the province ofanalysis andinterpretation. It helpedthat I was older, and thatwe both loved our workandhadbeenrewarded inkind.Ithinkwewereeachgood enough at what wedidthatwecouldapplaud,mostly unequivocally, theother’svictories.

Whenoneofuswastheclear superior, it softenedthe odds—it took thepressure off the other’sInner Marine. You willalwaysbethebetterrower,I told her one summer,with relief; that meant Icouldactuallyrelaxandlether train me. And rowingwas the shared Eden thatallowedusunbridledeffortand victory, whatever the

race. Caroline’s willowyprowess on the watertestified to years of work,and she took unabashedpride in thisaccomplishment: One oflife’sgracenoteshadbeenthe morning when HarryParker, legendaryoarsmanand Harvard crew coach,spotted Caroline on theriver and gave her athumbs-up in front of his

amateur eights, then hadher demonstrate herstroke. In winter, desolateat the long season whenthe river was frozen,Caroline retired to thegym, where she had beenknown to do stomachcruncheswithaten-poundweight on her chest.Weaker but only slightlyless fanatical, I nearlykilled myself trying to do

the plough (acontortionist’s backstretch) on my kitchenfloor, simply becauseCaroline had shown it tome that afternoon on theasphalt path at FreshPond. In the offseason, Ijoined Gold’s Gym,listening to the maleweight lifters makeprimate noises while Isuffered through a half

hourontheindoorrowingmachines.Walking the icytrails of January, wefantasized about winter-sport possibilities: Was ittoo late in life to take uptheluge?BythetimeNewEngland’s erratic springarrived, we were pawingthe ground like crazedhorses. We knew thatthrashing around on thewater during a cold and

windy March could befrustrating and evenfoolish.But within a year after

that first summer atChocorua, where Carolinehad shown me the fire, Ialso knew there was nosuchthingasabadrow.Itopened up the world insuch powerful andquotidian ways that the

promise of it, whether inFebruary or August, gaveus a calendar bywhich tomark our passion. Frommyfirst full seasononthewater, Caroline indulgedmy fervor with fondrecognition of what shehad been through yearsbefore. If the water wasperfect—glassy and still—we would drop anything(dentist appointments,

dinner obligations) to geton the river. I often wentoutinearlyevening,whenthe wildlife had settledandtheshorelinehadgonefrom harsh brightness toMonet’s gloaming, andthen I would row back tothe dock in golden light,the other scullers movinglike fireflies across thewater.

My stubbornness andupper-body strengthcompensated formyweakleg,andwithinacoupleofseasons I had managed apassable stroke. I gotstronger, faster,exhilarated on a dailybasis. I went out in windgusts and rain and cameback spent and calm.Caroline had warned methatmyentirerelationship

totheriverwouldchange,andtobecarefuldriving—with the Charles Riverwinding alongsideMemorial Drive, it waseasy to forget aboutoncoming traffic if youwere rubbernecking thecondition of the water.“The river will become acharacter in your life,”Caroline told me. “You’llbe amazed how much

influence it will have onyourday.”By autumn, I had

mapped out an entirecountryoffloraandfauna,much of it invisible fromland. I began to set myinternal clock of milesloggedby the landmarks Iencountered. There wasthe man who playedbagpipes eachmorningon

a bend in the river—“TheHalls ofMontezuma” and,if I was lucky, “AmazingGrace”—andthemuskrataquarter mile upstream,appearing with suchreliability that I couldbelieve it was for mybenefit. (There was also,less decorous, theexhibitionist on thewooded end of the riverwho flashed women

rowers, about whomCaroline had warnedme.)Most of all there was thearc and geography of theriverandmyplaceuponit.BySeptember thegoslingsof spring would belearning to dive on theirown; the marshes hadturned from green togolden rose. All of itoffered a palette in timeand space where beauty

wasanchoredtochange.I usually saw Caroline

on her way upriver: theblondponytail,thebackofadancer, a strokeas fluidasitwasexact.(Sheneversaw me until I called outto her, and even then shehad to squint. The glassessheneededand refused towear never left the gloveboxofhercar.)Somedays

wewouldmeetonawidestretchbythefinishlineofthe Head of the Charles.The moment she squaredher blades and stopped,Caroline checked herwatch, sometimessurreptitiously; even onthe gentlest of rows, shewas gauging her time.Thenshewouldwatchmystroke and giveme a drillto occupy me for a few

days.“Useyourabsfortherecovery,” she would say.“Stop checking behindyou;you’reclear.Useyourthumbs before youfeather!” I thrilled to thelanguage as well as theinstruction.In the summer of 2000,whenIwas forty-nineandCarolinewasabouttoturnforty-one,wedecided that

wehadone last chance torealizeadream: to row ina double in our agedivisionintheHeadoftheCharles.Weweremistakenabout the age stipulation,which accepts any pairingwith an age average overforty, but the fantasystuck, and it gave us amission for the season. Itwas the sort of goal weboth loved, one that we

could discuss endlesslywhile incorporating itstraining demands into ourdailyroutines.Becauseweboth fell into the under-130-pound weightdivision, we decided thatwewouldbillourselvesasthe Literary Lightweights—goodforafewlaughsontheriver,we thought,andmaybe even a corporatesponsor or two. Morelli,

who had long wantedCaroline to showher stuffin a race, had T-shirtsmade for us with a tinyoarsman on the breast; hepromised to hang off thebridgesandphotographusduring training sessions.As themore accomplishedrower, Caroline wouldsteerwhileIrowedstroke,which meant that shewould have to slow her

pacetomine.Thishandicapwasofnoconsequence to her andmattered greatly to me. Iadded stomach crunchesand leg lifts to myregimen, and startedtaking my pulse aftersprints on the water. Iplied Caroline withprogress reports: strokerate, heart rate, technical

or psychic breakthroughs.She endured my single-mindedness and placatedme when she could. “I’mafraid I’ll fail you,” I saidone day, with greatseriousness; my Germanshepherd spirit at theready, I had alreadyturned a lark into achallenge of enormousweight.

“Iwillonly do thiswithyou if it can be fun,” shetoldme,andmyantennaewent up. “Fun” was anebulous concept for bothof us; her therapist wasalways trying to impose iton her. Fun was far moredifficulttogetahandleonthanzeal.ButIlistenedtoher that day and tried tobank my fires, andeventually my training

ritualsbecameanenduntothemselves.Wemissed the entrancefor our division that year,which for first-timers isdecidedby lottery. I thinkwewerebothrelieved,fortworeasons.Onewasthatwe had started traininglate in the season andweren’t ready torace.Theother, more revealing

reason was that Carolineand I were each so goal-oriented—she once toldmethat“mastery”washerfavorite feeling—that wewanted the next season,and the next, to have anoccasion to set our hopesand focus toward. Likemostodysseys,oursontheCharles was more aboutthejourneythanthefinishline. The metaphor of

rowing may have beenwhat we loved the most:the anticipation, themuscles spent and mileslogged, the Septemberharvestmoon.Becauseweboth possessed that singletrait thatmakes a lifelongrower—endurance—wedeclared that we wouldrow the Head together inour seventies, when thefield had thinned

sufficiently to give us afighting chance. Thefantasy would fuel us fortwomorewinters.After the 2000 regattahadcomeandgone,inlateOctober, we took out thedouble to see how wemight have measured up.It was a fiasco from thestart: The boat had beenrigged for giants, which

meant that we were halfprostrate during a fullstroke; we didn’t realizethis mechanical mishapuntil we were too far outon the water to makeadjustments. The windpicked up, accompaniedby haphazard gusts thatmade the river a sea ofchop.Thentherainstarted—a cold autumn rain thatpeltedusfrombehindand

threatened our nerves aswell as our grip on theoars. Caroline respondedto these horrid conditionsby rowing harder. Mystroke grew ragged andthen uneven, until shefinally told me to stoprowing altogether; if myrhythmwastoofaroff,shewould be battling againstme.Frustratedbymyownperformance,Iwasinawe

ofhers:Theworsetherainand the stronger thecurrent, the steadier shebecame. We rowed theentire course, cheering aswe crossed a desertedfinish line. We weresoaked from rain andwaves, elated fromlaughterandexertion.Ilayback in the boat and letBrutitarowushome.

8.

THAT DECEMBER, A BLIZZARD

STRANDED ME FOR days inTexas,whereIhadgonetosee my family for theholidays.Ifinallymanagedtogetona flight thatwasrerouted through ChicagotoMassachusetts.Caroline,in touch by phone during

the ordeal, had takenClementine to myapartment an hour beforemyflightwasscheduledtoarrive in Boston. At theend of a marathon travelday,Isankintothebackofa cab at Logan Airport,wanting nothing morethan to be in my ownhome, wanting my couchand the feel ofClementine’s ruff and the

sound of Caroline’s voiceon thephone. “Hostage toattachment,” I rememberthinking, the wordscoming out of nowhere.Leaving town was whattold me, reminded me,howmuchIreliedonthesetwo creatures to givepurchase to the emotionalground of my life. If bynow this realization wasmore consoling than

unnerving, it was still aradicaldeparture frommynorm. However skittishCaroline could be, I mayhave been worse—morestubborn,more reflexivelyprideful—when the realbruisersoflifeshowedup.In crisis, I circled mywagons, more afraid ofbeing disappointed bysomeone than of going italone.

For reasons thatprobably have to do withtemperament and heritageboth,Ihadspentalifetimecultivating a little toomuch independence.Absurdorcommendable,alot of this behavior wasunnecessarily severe. I’dhitchhiked long distancesalone in my twenties; foryears I’d swum theWellfleetpondsafterLabor

Day, when they weredeserted, until an earlyautumn thunderstormconvinced me this was abad idea. Such feats, Iprivatelyheld,wereheroicin correlation to theamount of sufferinginvoked. Even after Istopped drinking, I neverwanted my solitude tolimitmyrange,soIsignedup for work assignments

that tookme toWyomingor London or anywhere Ihadn’t been—gritting myteeth at the difficulty ofsuch pursuits, plowingahead because I thought Ishould be willing to bearthe pain and isolation inorder to glean theadventure.But as much as Icomplained about my

solitude,Ialsorequiredit.I put a high price on myfreedom from obligation,of having to report to noone.Mysister,contentedlymarried a thousand milesaway, laughedwhenever Iexpressed the fantasy ofholding out to find theright man to marry. “Idon’tknow,Caldwell,”shewouldsay,resortingtoourold adolescent habit of

using surnames for eachother. “I don’t think youcould do it. You’d need aprettylongleash.”ThetruthwasthatIhad

always fled. The men Ididn’t marry; therelationships Ihadwalkedaway from or onlyhalfheartedlyengagedin—there were always well-litexits,accordingtobuilding

code, in every edifice Ihelped create. “Let’s faceit,” a male friend, singleand in his forties, said tome one day about ourunpartnered status.“Neitheroneofusgotherewithout a lot of fancyfootwork.”Ilaughedatthetime, but I was unsettledby how astute thecomment was, and moreobvioustohimthantome.

AFTERTHECABHADdroppedmeat my apartment thatwinternight, Ihuggedthedog and called Caroline’sanswering machine, to letherknowIhadmadeit.Itwas after eight p.m. and Ididn’treallyexpecttotalkwith her. “I’m home, I’mall right,” I said. “Don’tbother picking up. I’mheading to the store—I’lltalktoyoutomorrow.”

Twenty minutes later, Iwas loading groceries intomyoldVolvowhenanout-of-control driver cameveering through theparking lot at high speedand plowed into the backofmy car. It happened sofast that I laterrememberedonlyablurofwhite movement, thenflyingthroughtheair.TheVolvo had taken a bullet

forme:The impactofonecar into another had sentme flying like a billiardball.WhenIcameto,Iwasonmyhandsandkneesonthe pavement, yards awayfrompointofimpact;Ihadblood spewing from mychin and I was cursing. Agroup of people werestanding around me.Somebody called 911;anotherdisembodiedvoice

claimed to recognize me,andgatheredwhatwasleftof the spilled groceries totake to my house. Whenthe EMTs arrived andstrapped me to abackboard, I startedarguing with them aboutcutting off my jeans andLucchese boots. By thetimeIgottothehospital,Iwasgiddywithadrenalineandtellingjokes:thatfalse

prideofthetrenches.I was on the backboard

foranhourwaiting foranX-ray; by the time theyreleasedme, itwaselevenp.m.My injurieswere notserious—stitches in mychin, sprains andcontusions but no brokenbones—but I hollered inpain when I tried to putweight on my leg.

Overwhelmed by moredire emergencies, thehospital staff gave me acaneandcalledmea cab.In the three hours I hadbeenthere,neveroncedidit occur to me, with aphonefourfeetawayfromwhere I lay, to callCarolineoranyoneelseforhelp.Or I should say that

whenitdidoccurtome,Idismissed it with thedefensive sangfroid ofcrisis.ItwasSundaynight;IknewMorelliwouldbeatCaroline’s, spending thenight. I didn’t want towakethem,andIknewifIcalled they would feelduty-boundtocometothehospital. Pleased by myself-reliance, I halfstumbled, half crawled up

thestairstomyapartment.But when I got inside,

when I was in my livingroom at midnight, withClementine nosing mybloodstainedjeans,Ibrokedown. I had phoned myparentsbackinTexas,whowere expecting word thatmy plane had arrivedsafely, and lied throughmy teeth. They were in

theireighties,mydadwasin the first stage ofAlzheimer’s, and I saw noneed to alarm them. Thenall my derring-docollapsed and I dialedCaroline’s number. Myvoice broke when sheanswered. “I’m all right,I’m all right,” I keptsaying,aninsistentprefaceto the story so I wouldn’tscare her. We stayed on

the phone until she hadconvinced me to findsomething to eat and getintobed.My car, a ten-year-oldVolvo, had been totaled.The next day, Carolinecame to get me and wedrove back to the storeparking lot; she wentinside the market to grabsome essentials for me

while I tried to start thecar and get theregistration. Ten minuteslater,shecameouttofindme standing, glazed-eyed,near the place where I’dlanded;therewasapoolofdriedbloodontheasphalt.Onthedrivehomeshewasunnervingly quiet, andfinally sheblurtedout thereason. “I keep thinkingthatifIhadjustpickedup

the phone when you firstcalled,” she said, “thisnever would havehappened. Three minuteslater,andyou’dhavebeenout of the path of thatcar.”I knew this inner

dialogue of self-blame; itwas treacherous andunwinnable. Caroline wasworriednotjustthatshe’d

failed to intervene withthe stupid calamities offate, but that she wassomehow responsible—that her isolationisttendencies had put me inharm’s way. This was thesort of mind-set we couldboth engage in, and so Ipostulated the opposite: Ifshe had picked up, Iinsisted,Imightwellhavebeen just walking out of

the store, and in the car’sdirectlineoffire.For all the grittyeducation this incidentprovided, its one indeliblemoment, there long afterthe bruises were healedand the car replaced, wastheoneIhadtoldCarolineabout that afternoon: thethoughtthatwentthroughmy mind when I was

midair.Theworldappearswith ferocious technicolorduringcrisis,andadecadelater, I remember thevisual arc of my bodybeing airborne, my sightline about two feethigherthan normal. But what Iremember most was theterritorialassaultIfelt,theindignation, while I wassailingthroughspace.Howdare you, the body and

mindfeltinfuriousaccord.I’m in the middle of a lifehere. I was outragedbecause I had beenworking on this story linefor years, and I knew itwasnotyetfinished.

AFTERIHADLIVEDINTHEEASTFORA

DECADE, long enough towinnow the realities from

the dreams, I was drivingdown Brattle Street onewinternightatthestartofa storm, when the snowwassurfingthecurrentsofa softwind,and Ihad thedissonant thought that Icould grow old here—something I had neverthought about anywherebefore, and certainly notduring a New Englandwinter.ButCambridgehad

reached out to me fromthe beginning. I loved theornery brick-linedsidewalks and self-containedserenitythatthetown projected: all thatformidable historybumping into pearblossoms and streetmusicians.Ihaddancedaroundtheidea of owning property

for years, usually as analternate reality towherever I was. Ifantasized about a littlepiece of land in Truro, onthe then desolate end ofCapeCod.I thoughtabouta small house in Austinwhere I could spendwinters, or a farmhouseoutsidethecitywithroomfor a couple of dogs. Asthe search had grown

more realistic, I beganlooking at houses all overGreaterBoston,exhaustingmyselfwithpossibilitiesormooning over properties Icouldn’t afford. I was likea wolf circling itsparameters, lookingeverywhere but theepicenterofmylife.Thefalsestartsprobably

mirrored my tendency

toward flight and longing.Leave Texas, then miss itforever. Love your familyfrom two thousand milesaway. Refuse to marry,then spend your lifecomplaining that youshouldhave.Theingrainedtrait that my mother hadcalledbroodinghada freerunwhenitcametowhereI imagined I belonged. Icould explore alternate

universes to my heart’scontent within the worldof geographical could-have-beens, where theendings were alwayskinder and the real estatecheaper. “I should havestayed in the Panhandle,andI’dbehappilymarriedto some rancher and havefive or six kids,” I onceannounced to mytherapist, who typically

did not laugh out loud atsuch pronouncements. “Ithink the operative wordhere is ‘happily,’” he said,always ready to scorch anillusionwhenhecould.Asa follow-up joke he sentme a map of the actualtown of Happy, Texas, alittle place of about sevenhundred people south ofAmarillo.IkeptthemapofHappy on my study wall

foryears, toremindmeofthe Elysian Fields we allenvision.

“SCRATCH A FANTASY and you’llfind a nightmare.” Thiswas one of Caroline’sfavorite sayings, spokenoriginally in regard to amutual friend, a womanwho had chased a dreamlife abroad andwound up

trapped and unhappy.Then the saying becamecode for all thoseseemingly perfect livesbeinglivedsomeplaceelse,with better jobs orpartners or inner states.Whenever I would say (inwinter or traffic, or on abadday),“Whydowelivehere?” Caroline wouldrespond, instantly, “FreshPond and Starbucks.”

Starbucks wasn’t yet onevery corner in America,but Caroline wasshorthanding for theineffable whole: the surlypoet on the corner, or theriver at dusk, or the storewith the butcher whoknew us by name. Welived here for each other,and for everyone else welovedwithintwentymiles,and for all the good

reasons people live wherethey live. They need theviewofawheatfieldoranocean;theyneedthesmellof a thunderstorm or thesound of a city. Or theyneedtoleave,sothattheycaninventwhattheyneedsomeplaceelse.According to ourmutually mythic pasts, IwastheexileandCaroline

the childwho had stayed.I’dfledthebleakfarmandranchlands of thePanhandle, made it toAustin five hundred milessouth, and lived in SanFrancisco for a couple ofyears before finallyheading for the East.Caroline had grown up inCambridge, a few blocksfrom the Radcliffe quad;when she left for college,

she went to BrownUniversity in Providence,an hour away. She cameback to Cambridge fouryearslaterandhadstrayedonly so far as a couple ofneighborhoods from herchildhood home. Herfamiliar was my exotic—her Cambridge was myAmarillo—and it seemedpart of the price ofurbanity, like growing up

inGreenwichVillage, thatit was too cool ahometown to flee. Theyear after her parents’deaths, Caroline hadbought an attachedVictorian house in themiddleofCambridge,withwide pine floors and anexposedbrickchimneyandten-foot ceilings. Morethan a century old, theplace was all angles and

elegance,withcomfortablemission furniture andLucille’s toys withincarefully organized reach.I lived a few miles away,in a light-filled second-floor apartment I hadrented foradecade.Muchof the ambivalence I feltabout setting down rootswas softened by the senseofshelterIknewCaroline’shouseprovidedher.When

pragmatism finally wonout over inertia, I beganthe Sunday open houseslog through scores ofproperty listings—thestandard heart-of-darknessjourney that accompanieshouse hunting. AndCaroline, intrepid soldier,went along for the entiremarch.Financial limitations

aside, a property searchforasinglewomancanbea nerve-rackingexpedition, complete withblueprints of the statusquo. I found thatresidential real estate,particularly in NewEngland, was anillustration ofdemographics: Single-family houses were justthat, colonials and

Victorians built withnuclear families in mind.Every time I visited one,mystomachsankandIfeltan overwhelming fatigue.Formal dining rooms,upstairs bedrooms? Iwanted to weep fromestrangement. Thearchitecture-for-singleshad its own problems,diminutive spaces andfeatures that seemed a

subtle punishment forgoingitalone.Therewereoppressively small houseswith low ceilings andcramped rooms. Orapartments in old three-deckersorlargeapartmentbuildings, which meantyou gave up a yard andprivacyandparkingforanaffordablemortgage.Caroline and I dissected

everyangleofthismorass.I would drive home fromSundayopenhouses,spentand empty-headed, andcallherforarealitycheck,or she would meet me atthe appointed place andmarch through the rooms,cheerful and skeptical atonce. Did I reallywant toliveinthisgorgeousthird-floor aviary, she wouldask,withmybum legand

a sixty-pound dog? It wastheseasonofbiddingwarsand land rushes, andplaces were selling in aday or an hour—onemanicagenthadcalledmeat nine-thirty at night,wanting me to bid on aplace I hadn’t even seen.I’d been in this queue ofdesperation (and lost) acoupleoftimes,onlytobeoutbidbythosewithmore

money or less sangfroidthan I. The high stakes ofrealestatehunting fedmyanxiety; the market inthosedayswaslikeagameof musical chairs, witheveryone frantically tryingto get situated before themusicdied.Inearlyspringof2001,Imade an offer on a littlehouse in the suburbswith

a large, overgrown yard;Caroline had climbed upthe back fence the daybefore the open house toget a look at it. Then Ipanicked at the lastminute. I saw my futureunfolding before me withyears ofmanicured streetsand quiet New Englandreserve, and the picturehorrified me. As nebulousas they may have seemed

from the outside, mycriteriahadbeenhonedbyyearsofconsideringwhatIdidn’t want—and by theoutlines ofwhatmy spiritcraved.WhatIwantedwasa dorm for grown-ups,someplace with flowersand dogs and people wholooked like I felt. Acolleague had articulatedthisnetherlandofintuitionfor me. She was a young,

hip African Americanlesbian with a couple ofbody piercings, and wehadtalkedendlesslyabouttheperilsofrealestateforsingle women and aboutwhere we each belonged.“Let me put it this way,”she said. “On the day Imovein,Idon’twanttobethe most interesting thinghappening in theneighborhood.” Her wry

acumen came back to methe day I signed an offeron the house in thesuburbs. The well-appointedagent shookmyhand and said, “You seemso interesting!” Two dayslater,Itookmyinterestingselfoutofthedeal.Andthen,onablossom-drencheddayinMaywhenI had nearly given up, I

saw a listing for half of arambling 1920s clapboardhouseonamagnolia-linedstreet in Cambridge. Theapartment was smallerthan what I wanted; theowner had painted thewalls mustard yellow andhung red velvet drapes inthe dining room. I caredabout none of this. WhathadseizedmyheartbeforeIeverwentinsidewerethe

towering maplesoverlooking the longdriveway, leading to anenclosed garden ofdogwood and lilacs and asixty-foot sycamore mapleinthemiddleofthecity.Ihad lived inNewEnglandfortwodecades,butIwasstill a Texan, and I knewthe land mattered morethan what was on it. Iwentafterthetrees.

Caroline loved thishouse. She saw past itsimperfections—the lack ofa guest room, the upstairsneighbor—tohercertaintythat itwasmyhome. Theplace was halfwaybetween the riverwhere Irowed and the woodswhere we walked; theneighborhood had a parkand an Italian take-outjointandadozenpeople I

knew. The open houselastedonehour,andattheend of the evening therewere four offers on theplace.Acoupleoutbidme,outlandishly, by tens ofthousands of dollars overthe asking price;presumably, they hadloved the trees as well.Within forty-eight hours,they withdrew their offer,andtheagentcalledtosay

the place was mine if Iwanted it. I told him Ineeded an hour to think,hung up, and calledCaroline. “Yes,” she said,unequivocally.“Yes.”Several weeks later,

after the usual steepeducation in propertybuying, I was standing onthe front porch of whatwas now my house,

fiddling with the keys,dumb with fatigue andvagueapprehension.Insidelay a near gut job ofmonths of renovation. Iheard someone drive upbehind me and turned toseeCarolineandMorelliatthe curb in Caroline’sToyotaRAV,bothof themgrinningandwavingatmetowait up. I got the doorunlocked just as Caroline

vaultedup the frontsteps.AndwhileMorelliheldonto the dogs and laughed,she picked me up—Ioutweighed her by tenpounds—and hoisted me,like a sack of grain, overthethreshold.

BY THE END of that summer,CarolineandIhadbecomeaccustomed to the new

routes of our conjoinedpaths. The apartment wasa couple of blocks fromFreshPond,andcarpentersandpainterswereworkingthroughout the summer.Each day I would say toClementine, “Would youlike to go to Cambridge?”and she would bark inhappy reply, more at myinflection than anythingelse.Thenwewoulddrive

to the job site, talk to theguys working inside, andhead over to the reservoirto meet Caroline andLucille at the bottom ofthe hill. I usually had acollection of paint chipsstuffedinmybackpocket.Because Samoyeds are amix of cream and off-white, we would line upthe paint chips acrossClementine’s back for our

consideration.Ihadtaughther the command to bestill, and so she wouldallow this folly, standingpatiently while weenvisioned her coat coloras, say, a trim for thedining room. One eveningawomanwalkedpastusatthe duck pond, whereCaroline and I stoodpeering at eight shades ofpeach, and the woman

raised an eyebrow andcalled out, “What are youdoing to that dog?” Itwasan easy summer, full ofaimlesswalksandeveningrows, and the unfoldingclarity that I had taken ahugeleapforwardandwasmoving, heart and souland cartons of books, towhereIbelonged.

THE MORNING OF September11, I awoke to two voicessimultaneously: the BBCannouncer on the radio,reporting that the firstplane had hit the WorldTrade Center, and myfriend Pete on myanswering machine,saying, “By now youprobably know what’shappened.” The next tenminuteswere thechaosof

comprehension. With theTV and NPR in thebackground, IwentonlineandsawthatIhadathree-word e-mail, stillunknowing,fromCaroline,sentafewminutesearlier:“didyou row?” I shotoneback: “New York towershit by terrorists godownstairs and turn onTV.” Caroline’s office wasthe third-floor attic of her

house,andshewasusuallyatherdeskbyeight-thirtyor so, cloistered from theradioandphone.Withinafew minutes we were onthe phone together,watching the recurringhorrorontheTVscreen,inthe same limbo aseveryoneelse.Becausetheplanes had originated outof Logan Airport, inBoston, there was another

layer of trepidation aboutthecityitself;mostofthe-land-phone and cell lineswere jammed for part ofthemorning.CarolineandI kept gettingdisconnected, and finallywemadeabackupplanincase the infrastructurefailed. If things got worse—if something happenedinBoston—wewouldbothfindaway toget toFresh

Pond, which wasequidistant from each ofour houses; we knew wecould find each otherthere.It was a nonsensical

plan, like millions ofothersmade that day.Welaughedaboutitlater—thecold,anguishedlaugh,likecombat humor, thataccompanied the next few

days—and considered ourown bad planning: FreshPondwasn’texactlyaRedCross evacuation center.But now the plan’sabsurdity is what touchesme.Wewereactingoutofinstinct,likehorsesheadedto thebarnor birds beingflushed out of a tree. Wewere simply aiming forshelter, for our own highground.

I wound up going for arow late that day. I didn’tknowwhatelsetodo.Thecity by midafternoon wasquieterthanIhopeiteveris again: no planesoverhead, most foot andautomobile trafficsuspended. Already therewas the dissonance thatwouldunfoldoverthenextfewweeks:Isawafoolontheriverwhocalledoutto

me, “Beautiful day, isn’tit?” The whole picture-perfect scenewas like theopeningpastoral shot in ahorror movie, except thatthe horror had alreadyhappened. I kept thinkingabout the last scenes fromOn the Beach, when thepostnuclear blankness ofan Australian beach isattended by the strains of“Waltzing Matilda.” I was

rowing under that nowinfamously blue sky, itsemptiness chilling andinert,andIheardtheeeriemelancholy of “WaltzingMatilda”theentireway.

I MOVED INTO my house inearly November, onCaroline’s birthday. I senther flowers that morning;she was taking care of

Clementine while Iwatched movers run upand down the stairs. TheNew England fall,breathtaking and ruefulunder normalcircumstances, had beeneclipsed and upended byhistory’sfallout.Therewasthe suicide down thestreet, a woman whosefiancé had been killed inthetowers.Thefriendofa

friend whose whereaboutshad never beendetermined. Everyone hada dozen stories like these,alltheconcentriccirclesofcalamity, sad detailspacked inbetween traumaand loss. In the first fewdays after the attack,responding to a city-wideplan, Caroline and I hadstood on our porches oneeveningwith candles held

high, on the phonetogether; neither of uscould see anyone else’sglow, and this made usfeel alternatelyweary andaghast at our futility. Inthenext severalweeksweeach stumbled into aversion of survivor guilt,the flinch of awarenessthat could hit you in themidst of some mindlessform of denial. Caroline

would be playingcomputer solitaire and beovercome with sorrow oranxiety; I would beworrying over arenovationoneminuteandready to fire all thepainters thenext, thinkingI would send my leftoverhouse budget to the NewYork firefighters fund.Everyone was getting acrash course in irony, the

lesson that the grievousand the mundane exist inparallelspheres.OnedayItoldherI feltashamedforthinking about my housewith the world in tatters,and she put her hand onmy shoulder and gave asmall shrug. “Paint chips…Osama bin Laden,” shesaid, using her hands toplot the entire range ofhumanexperience.“Thisis

what life turnsout tobe.”We were all living thosedays insideAuden’s visionofIcarus.Evenwithaboyfalling from the sky, theshipssailedcalmlyon.

IT’S TAKEN YEARS FOR ME TO

UNDERSTAND THAT dyingdoesn’t end the story; ittransforms it. Edits,rewrites, the blur andepiphany of one-waydialogue. Most of uswander in and out ofone another’s lives untilnot death, but distance,does us part—time andspace and the heart’s

weariness are theblander executioners ofhumanconnection.I have severalrecurring dreams aboutCaroline. In one she isliving calmly in thewoods in a little houseof blues and greens; inanother, I am typing alettertoher,andtheinkkeeps disappearing on

thepage as Iwrite. Sheis always dead or dyingin these dreams, butthey are not awful, oranguished—the reachbetween us alwaystrumpstheloss.Andyetmy one unbearabledream is the one inwhichshe is sickand intreatment and I cannotfind her. We have losttouch, or a phone has

been disconnected, ormy key breaks off in alockeddoorwithherontheotherside.Therearemany variations on thisdream, the one fromwhichIwakeupclawingat space, but themessage is unchanged:Life, not death, hasintervened.“The holiness of the

Heart’saffections,”Keatswrote, trusting innothingbutthatandtheimagination,andIthinknow thatCaroline and Istilledsomethingineachother, letting us go outandengageinthelargerworld.AndascertainasI am about fact andmemory and theinfluence of each uponthe other, finding the

threads of all thesestories has sentme intoan eerie, detachedinsistence that she notyet be gone. I have allthe detritus of life anddeath that argues thecontrary: the potato augratin recipe in hersmall, carefulhandwriting that fallsout of a cookbook; afirst edition of J. R.

Ackerley’sMy Dog Tulipthat she tracked downfor me one Christmas.And a mysterious CD Ifoundinherhouseaftershe was dead, entitled“Music forCaroline,” itsevery song, from NorahJones and Fiona Appleto Edith Piaf, atestament to theunknowablepassionsweallcarrywithin.

Once she referred tothe core ambiguities oflife as “the dark side ofjoy,” and here, thesedays, has been thereverse: a happy limboinwhichIhavebroughther along on thejourney. The writer’sself-imposedfuguestate.Shehasbeenthoroughlyalive in the meadowsand woods with the

dogs, through eachrowing lesson andargument and carefreephone call. Her deaththesedaysissomewheredown thehall, behindaclosed but unlockeddoor.Butfornowsheisriver-tan and laughing,and pretty soon thephonewill ringandoneof us will sayWhat areyoudoing?anditwillall

beginagain.

9.

CAROLINESTARTEDCOUGHINGINTHE

WINTER.Adrycough,notyetworrisome, what seemedlike a gravelly smoker’saccompaniment to hersingular voice. She wasrundownfromfinishingabook;shecouldhavestoodto gain ten pounds. For

Christmas she gave me amezuzah to hang nearmyentrydoorforblessingsonthe new house. We wentout to dinner to celebratemy birthday on a frigidnight in January, and sheseemed subdued, but weboth attributed this towork and emotionalfatigue.Ifshewasworriedaboutherhealth—andshewas, as it turnedout—she

toldnoonebuther sister,Becca.Twoseeminglydisparate

incidents would laterreassert themselves.Carolinetriedtoswimherusual fortyor fifty lengthsin the pool and finishedonly seven before shecould go no farther. Andthen one cold, sunnyafternoon in early March,

her legs went out fromunder her at Fresh Pondwith no warning. Sherecovered almostimmediately,andsatdownonaparkbenchtocallme,minimizingtheeventevenas she described it. ForreasonsIcanonlyguessat,Iabsorbedthisinformationwithanurgencyanddreadthatweredisproportionateto the thing itself. I

grabbed my car keys andflew out of the house,driving the few blocks tothe pond to save time.WhenIsawherontheriseabove the parking lot, Iwent running;by the timeI reached her, she wasshaking her head that ithad been nothing—amomentary collapse, lowblood sugar, somethingtransientandbenign.

Much of my alarm thatday came from the factthat Caroline was one ofthemoststoicpeopleIhadeverknown.Sherarelygotsick; when she did, shebarelycomplained.Butthecoughing, hollow andpersistent, didn’t getbetter. She cut hersmokingbyhalf, thenhalfagain. Oddly, I wasworried about my own

health at the time. Felledby a couple of commonwinter bugs, I hadresponded,uncharacteristically,withadark unease I couldn’tshake.Caroline had a chest X-ray and was treated forpneumonia, and theantibiotics bought her afewweeks of ease. At the

end of March, on anunseasonably warm daywhen the river was still,webothtooktheboatsoutfor the first timesince thefall. She rowed herstandard five miles. Shewould be in the hospitalnot long thereafter, butthen, on that day, therewasnowindandthewaterwas glass. When wewalkedtogetherattheend

of the afternoon, she saidit was the only time infifteen years that the firstrowof the seasonhad felteffortless.That word kept coming

back to me in the brutalrevisionism of the daysthat followed. Two weeksafter that perfect row,Morelli took Caroline tothe emergency room late

oneSundaynight;shewasburningupwith feverandhad pneumonia again. Fora couple of days thedoctors thought shemighthave tuberculosis, and weall had to wear masks inthe hospital room. Thosemasks: She told me thatshe knew the news wasbad when the nursesstoppedwearingthem,andbegan treating her with

excruciatingkindness.I was there by chance

when the doctor finishedthe bronchoscopy, aprocedurethatrevealedaninoperable tumor on thelung, classified as stage-four non-small-celladenocarcinoma. I hadbeen absurdly positive inthe two days before theprocedure, consoling

Caroline that she was tooyoungtohavecancer,thatthe mysterious spots onherlivertheyhaddetectedwould turn out to benothing. Becca, whoshared Caroline’s poiseand stillness underpressure, told me as wewaited in the surgicalrecovery room that weshould prepare for theworst, and I was stunned:

Shewasaphysician,andItrustedherfarmorethanIdid my own desperateoptimism. Then thepulmonary specialistwalked through thedoors,threwhis lanky body in anearby chair, shruggedwith a shred of kindness,and said those words thatmade the surroundingcomments disappear:“inoperable,” “necrotic,”

“palliative.” And theobscene euphemism thattelegraphs the end: “Wecan make her morecomfortable.”I remember two things

from the rest of that daywith glaring clarity. Onewas Caroline crying as Iwrapped my arms aroundher,aftertheyhadbroughther back up to her room,

when the first thing shesaid to me was “Are youmad at me?” It was thevoice of early terror, aprimal response to badnews, and to this day Idon’t know whether shemeant because we hadfought about the smokingor because she knew shewasgoingtoleave.Theotherpictureisfrom

late that afternoon, after Ihad left the hospital longenough to walkClementine and get somethings Caroline needed. Iwas walking down mystreet toward theneighborhood park, and Isaw a friend and herseven-year-old daughterupaheadonthebasketballcourt. I looked their wayjust as Sophie aimed the

ball and made the shot.“Mom!” she cried out.“Did you see?” It was herfirst triumphonthecourt,and I had been herserendipitous witness, andthe force of that simplereach toward joy tookmybreath away. Theafternoon was flush withlight, and Caroline wasdying, and Sophie hadscored. Mom! There she

was, the life everlasting,shootinghoops.

THENEXTFEWDAYSwereablurof bad dispatches. Moretests revealed that thecancerhadmetastasizedtoCaroline’s liver and brain;by the weekend, anoncologist had joined theteam,andtheyhadstartedemergencyradiationtothe

brain and a five-hourinitial (and desperate)round of chemotherapy.Theantibioticshadclearedup the secondarypneumonia,and therewasa small window betweenthe diagnosis and thedebilitating effects of thetreatment when Carolinedidn’t feel sick. We wereall in shock, consumedwith the errands of crisis,

making lists of people tocallandobjectstoprocurethat seemed essential: afavorite T-shirt, atortoiseshellcomb.Morellihad figured out a way tosmuggle Lucille into thehospital after the eveningshift had begun, and wewould climb on the bedwith the dog and passaround Italian takeout.Caroline started telling

dumb jokes one night,with me and Morellilaughing, and then shestopped midsentence andwe all stared at oneanother, the scene out ofsome weeper made-for-TVmovie.Everythingaboutitfelt absurd and precious,filtered through that briefbrightness that appearswhendeathisintheroom.The first night of the

diagnosis, Caroline hadtoldmethatshehadaskedMorelli to marry her, andthatwe had awedding toplan, and there was apiercing tenderness tothose initial days thathelped tocontain thenextseveralweeks.She calledme early one

morningandIgrabbedthephone and said, “Are you

all right?” and she said,“Yes, I’ve run away—I’mthinking of going for arow.”Thehospitalwasbythe river, andherupstairsroomoverlooked thebendof the Charles whererowers passed eachmorning, and she couldseethematfirstlightfromherbed.Withinafewdaysshe had asked the nursesto keep the curtains

closed. But on thatmorning she was stillkidding around, still ableto pretend that shewouldbe back out there soonenough. “I miss us,” shetoldmeonthephonethatmorning. “Imiss our livestogether.”Because we kneweverything had changed,the ways in which we

communicatedthistoeachother were as careful asthey were certain. Wetalked about the will shewashavingdrawnup; shetold Morelli and me onenight that we had topromise to walk the dogstogether once a weekforever. “My boat andmylinen,”shesaid,aboutherbequesttome;earlierthatmonth, I had borrowed

half the jackets in hercloset for a trip I had totake to Austin in a fewweeks. Her wrynessprevailed above all else.“Oh God,” she said tomethe second night after thediagnosis, when we weremaking lists of people tocall. “Now I’m going tohave to listen to people’sremissionstories.”

Butatnight,whenIhadleft the hospital, I wouldcome home and stand inthe dark in the backyard,where the viburnum wasin bloom, and bury myface in its fragrance andweep. After I had walkedClementine, I would goonlineandreadaboutnon-small-cell adenocarcinomain the medical journals.Theword “prognosis” had

not yet entered ourconversation,butIknew.Ihadcalledtwofriendswhowere physicians, and bothhad been kind enough togive me their unadornedopinion. Neither believedshe had more than a fewmonths.I took lots of notesduring these phoneconversations—scrawled,

elaborate notes, quotesfrom the doctor friends,my way of organizing theunfathomable. “Worst,most advanced,” I wrote,underneath “stage four—non-small-celladenocarcinoma.”“Tumors in liver …Radiation will help withpain and with swelling ofbrain.” And then, insmallerscriptattheendof

thepage:“Nohelpatallinprolonginglife.”Caroline’s doctors

disagreed as to the causeandoriginofthetumoronthe lung: A pulmonaryspecialist was certain itwas smoking-related; anoncologist was equallysure it was not. Thismattered greatly toCaroline and not at all to

me, though I tried toshieldherfromtheverdictof the lung specialist,whose work in thetrenchesmay have steeledhimfromthewreckagehehad to see each day.Caroline had stoppedsmoking in the weekbefore the diagnosis, andshe clung to this: Herrecoveries from anorexiaand alcoholism had been

long battles against self-destruction, and sheneeded to know she hadmade one huge effort tosave herself here. Thereason I cared less aboutthe tumor’s origin waspragmatic: As much as Ihad worried aboutCaroline’s smoking, itscausativeagencyhadnotashred of effect on thediagnosis, any more than

being pushed off abuildingprotectsyoufromfallingoffit.On Friday, the night

they started the chemo,Caroline was in bedwearing the T-shirt I hadbrought her, an IV in herarm,when I came in. Sheaskedifshecouldkeeptheshirt;ofcourse,Isaid.Sheasked me to set and

program her newunderwater sports watch,soshecould timeher lapsin the pool when she gotout of the hospital. Shehadalwayspacedherstepsto mine and now I wasdoing the same, dippingwhen she led. “If youhadtold me before all this,”shesaidthatnight,“aboutsomebody with lungcancer and metastases in

four places, I’d have said,‘Oh my God, he only hassix months.’” Then sheheld out the slender,muscled arm with the IVand shook her head andsmiled. “But these doctorsdon’t know how strong Iam.”All of this seems as

though it were yesterday,or forever ago, in that

crevasse between spaceandtimethatstaysfixedinthe imagination. Iremember it all because Iremember it all. In crisiswith someone you love,the dialogue is asburnished as a scar on atree. It shocks me nowwhatIremember,thoughIsuppose it shouldn’t,because I have Caroline’svoice fixed in my heart.

That voice: the inflection,the range, the perfectlytimedhumor.ThisIwouldnotlose.By Monday, the effectsof the chemotherapy hadtaken hold. Caroline hadcalled her therapist—aman she had known andloved for two decades—inthe first days of thediagnosis, but he had not

yet been to the hospital;each of them may havebeen trying to postponethe grimness of thesituation.Thatdayshehadlostwhateverphysicalandpsychological composureshe possessed. She wasviolently ill, and weak,and I spent most of theafternoon sitting next toher while she slept. Fouror five hours passed,

during which Carolinewouldwake and start andthen drift off again. Iwould exchange one coldrag for another andreassume my post. It wasan odd and effortlessstationinwhichbothtimeand thought disappeared.Later,Carolinetoldmeshehaddreamedallafternoonof me and her brother,whowasinandoutofthe

roomaswell.When the phone rang Igrabbed it to keep fromwaking her. “Caroline?”saidaman’svoice.“No,”Isaid, “this is Gail.” “Oh,Gail,” her therapist said,recognizing my name andknowing his would befamiliar to me. “This isDavid Herzog.” I cuppedmy hand around the

mouthpiece. “I was goingto call you,” I said. “Youneedtogetuphere.Now.”He was there thatevening, andCaroline andI laughed later at my no-nonsense imperative—atmy ability to dowhat shecould not, which was toreach for him across thedivide of fear. He was abear of a man, and I

became fiercely fond ofhiminthenextfewweeks,relyingonhisstrengthandstraightforward kindnesswhentherestoftheworldseemed respondent tosome deranged gyroscope.ItwasHerzogIspokewithwhen medical andemotional realitiescollided; he who calledevery day or two to seehow I was holding up. I

couldtalkopenlywithhimabout what Caroline wasenduring and what timeshehadleft.Weassumedaready-made mantle ofintimacy that could notfail us: Ours was a windtunnel attachment. Weknewwewerebothcentralto Caroline’s life, and weknewwhatwe each stoodtolose.

Here was anothermeadowoffamiliaritythatCaroline and I had sharedover the years.Herzog, asshecalledhim,hadbeenapillar in the life she hadrebuiltontheothersideofanorexia. With our strongattachments to powerfulfathers,wehadeachfoundsanctuary with malepsychiatrists.More centralwas a mutual belief in

psychodynamic therapy:the long, mountainous(often monotonous)version, in which youstayed in the room withyour fears and historyalong with a witness whocould bear the depths ofyour story. We lived in acultural milieu—EastCoast, post-1960s—inwhich therapy was takenfor granted, and we each

considered the work we’ddone there crucial towhowewereandtoallgroundgained. Caroline and Ibelieved in thetransformative power oftherapyassurelyaswedidin AA or facing the truthortheloyaltyofdogs.Caroline stayed in the

hospital for therestof theweek,untilshewasstrong

enough to go home;Morelli moved into herhouse to take care of her.Thedoctorswanted together stable with meds andradiationsothatshemightendure the next severalweeks of chemotherapy.Her tribe of friends andextendedfamilyhadtakenon every detail ofincapacitating illness;there were dog walkers

and cooks and drivers atevery changing of theguard. She had enteredthat zone of infirmitydifficult for the worriedwell to appreciate: Wewere all circling her likeheartbroken hens, whileCarolinewassimplytryingto swallow a bagel or getthrough a phone call. Ather insistence, she and Itriedtakingashortwalkat

FreshPondwith the dogs,maybeahundredyardsorsoaroundtheupperlegofthe peninsula—a five-minute loopundernormalcircumstances that nowtook three times as long.Westoppedonabench torest, gave the dogs abiscuit, started again.When she faltered, I putmyarmout to steadyher,a reversal of roles as

wrenching as it wasautomatic.She had started toexhibit small neurologicalsymptoms,whichIbelieveaboveallenragedher—shedropped a towel twice infrontofmeandrefusedtolet me pick it up. Wemaintained a dialogueduringthesedaysthatwaspartly code, but still as

surefooted as Carolineusedtobewhencrossingastream.“You’re just tryingto get out of making mesoup,” I would say,referring to the oldpromise she’d made tocook for me when I gotold. She called one nightafter she’d met with heroncologist for the firsttime outside the hospital,and started quoting the

statisticsonprognosisthatwereanoptimisticversionof what I’d read: theclinical trials under way,thenewresearchstudiesatMass General, the outsideoddsoftwotofiveyearstolive. Her voice was softand bright during thisrecitation, and I listenedwithout saying anything,consciousofhowharshthelight was in the living

room.“The point is to buytime,” she said, and wewere both dry-eyed andquiet. I didn’t want hertaking care of me and Iwasn’t sure how to takecareofher,excepttodriveto chemo appointmentsand cookuseless foodandpayattention toher everycue.

But she broke downwhen she started losingher hair. “I know thisseems ridiculous,” shesaid. “But it’s the onlything I can focus on. Therestistoohuge.”Themanwhohadcuther longhairforyearscameovertoherhouse that weekend tochop it all off; he broughta dozen roses and refusedto take anymoney for his

effort. Igotabrochureonside effects and hair lossfrom theAmericanCancerSocietyandorderedahalfdozenhatsandscarvesforher to wear, and one dayin the waiting roomoutside chemotherapy wewere looking through thecatalog together andlaughing,andtearsstartedpouring down my face,even though I hadn’t felt

likecrying.NowIcouldn’tstop.Ishookmyheadandtried to dismiss herreachingforme.“I’mafraidoflettingyouknow how bad it is,” Isaid. “I’m afraid if I tellyou, you’ll think I’m notstrong enough to take itandyou’lltrytohideyourfear.”“Gail,” she said. “I

already know how bad itis. In some ways this isharderonyouandMorellithanitisonme.”Wewere surrounded by

other people waiting forchemo appointments, andno one even glanced ourway during this exchange,exceptforonewomanwhopassed us a box of tissuesand went back to her

magazine. I found this areliefandaneducation:Noone in this place seemeduncomfortable at theemotions of strangers. Wehad entered asubterranean culture ofextremis, where peoplewere dying or trying toliveandtheheartwaslaidbare.That was a bright

afternoonatthebeginningofMay,andwehadgottento the hospital early andthensatoutsideinthesun,cross-leggedonthegroundand facing each other. Bynow Caroline’sprofessional life had beenput on hold, but she hadone outstanding writingassignment she hadforgotten to cancel, anessayaboutherandLucille

foradoglovers’magazine.“WhatamI supposed towrite about?” she askedme. “That the only thingworsethanlosingyourdogisknowing thatyouwon’toutliveher?”Her voice was ragged,and I knew she wassomeplacepast fearwhereI had never been, and Ialso knew that the best

and hardest thing to dowas keep my mouth shutand listen. Every falsepromise of hope orreassurance was a flightawayfromwherewewerenow, whichwas sitting inthe sun on the grass atMount Auburn Hospital,my fingers circled aroundherwrists.

CAROLINE MARRIED MORELLI IN

EARLY MAY, IN OUR friendMarjorie’s backyardgarden.Ifitwasaweddingunder fire, her friendsturned it into somethingpastoral. The indomitableSandy, Caroline’s closefriendandformereditoratthe Phoenix, was a tallredheadwhonow lived inPhiladelphia. She burnedupthehighwayduringthe

weeksofCaroline’sillness,arriving the week beforethe wedding with fivepairs of red shoes forCaroline to choose from,and a vat of homemaderice pudding. Caroline’scousin Monique providedthe knockout burgundyfloor-length dress that shehad been married in. Themorning of the wedding,our friend Terry—who

generally enlivened theneighborhood by keepingchickensinherbackyard—lined the entire blockleadingtoMarjorie’shousewith satin ribbons andlilies. Morelli did doubleduty as a photographer, abrilliant maneuver thatgave him a way to getthrough the day whilecapturing it for the restofus. Lucille was the ring

bearer(Carolinehadfoundherasatinpillowharness),and Iherhumblehandler.Caroline had asked me tofind a poem to read, oneabout love andcommitment thatwas trueto circumstance. I hadsearched for days forsomething appropriate:Most love poems don’tassume storm cloudsgathering overhead. But I

understood what Carolinewanted; as much as sheand I both longed forhappy endings, we didn’tnecessarily believe inthem. Now life wasprovingtoberougherthanthat in every dimension. Ifinally found a sonnet byEdna St. Vincent Millaythatwasbothbearableandtrue, that spoke to Fate’sdestruction of “destiny’s

bright spinning.” Carolinecalledwhile Iwasreadingit.“Ihaveone,”Isaid,“butI’m pretty sure it’s toodark.”ThenIreadherthefirst fewlines.“Iprayyouif you love me, bear myjoy / A littlewhile, or letmeweepyourtears.”“That’s it,” she saidabruptly,halfwaythrough.

“That’s the one. You havetoreadit.”I have a photograph of

the two of us thatMorellitook that day: We areholding on to each otherlikeapairofsaplings.Thenight after the wedding,sheandMorelliandIwereallflungonhersofagoingoverthedetailsoftheday.“Howdoyou feel?” I said

toCaroline,nexttomeonthe couch, and she closedher eyes and smiled.“Consoled.”

THREE DAYS LATER I flew toAustinforafour-daytrip;Ihad been scheduled formonths to appear at auniversitycommencement.I called Caroline frommygate at the airport and

made her laugh with astory about the securityguards of a post-9/11world,whohadabscondedbriefly with my cowboyboots. Thenmy flightwascalled and my voicecaught. “I don’t want toleave you,” I told her.“Go,”shesaid.“Nothingisgoing to happen to mewhileyou’regone.” Itwasthe last spoken

conversation we wouldhave.Shecalledmyhomephone in Cambridge thatnight to leave a message,and said the doctorswantedhertocometothehospital the next day—theywereworriedaboutacoupleofnewneurologicaltics that they assumedwere transient, a result oftheradiation.

Ihadtobeonstageforatwo-hour ceremony ateight o’clock Fridaymorning; when I left thestageandcheckedmycellphone, I had three newmessages. Caroline hadbeen taken by ambulanceto the emergency room inthe middle of the nightwithwhatturnedouttobea series of bleeds in thebrain. She had lost the

ability to speak; it wasn’tyet clear what she couldcomprehend. I wasstandingon theUniversityof Texas campus while Ilearned this, hearing itfirstfromCaroline’scousinSuzanne, a physician, andthen from Marjorie, whoknewenoughtotellmetocome home. I found aflight routed throughChicago that left Austin

that afternoon. I’d beengiven an honorary awardthatmorning and, rushingto the car, I dropped theplaque I’d receivedon thestreet and chipped itsframe.Ialmostleftitlyingthere.Itwasanawfulsplitsecond, as though all thelittle tokens of life werebeing swept away by theundertow of some darkertruth. I got back to

Cambridgeaftermidnight.Partoftheabrupthorrorof the next few days, forthoseofuswholovedher,lay in not knowingprecisely what hadhappened and what herexperience of it was.Caroline’s eyes were wildwith fear when I walkedinto the hospital room.When someone told her I

was there, she gave a cryofdistress thatmeant twothingstome.Onewasthesimple voice ofrecognition.Theotherwasthat she knew what mypresence meant, and howbad it must be if I hadflown back across thecountry.Take away the wordsand you find all the

adornments that surroundthem. Body language,gestures, the story of theeyes. Morelli andCaroline’s brother andsister were supposed tohave full medical proxy,but the papers, drawn upthat week, were not yetsigned.Wewere trying tosee if she could grasp thesituationandholdapen.Itook her hand and said,

“Caroline, it’s me. If youcan understand what I’msaying,squeezemyhand.”She answered with animmediate, strong grip.“Okay,” I said. “We needto get your signature ontheproxy.Ifyouthinkyoucan—” Her responseinterruptedme;shealmostbrokemy hand. Itwas anentire sentence ofmeaning, full of

impatience and efficiency.Iheldon toherwhile shescrawled her name on theforms.Her arms became her

eloquence from that dayon.Onenightwhen Iwassitting next to her bed, Ilaidmyheaddownonthemattress beside her, andMorelli saw my wearinessandgotuptoplaceatowel

underneath my neck. Itwas one of countless actsofgraceheprovidedinthenext few weeks, whennothing much matteredbut the light in the roomandthenumberofbreathstaken.ThenCarolineflungout her arm and ran herhand through my hair,enough to comfortme fordays, and we stayed thatwayuntilwebothdropped

intosleep.We had spent yearstalking—talking whenother people would havegiven up, teasing apartfeelings and conversationsandtheintricaciesofdailylife.Nowshecouldn’t talkanymore and so I didn’teither; our narrativebecameachoreographyofsilence. I would spend

hours at the end of herbed,notknowingmuchofthetimeifsheevenknewIwas there. But Carolineand I had begun ourfriendship with a bonddevoted to the eleganttruths of nonverballanguage: the physicalityand hand signals and eyecontact thatdialoguewithan animal entailed. Whenshe had first fallen ill, I

had brought to thehospital a T-shirt that sheloved, from the BarkingDog Luncheonette in NewYork,withSIT! STAY!writtenon the back. I knew allabout sit-stay, and howstraightforward andessential it was, and sothat was what I did. I satandIstayed.

10.

THAT GREAT HEART—OF COURSE IT

TOOKHERA longtimetodie.They had put in a centralline of morphine withinthefirstfewdaysafterthebleed, and so I want tobelieve that her pain wascontained enough by thedrug to let her float

somewhere insouciant andfree. I cannot know this,anymorethanwecanevercomprehend the next-dooruniverse of the dying. Butthe question was whathaunted me most, thenand for months after shewas gone. I do know thatsuffering witnessed is acloudy and impotentworld: The well, armedwith consciousness, watch

a scene they cannot reallygraspordomuchtoalter.Suffering is what changesthe endgame, changesdeath’s mantle from blackto white. It is a badly litcorridoroutsideof time,aplace of crushingweariness, the only thinglarge enough to bully youinto holding the door fordeath.

Caroline lived foreighteen days from thenight she had the bleed.Morellihadallbutmovedinto her hospital room,bringing Lucillewith him.(One night, to our battle-worn delight, a newattendant walked out intothe hall and said, with agrinonhisface,“There’sagoddamndog in there!”) Ihad an unnerving amount

of energy during thoseweeks; I knew that griefwas somewhere down theline and I staved it off aslong as I could. I wouldtake dinner to Morelli inthe hospital, or talk toHerzogon thephonewithmy forehead in my hand.Oneafternoon I stayedonthephoneforanhourwithLouise inMinnesotawhilewe both read poetry; the

phone call was mostlysilence, punctuated with“Aah!” and “Oh.” Ireached out in ways thatweretransientandintense,wept with no warning ornotatall,wasexceedinglypolitetostrangers.Icalledmy friend Matthew frommy cell phone whilewalkingatFreshPond,andwhenIgothisvoicemailIleft a long, rambling

message with a haltingquestion that seemed tome profound, a child’seffort to understand theuniverse. “What if …?” Icried.“Imean,Iknowthissounds stupid, butwhat ifdeath … weren’t a badthing?”However ingenuous thequestion, IknownowthatI was staggering toward

the terrain of the otherside of loss. Accepting adeath sentence is likefalling down a flight ofstairs in slowmotion.Youtake it in one bruise at atime—a blow, a landing,another short descent. Iwas on the verge ofexhaustion, but I keptmoving with a sense offrenzied purpose, as if Icould outrun the fact of

whatwashappening.Ihadfound Herzog’s homephone number the nightafter I got back fromTexas,andcalledhimthatevening from thehospital.He came into the roomcarryingahandfulofliliesof the valley—he knewthat whatever else hadhappened, Caroline wouldbe able to smell—andwalked over to her and

heldthemunderhernose.Itwas a gesture that tookmy breath away with itsexacting kindness, and inthenextfewweeksIspoketohimwithadistressthatI held in check aroundmost everyone else wholoved her. Near the end Iaskedhimonenightinthehospital corridor what hethought was happening,and he said, “Tell her

everything you haven’tsaid,” and I smiled withrelief. “There’s nothing,” Isaid.“I’vealreadytoldhereverything.” The next daythey took her off fluids,which was her wish, andwhenMorellicalledtotellmeitwasdoneI letoutawail in my kitchen thatwasananimal’slament.

THE DETAILS OF dying are sadand grinding: breathingandwaitingandbreathingand waiting. The body,brilliant machine, knowshowandwhentocloseupshop. But Carolinewas sostrong,andsodetermined,thateveninthisfinaltaskshemovedtowardtheendwith bracing force. I hadwatched her on thewaterfor years; now shewas in

the midst of what AnneSexton had called “theawful rowing towardGod.”And God, for me, wasproving an elusivetaskmaster.Formostofmyadult life I had been alapsed Protestant orfoxhole believer; I wasalwayssurprisedbypeoplewho seemed certain about

the answer in eitherdirection.Butmybelief insomethinglargerandmoreunknowable than humanconsciousness had neverbeen held to the fire atsuch an intimate level.SometimesIwouldgointothe small hospital chapeland sit there in the dark,wearing its silence like ashawl,andthenshrugandgo back upstairs to

Caroline’s room. Oneespecially bad night Iremember staring at thelight in the outsidehallway and feeling thehorrendous finality of thisroad—it seemed for thatmoment that the end wassimply the end, likedriving a car into a brickwall with nothing on theother side. It was one ofthemostdesolatemoments

of my life, I think, and Ifelt as if the only God inthe roomthatnightwasamorphine drip. And itcame to me with coldcomprehension that thiswas what it was to stareinto nothing—a universein which everything waspointless except thehardwired instinct tosurvive and endure andthen die. What I was

witnessingwasasordinaryas morning, and now itwasCaroline’stimetofall,and I found the lack oflight and meaning in thatpicture intolerable. Nowonder we came up withthe resurrection myth, Ithought. Itofferedacrackin the blackness, the onlywaytotoleratethisend.Trying to recapture that

bleary insight, I find thatmost of the power of iteludesme;wearewiredtoforget. We have to keepon: build bridges, learnlanguage, have babies,beata stickagainsta rockand find rhythm. Whendeath shows up, thefragility of all this isrevealed.Butnot for long.Rememberingthesuckandforceofdeathisliketrying

to hold water in yourhand. What I took awayfrom that dark alleywaywas that,when it came toGod,Ineedednottoknow—needed the humbleignorance as to whetheranything existed outsidethat grim tableau. In themonths that followed, Ikeptthinkingofthephrase“requisite mystery,” asthough that could capture

my necessary position inthe universe now, poisedon the line betweenKnowing and NotKnowing, between whatseemed to me thearrogance of religiouscertainty and the despairofagodlessworld.

I MET A DEADLINE the day ofthe night she died. Not

because I was actingtough,butbecause Iknewshewould die in the nexttwenty-fourhoursandthatafterward I wouldcollapse, and for nowwriting would buy methree or four hours in arelativelypain-free zone. Iwrote that day because itwas theonly thing Iknewto do, and I suspect it’swhat she would have

wanted, and would havedoneherself.I had been at the

hospital until late thenight before, a Sunday,and left her brother andsister and Morelli thereand come back home andslept a frighteningly deepsleep for ten hours.Caroline had lostconsciousness three days

earlier. I had sat by hersidecountingbreathsuntilthe numbers themselvesstopped making sense.WhenIlastheldontoher,she was burning up withfever and seemed to beworking with furiousenergy, even in herstillness.Shehadleftusalldaysbefore.Mondaynightmyphone

rang a few minutes aftermidnight. I sat in bedstaring at it while themachine picked up, andwhenIheardherbrother’svoice I thought for a splitsecond, If I don’t pick upthephoneshewon’tbedead.Then I grabbed the phoneandsaid,“Andrew?”andIheard his gentle voicetelling me what I alreadyknew. Afterwe hung up I

turned out the light andlay in the dark for a littlewhile, and then I got upand called Sandy,Caroline’s friend inPhiladelphia, whoansweredonthefirstring.We stayed on the phoneforalongtime,andwelitcandles together at thesame moment, likechildren capturing firefliesinajar.

I stayed composed overthenextfewdaysinawaythat alarmedme. Carolineknew concentric circles ofpeople in and aroundCambridge—dog people,writers, rowers, people inAA—and by now herillness was public enoughthat people often stoppedmeintheneighborhoodtoask how she was. Theafternoonafterherdeath,I

walkedovertoFreshPondwith Clementine, and twoor three people stoppedme, and one older manbrokedown in tearswhenI told him. I had theunnerving calm of achaplain. “I’m so sorry,” Isaid,myhandonhisarm.“She died last night atmidnight.”I would learn to accept

these periods ofequanimity for what theywere: reprieves from thevortex. But they startledmeat the time,asdid thefoggy memory I wouldhave of this later, alongwith a few other primalresponses. I went homeand started cookingenoughblackbeansforanarmy,even thoughnoonewasscheduledtoappear.I

found myself countingfriendswithachild’scruelpragmatism—who wasremaining in the tribe?When I realized I wasdoingthis,withasingsonginterior list-making, Iscribbled down the namesand posted them on therefrigerator: These werethe people I could call atthree a.m. I never calledanyone at three a.m.,

probablybecauseIhadthelist.The black beans were

gone by the end of thenight. People startedcoming to my house andthen kept coming,wandering through thekitchen into the backyardor sitting on the frontsteps. Marjorie, whoseseasonedwisdomwasborn

from her own losses,walked into my gardenwith a beautiful smile onher face; Tom called,crying—“Oh my God areyou all right?”—thenappeared with bags ofChinese food. Francesca,who didn’t know Carolinebut cared about me,walked in with ahoneysuckle vine that’sstill growing in the tangle

of the garden. Kathy, thedog trainer who had firstconnected us and hadbecome a good friend,stood in the kitchen withher husband, Leo, cryingand laughing while I toldthe story about LakeChocorua and Caroline’smission to teach me howto row. There were dogsand people and emptyplates all over the house

until midnight, when Ifinally took an Ambien tosleep. Alongside all thisheartache was an ironyand a wonder. Carolineand I had reached out toeach other from similarshelters of quiet andsolitude. Now she wasgone, andher leavinghadflung open my doors ineverydirection.

The only education ingrief that any of us evergets is a crash course.Until Caroline died I hadbelonged to that otherworld, the place ofinnocence and linearexpectations, where Ithoughtgriefwasasimple,wrenching realm ofsadness and longing thatgradually receded. Whatthatdefinitionleftoutwas

the body blow that lossinflicts, as well as thetemporarymadness, andarange of lessstraightforward emotionsshockingintheirintensity.Iwouldmove as though Iwere underwater forweeks,maybemonths,butthose first few daysbetweenthedeathandthememorial service were adazedcascadeoftearsand

surprises. A part of mewent through theappropriate motions withfrightening alacrity:finding the poem to readat the chapel on Fridaymorning, practicing italoud.But anotherpart ofme had the simpleconviction that I wouldn’tbeabletogetfrompointAtopointB—thatgivingherover, in spirit and in

public, was as perplexingandunfathomableasstringtheory.MyoldfriendPete,outoftownwhenshedied,called from Ohio to seehowIwas.ItoldhimwhatIhadbeenafraidtosay.“Idon’t think I can do it,” Isaidaboutgettingthroughtheservicethenextday.“Idon’tknowhowtodoit.”He was quiet for a

minute, and then he saidsomething of suchconsolationthatIwillhearhimsayingitforever.“Youknow, Gail,” he said,“we’vebeendoingthisasaspecies for a long time.And it’s almost as if—it’slike the body just knowswhattodo.”

CAROLINE, WHO HALF BELIEVED

that her circumspectexistence kept herrelatively unknown andthus protected from themasses, would have beenamazedbytheservice.Thechapel at Mount AuburnCemetery was filled andoverflowing. There was acold, pelting rain all thatmorning, and Kathy hadcome to my house to getme;whenwe drove up to

theentranceof thechapelItoldherIdidn’tknowifIcould get inside. To hergreat credit, she did notrush to reassure me orassume I was speakingmetaphorically. “Can youget to the door?” sheasked. It was four yardsaway.SoIgottothedoor,and Morelli was therewaiting, and from there Iwasallright.

I read a poem thatmorning from LouiseBogan, “Song for the LastAct,” the first lines ofwhich are “Now that Ihave your facebyheart, Ilook / Less at its featuresthan itsdarkening frame.”For two days after theservice,Icarriedthemeterofthepoeminmyhead,asweet interior backgroundto the walks I took, the

laps I swam, the lastthoughts before sleep. Itwas as though someancientchoirhadtakenupresidenceinsideme,givingme this exquisite chant, ameasure of my ownmovement andaccompaniment to anotherwise unspeakablesorrow. After two days, itdisappearedasnaturallyasrainonpavement.

THE RAVAGES OF EARLY GRIEF ARE

SUCH A SHOCK: wild, erratic,disconsolate. If only Icould get to sorrow, Ithought,Icoulddosorrow.I wasn’t ready for thesheerphysicality of it, thelead-linedovercoatofdullpainitwouldtakemonthsto shake. Whatever Ithought I knew about loss—what I had anticipated

about the After Carolinestate,whenthefearwouldbe over, the worryingceased—I had no inklingthat it would meandeliverance into a new,immutable world. I livedin the reality ofCaroline’sabsence all the time, itseems, and yet sometimesthefactof itwouldnearlyknockthewindoutofme.One night a couple of

weeks after the service Itried to make dinner fortwo friends, and Imanagedtogetabouthalfa meal together before Irealized I didn’t knowwhatIwasdoing.Theysatthere kindly before theirspartan plates of chickenand rice—I had forgottento make anything else—and I excused myself andwent into the kitchen and

held on to the counter.She’sdead, I thought. Theword itself was brutal. Ihad always disliked theeuphemisms the cultureembraced for dying:“gone,” “passed on,”“passed away.” Theyseemed avoidant andsentimental, a way tobleach the concept ofdeath of its declarativeforce. Now I knew why

we’d diluted thevocabulary.She’sdead.IreadeverythingIcouldtocomprehendwhatIwasgoing through. Mourningand Melancholia, W. H.Auden, Emily Dickinson.Poetry helped more thanFreud. Painstakingly,probably automatically, Ibegan separating theGordian knot of dual loss:

MydistressforCarolineinthe last weeks of her lifewasadifferentmatternowfrom my own batteredloneliness. Everythingabout death is a clichéuntil you’re in it. I washalf mad with desolation,and it often camemaskedas anger. What the booksdon’t tellyou is thatsomeprimitive rage can invadeout of nowhere, the only

bearable alternative tobeingwiththedead.Deathis a divorce nobody askedfor;tolivethroughitistofind a way to disengagefrom what you thoughtyoucouldn’tstandtolose.I foundmyself doubtingordismissing the intensityof our friendship, asthoughIcoulddiscardtheloveandthereforeskipthe

pain. This worked forabout twenty minutes, oruntil I would say tosomeone we both knew,“Oh well, maybe weweren’t that close,” andthe listener would burstout laughing. I startedtryingtorememberallthethings I didn’t like abouther. There weren’t verymany.OrIwouldtaketheboat out on the river and

talktoheraloud—somuchand so often that I begantorefertoacertainstretchofwater as the Church ofCaroline. I gave herreportsonLucille,toldherabout generous or foolishthings people had said ordone,letherknowhowallofuswereholdingup.Oneafternoon Ihadan inklingof how I must look—asolitarywoman in a scull,

smiling and talking to herinvisible friend—and mychest seized with thepotential nuttiness andemptiness of my one-wayconversation. “What’sworse?” I asked her. “If Italk to you and there’s noone listening, or if you’rethere waiting and I don’ttalk to you?” I thoughthow helpless, probablyirritated,shewouldfeelat

my silence. So I kepttalking. I complainedabout incidents that hadhappened years before. “Idon’t think you should’vebeenmadaboutmylosingtheboatseat,”Iwouldsay.“It was an accident!” Or,“You were always in ahurry. Why were you insuchahurry?”On a cloudy, windless

day in late summer,MorelliandImettomoveher boat from RiversideBoatClub,whereCarolinehad been a member foryears, to my boat club acouple ofmiles upriver. Itwas a day we had bothbeen anticipating, maybefearing,forweeks,becausewe knew what Carolinelooked like on the waterand what rowing had

meant to her. We parkedmycaratCambridgeBoatClubanddrovetogethertoRiverside, where a rowerwho had known Carolinehelped us locate her sculland carry it from theinside bay down to thewater. I had brought myown pair of oars; Morelliwanted to keep the setCarolinehadused.Noonespokewhileweput in the

boatandattachedtheoars.ThenIhuggedMorelliandthey pushed me off fromthe dock, and MorellistoodtherewatchingwhileI rowed away. Carolinehad loved this boat andtaughtmetorowinit;shehad logged some fivehundred miles a year forthe lastdecadeofher life.She had been a picture ofstillness itself, carried by

flight. I didn’t wantMorelli to see me breakdown,andforthefirstfiftyyards I could concentrateonlyon this: that Ihad tokeep going or he couldn’tstand it. I got to the firstbridgeandmade the turn,just beyond the last pointwhereIknewhecouldseeme. Then I squared thebladesandpulledtheboatinto the shadows, and put

myhead on the grips andcried.

11.

MORELLI AND I TOOK CARE OF HER

HOUSE ALL THROUGH the firstwinter, before itwas sold,taking turns driving overtopickupmailorstartthecarorcheckontheheat.Itwas a particularly fiercewinter, and I would walkinto the foyer, where it

was about fifty-fivedegrees, and feel thesadness ahead of me; itwas likewalking into fog.Life interrupted:Caroline’sshoeswerestilllinedupbythe door; her coats—onefor every kind of dog-walkingweather—stillhadbiscuits inthepockets.Onherrefrigeratordoorwasaphotograph of the two ofus, our arms flung around

each other, that Tom hadtaken that first summer atChocorua. I could neverbear to take the photofromwhereshehadplacedit years before, and oneday when the house wasbeingdismantleditsimplydisappeared—no doubtthrown out with the oldspicesandplasticbagsandeverything else thatconstitutes the bread

crumb trail of a life.Morelli had taken Lucilleto live with him sinceCaroline’s last trip to thehospital, so her scent wasgradually fading. I alwaysmade these trips to thehouse with Clementine,who barked withexcitement and looked forCaroline and Lucille onlyonthe firstvisit.Hernosemusthave toldherwhat I

could not, and after thatshe simply stayed by mysidewhileImademywaythroughthehouse.SomedaysIwouldsitin

the cold living room andlet the ache run free; itwas the only place that Ifeltmirroredmyheart.Allmy other places in theworld—myownhouse,myconnections with friends,

my days with the dog orontheriverorinthepool—werea refractedversionof my grief; they allcontained me, reflectedthe story, even helpedmeforget for a while. Herewas the story itself. Here,in all its subcomforttemperatures andmuseumlike stillness, wasCaroline, gone. It brokethrough my disbelief, my

God bartering, my everyotherdefense,and for thisreason I both needed andhatedtogothere.One afternoon when Ihadgoneupstairstocheckon things, I started goingthrough her closet, theway we used to dotogetherandlikemysisterand I had done when wewere girls. I tried on

sweaters and blouses thatwe had both loved,lookinginthemirrorwhileClementine lay on thefloor, watching me. “Thislooked better on you thanitdoesonme,”Iwouldsayto Caroline, and the dogwould cock her head, andthen I’d try on somethingelse. I feltdesperatewhilethis was happening, andconfusedandguilty,andit

has taken me years toremove myself enoughfrom the pain of theincidenttocomprehendit.I wanted to claimwhatever of her was left.I’d always heard storiesabout grief-strickenfamilies arguing over uglylamps or cheapcoffeemakers; now Iunderstood. The frantichunger I felt was not

trivial or greedy; it waspossessive, in the mostprimal sense. I still haveher gym bag and her rainjacket, and for a while Ieven tried to wear herwinterboots,anentiresizetoobig,whichwasabsurdbutcomforting.Memento mori:

reminders of the dead. Ithink we must long for

these signatures of history—the baseballs andornaments and playingcards left on people’sgraves—because they takeup the space left by thedeparted. The physicalvoid after she was goneseemed alarmingly like athing of physics, as ifdaylight had shifted or ahouse on the street haddisappeared. Whenever

Clementine heard thedistinctive beep of aToyota RAV, which iswhat Caroline had drivenfor years, she would wagher tail and start to headin that direction—pureconditioning that seemedtomeahaikuofwhatwasmissingintheworld.

YESTERDAYIFOUNDanoteIhad

written to myself, in thepiles of outlines andnarrative maps that are awriter’s building blocks.“Let Her Die,” I hadwritten at the top of alegal pad, a shorthandreminder to get to thatpart of the story. Then Isaw it the next day andhalfgasped; foramomentitwas as though someoneelse had given me this

instruction. Let her die: athree-word definition ofthe arc of grief if ever Iheard one, and it takes alongtime.

THE SUMMER AFTER I hadlearned to row, oneevening on the river in1998,IrememberthinkingthatsomedaysoonIwouldlose my beloved dad and

that rowing and Carolinewould help me through.We all count the tribewhenever we’re scared.Modern Western societyhas mostly corralled thistask within the realm ofthe nuclear family: Thehusbandwillcleanoutthegarage or balance theaccounts;thesisterwillbethere to help after ourfolksaregone.Butahuge

portionoftheworldmakesother allegiances,unconscious plans.Because of circumstanceand desire, Caroline and Ihad each shifted a degreeof that dependence ontoeach other—along withour siblings and Morelli,we were in line for thequotidian closeness, theemotional proximity ofday-to-day life. Who has

spare keys to the house,emergency contactnumbers in the wallet?These are the lists youdon’tevenconsiderbeforeacertainage,whenyou’retrying to get away fromresponsibility rather thanacquire it. Then the listtakesshapealongwiththeattachments. Caroline andI had so thoroughlyinsinuated ourselves into

this primary position thatwe joked about it foryears, even after shereunitedwithMorelli.Oneafternoon weeks after shewas gone, Morelli andSandy and I were sittingon a park bench at thepond, talking with thecombatcandorofherthreeclosest friends about howanyofuscouldgoon.“OhGod,” I groaned, with

mock distress. “Now Iguess I’ll have to get aboyfriend.”Only the threeof us, I think,wouldhavefoundthissogermaneandsorevealing.

LIFE’S IRREFUTABLE forwardmotion, a one-way arrowpointedpast thedead.Formonths I felt the violenceof time itself, as though

some great barge carryingthe rest of us had leftCaroline stranded on theshore. Iwas raking leavesonedaywhenIfeltsuchavast chasm of what wasgonethatIhadtostopandsitdownontheporch.Allthis raw material, fromnew shoots to compost inwhat seemed a singlebreath. Carolinewas boneandashandmemorynow,

and I was raking deadleavesintheshelterofmygarden while the bulbs,patient and thoughtless,waited to be planted. Itseemedobscene.“Theytakeitall,”Icriedon the phone to Louiselongdistance.“Thishuskofalife.Andthenyougettothe end and you find outthat death is godless,

imminent, and cruel.”Louise, who believedabove all in the power ofwords, wrote this downwhileIwastalking.Andsoshe captured for me thatmoment none of uswantsto remember, probablycentraltosurvival.What ifdying weren’t a bad thing?Caroline’s death had leftme with a great andterriblegift:howtolivein

a world where loss, someof it unbearable, is ascommon as dust ormoonlight.And then finally,

unwittingly, acceptancewraps itself around yourheart.LatethatyearIwaswandering through anopen house in theneighborhood,andIsawaframed Pablo Neruda

sonnet on the wall; itspoketosomethingspatialaboutlossthatIhadneverbefore found articulated.Caroline’s death was avacancy in the heart, aplace I neither could norwished to fill. I had beenconfusedbytheprevalenceofthesefeelings,thesensethat her goneness was athinguntoitself,amemoryoutlined by crime tape it

would be an outrage toremove. Now here wasNeruda, entreatingmourners to inhabit deathas though it were adwelling:

Absenceisahousesovastthat inside youwill pass throughitswallsandhangpicturesontheair.

I LIVED IN THAT house of

absence, took solace in it,until sorrow became astand-in for what wasgone.“Grief…remembersme of all his graciousparts,” says Shakespeare’sConstance in King John,about the loss of her son.“Thenhave I reason tobefond of grief.” I knew Iwould never have anotherfriend like Caroline; Isuspected no one would

ever know me so wellagain. That she wasirreplaceable became abittersweet loyalty: HerdeathwaswhatIhadnowinsteadofher.Grief is fundamentallyaselfish business. Strippedof its elegant facade—theearly onslaught of flowersand casseroles andunderstanding—it is a

place of such particularitythat its arc is as complexas the relationship itself.People miss the warmpresence in the bed, thelaugh in the evening, thegestures or countries orshared awareness traveledtogether.ImissedCarolinein dozens of ways, butthrough them all was theabsence of the ongoingdialogue,realorimagined.

“I miss us,” she had saidthat morning outside thehospital. For years,through the trials ofwriting or dog training orlife’s ordinary bruises,Caroline and I had beenthe soothing, modulatedvoice in each other’sheads. Now my thoughtswere clanging aroundunnoticed and unheard,lonely music with too

much bass. For months, Ikept wanting to call her,half assuming I could, totell her what her dyinghadmeant,whatherdeathhaddonetomylife.

I DON’T KNOW MUCH of what Idid that first year afterCaroline’s death, beyondtheusual rituals thatwerenow cloaked in a velvet

silence. Walking, reading,watchingthelightchange.I sat on the couch in theliving room and readletters and cards frompeoplewholovedusboth,thenrereadthemsothatIcould remember who wewere together. My friendAndrea dragged me toholiday gatherings on thedays I had usually spentwith Caroline. Rowing—

God, I rowed until myhands were like leatherandmywholebodyachedwith the fatigue my heartfelt. I would get back tothe boathouse in eveninglight, pull the boat out ofthe water, and wash anddry it as though I werehot-walking a horse. Iknow I wrote, though formonths not much of itmattered. I puzzled, often

and in private, over somepromise of consciousnessor design beyond the coldtriumph of pure biology,muck and creation andreproduction and thenmuck again. Mostly Icouldn’t bear theindisputablelackofher,orthe paltry notion thatmemory was all thateternal life really meant,andIspenttoomuchtime

wondering where peoplegot the fortitude ordelusion to keep onmoving past the staticdead. Hope in thebeginningfeelslikesuchaviolation of the loss, andyetwithout itwe couldn’tsurvive.Ihadafriendwhoyears before had lost herfirstborn when he was aninfant, and she told meone of the piercing

consolations she receivedinherearlygriefwasfromamanwhorecognizedthefierce loyalty one feels tothedead.“Therealhellofthis,” he told her, “is thatyou’re going to getthroughit.”Likeastarfish,the heart endures itsamputation.

12.

FORYEARS IHADTRIEDTOPROTECT

MYSELF FROM the psychicweight of New Englandwinters by staying insidewith tea and radiators,until I got a northern sleddog. Clementine took meout into the world inmyriad ways, the most

relentless ofwhich had todo with the seasons. Wewalked throughsnowstorms and over icytrails; we walked in sixp.m. darkness and single-digit temperatures.Because of her I hadlearnedtolovethelightinwinter—the rose gold ofthe sky an hour beforedusk, framing theminimalistbranchesofthe

bare trees beneath. I fixedmyroutinetothelightandto Clementine’s desires.After Caroline was gone Ivowed I would take thesame walks, eventuallyfinding solace in themissingspacebymyside.So when I was through

writing for the day, thedog and Iwouldwalk thefew long blocks to the

edge of Fresh Pond, anestablished oasisthroughout the year, butpopulatedinwintermostlybydiehardjoggersanddogwalkers. Our usual pathwas a couple of milesround-trip;wewouldstrollthrough the woods to thedeserted golf course,where Clemmie wouldchase geese to her heart’sdelight and bark at the

exhaust signatures ofplanesacrossthesky.One Friday afternoon at

the end of January in2004, I had driven overand parked by the soccerfield on the edge of thereservoir almost a milefrom my house; it wassixteen degrees outside,and I wanted to headstraightforthewoods.The

days were growing longerandthelight itselfseemedbrighter, and we walkedfor an hour underscudding clouds, noddingorsayinghellototheotherstalwartswhowereonthepath.Clementinewaseightyearsold,atthatpointinadog’s life atwhichdignityand vitality are in steptogether, and she rarelystrayedfrommyside,even

off-lead in the woods.Whenever we left thereservoir, all I had to dowas say, “Wait,” and shewould stop wherever shewas, standing like a horsewithherreinsdownwhileIattachedherleash.Wehadjustcomeoutofthewoodsontotheedgeofthe soccer field when Iheard a man yell, “Get

your dog!” Clemmie wasnexttome,unleashed,andwe both stopped in ourtracks, partly in responseto the alarm in the man’svoice. About ten yardsaway, by the bleachers, Isawayoungmuscle-boundman crouched on theground, trying desperatelytoholdontotwopitbullswithout collars or leashes.A second later the dogs

broke free of his grip andcame hurtling toward us.The larger dog, a gray-white male, knockedClementine to the groundand grabbed her by theneck; the other dog wentfor her hindquarters.Clemmie weighed sixtypounds and had a fullwinter coat, which on aSamoyed is a three-inch-long double coat as dense

as a carpet. She wasthrashing and snapping atboth dogs and I wasscreamingatthetopofmylungs—“Getyourgoddamndogs!”—while the mantried in vain to get aholdofthepitbulls.I didn’t yet know how

badly Clemmie was hurt,or if themanwasa toughguy or a fool, and there

wasn’tanothersoularoundto help. The man finallygot an arm around eachdog’s neck, and I grabbedClementine’s collar andcried out, “Please, just letus get to our car.” Thefield was abutted by achain-link fence,separating it from thestreet; I knew we had toget to that gate. He wasstruggling to maintain his

hold on the dogs, andnodded, out of breath.“Go!” he called out. “I’vegot them.” Clemmie waswhimpering, panting tobreakfree,andIheldontoher andwe started lopingacrossthefield.Wehadmadeithalfway

—about thirty yards—when I heard the manholler from behind, “Look

out!”Ifeltthehairriseonthe back of my neck. Iturnedaround to seebothdogschargingatafullrun.ThenIsawa flashofgrayflying toward me throughthe air. The next thing Iremember is being onmyhands and knees on theground. The gray missilewas the larger male, whoweighed about a hundredpounds; the female had

gone after Clementine.When I scrambled to myfeet,IsawClemmieontheground a couple of yardsaway, with both dogs ontopofher.Onewasatherthroat and the other haditsteethonherbelly.Theyhadnevermadeasound.Mybladderemptiedlike

a water balloon. I waswearing jeans, and

realized with an almostserene detachment thattheyweredrenched.Iwasinthatstateofadrenaline-soaked alacrity when thevision is sharp buttunneledandyou feelyoucandoanything,andIfeltnotsomuchfearasakindof wild horror. I had theflash that this must bewhat it was like to be incombat: The sympathetic

nervous system mobilizesthe body,which then getsridofeverythingitdoesn’tneed. Through noconscious effort of myown, I’d gone intoautomaticwarriormode.I walked into the fight

andstartedbeatingon thedogs’ backs. Dressed forthe frigid weather, I waswearing a heavy down

jacket and fleece-linedmittens,andallthefutilityin that moment wascapturedbythosemittens:I remember looking downwhile I flayedon thedogsand thinking that myhandslookedlikeachild’s.Then the female pit bullgrabbed my forearm,almost casually, as if tomove an obstacle awayfrom its prey.The scariest

part of this fleetingmoment was not theviolencethedogexhibited,but the control—my armmightaswellhavebeenabranch, forall the interestit held. You can generallygauge the seriousness ofany dog attack by thenoise and the restraintexhibited—the quieter itis, the more lethal theintent—and I had known

fromthestartthatthiswasadeadlysituation.Thepitbulls were afterClementine, not me. Thefemale’s hold on my armgave Clementine thechance to wrestle awayfrom the other dog, andshe went tearing, at sleddogspeed,intothewoods.By now the man had

caughtup tohis dogs and

was trying to get themunder control. I wentrunningafterClemmie,notknowing how severe herinjurieswereorwhereherpanicked flight had takenher. I started calling hernameandrealizedthatmyvoice was nearly gonefrom yelling. It was afterfivep.m.andgettingdark,and I was stumblingthrough snow in

monochromaticwoods.Noone else was in sight. Iremember thinking, withnonsensical logic, that Icould probably search forheruntilabouttwoa.m.—that Ihad thatmuch timebeforeIwouldneedwateror food,orbefore Iwouldphysicallygiveout.Years later, most of myvisual memories of that

afternoonhaveacinematicpurity—IrememberwhatIwaswearing,where Iwasstanding, how my armsand face and voice feltwhile I scanned theblackening woods for awhite dog. Micromomentshave disappeared—Iremember reaching myfriend Peter’s voice mailby cell phone, but I don’tremember calling him or

thinking to call him, onlythe sound of his recordedmessage. He lived fourhousesaway frommeandknew more about dogsthan anyone I had everknown,andwhenIgothisvoice mail I coughed outsomething like “We wereattacked by pit bulls andClemmieishurtandlostinthe woods.” He told melater that when he heard

the message, he barelyrecognizedmyvoice.ThenI called Avery, who livedon the corner near thepond; she started headingin my direction. By thetime she got to me tenminutes later, the firstwave of adrenaline hadpassed and I had realizedClementinewaslost,andIwas shaking all over andfinally terrified. Because

myvoicewasgone,Averykept calling out forClemmie,andthenmycellphone rang and I heardPeter, out of breath, say,“I’mrunningtowardyou.”In all the free falls ofone’s life, there aremomentsthatstandoutasahandreachingacrosstheabyss, and this, for me,was one of them.Without

thinking I said,“No,gotomy house first”—he liveddown the street in thedirection of the pond,whichwas separated fromour houses by a majorparkway. Two minuteslaterthephonerangagain,sosoonthatIknewithadto be either good news orbad.ThenIheardhimcry,“I’ve got her!” and mykneeswentoutfromunder

me. Avery got me to mycar and drove us to thehouse.I’ve always wished forsome witness to that day,someone who could comeforward to tell me whatClementine’s path hadbeen. Once she brokeaway from the dogs, shehadgone running into thewoods alongside the

reservoir,andshehadhadtocrossafieldbeyondthewoods and then a four-lane thoroughfare duringevening rush hour. Thentwo more streets to theblock where we lived, atripofnearlyamileincitytraffic.Peterhadfoundhertrembling on my frontporch. She was bleedingand covered in pit bullsaliva, and she had found

herwayhome.

FOURHOURSLATER,thevetandhis assistant had shavedhalfofClemmie’scoatandbegun closing the gapingwounds on her back andsides. Peter, whose fatherhad been a horse trainerand who knew how tocontain a thrashinganimal, held on to

Clemmie while they puther under anesthesia. Thepeople in the veterinarypractice had known meandmydogsince shewasapuppy,andBeth,myvet,had gone silent when I’dcalledtotellherabouttheattack; the twopeople leftat the clinic had stayedlate to wait for us whenthey found out what hadhappened. It was almost

ten p.m. and none of ushadeateninhours,thoughIhad remembered tograbaloafofbreadonmywayoutthedoor;Iknewitwasgoing to be a long night.After they got Clemmieunder,Ifinallysanktotheflooroftheoperatingroomwith Cleo, Peter’s Belgianshepherd, beside me.Clemmiewascoveredwithpuncture wounds on her

hips andbelly andviolentgashesacrossherback;herthick double coat hadprobably saved her life.When they had finallyclosedthewoundsandshebegan to emerge from theanesthesia, I croucheddown by the operatingtablesoshecouldseeandsmell me when she wokeup.Maggie,whohadbeenassisting the vet and

holding Clementine whileshe was under, smiled atme across the table. “Youknow,” she said, “you’redoing a lot better than Ithoughtyouwouldbe.”Iwasbeaming.“Areyou

kidding?” I said. “She’salive.”

IT WAS MORE THAN a weekbefore Clementine could

get beyond the drivewayof my house withouttrembling, but as a sleddog, she had strong socialinstincts, and I think sherecovered psychologicallyfaster and better than Idid.Besidesbeingsoreandexhausted, my onlyphysical legacy from theattack was a black half-moononmyforearmIhadfound the next afternoon,

a bruise the size of a pitbull’s jaw where thefemale had grabbed me.The dog had bittenthroughathickdowncoatand two sweaters to leavethismark,butIdidn’tfeelor notice it until a daylater,when theadrenalinehad been replaced by acrushing fatigue. I fellapart on the phone toLouise, who loved dogs

and loved me and knewhow to care for bothspecies in the worst oftimes.Shesentwhiterosesfor the immediate painand—ruthless acolyte tonarrative—had an evenbetter solution for thelong-term damage. “Iknow this sounds cold,”she said during our firstconversation,“butareyoutakingnotes?”

My intrepid Texasmother, who had justturned ninety, displayed adifferent brand of loyalty,more sword than pen andfierce enough tomakemelaugh with gratitude. Sheadored Clementine andwashorrifiedbywhathadhappenedtobothofus.“Itjust makes you want topickupagun,doesn’tit?”shesaidonthephoneone

day when I wasparticularly shaken, and Ianswered, my voicetrembling, “Yeah, it reallydoes.”“Now, honey,” she said,as though shewere tryingto placate a determinedchild,“youjustcan’t.”

THEPITBULLSHADbeenpickedupbyAnimalControl and

quarantined the day aftertheattack.Monthsofcourtappearances lay ahead, aswellasalongcampaignbythe city to euthanize onedog and permanentlysequester the other. Forme there would also beflashbacks and fears andseemingly misplacedworries, the detritus oftrauma that tends toinsinuate itself into the

psyche only after thedanger has passed. I hadalready armed myselfinstinctively against someof this refuse with thesimplepowerofnarrative:From themoment I calledPeter from thewoods, theevents of that day beganshaping themselves into abearable truth. AndCaroline, who had longbeenthesearch-and-rescue

spiritinmypantheon,wasas essential as air to theretellingofthetale.For about three weeksafter the attack, I wascertain that Caroline hadsavedClementine thatday—that she had gotten heraway from the dogs andguided her throughspeedingtraffictosafety.Ibelieved this fully and

categorically, with asincerity that helped toshieldmefromtherandominiquity of what hadhappened.Clementine hadachieved legendary statusin the neighborhoodwithin days after theassault,bothforthehorrorof the story and for herodyssey home, and herwounds and shaved coatdrew enough attention

that strangers stopped toaskaboutus.Whenpeoplewho had known Carolinewouldseeusatthepond,Iwould say, probably withthe eyes of a madwoman,“I think Caroline savedher!” Iwasnotknown forsuch pronouncements,having a slant moreempirical than mystical,and if people lookedsurprisedwhenItoldthem

this, they were kindenoughtoletmebe.Ihadhadasemiawakedreaminthefirstfewdaysaftertheattack in which I wokefromadeepsleepandsaidtoCaroline, in thedarkofmyroom,“OhmyGod—itwas you, wasn’t it?” Andshe responded with hersoft, knowing laugh,amusedbymyslownessinrecognizing the obvious. I

woremy conviction like aKryptonite shield for aslong as I needed itspowers,untilIcouldstandin a field with the dogagainwithoutscanningthehorizonfordisaster.Andnow?IdoubtthatIwill ever be convinced ineither direction. It is astory I still tell myself,framedwithin themagical

thinking of a children’stale,where the forests areenchanted and themonsters vincible, wherelove and courage alwaystrumpdanger.

“THEDEADPROTECTUS,”Isaidtomy friend Andrea atdinner one night whenthatbleakday in the fieldwasbehindme, long after

I had stopped announcingthat Caroline’s spirit hadshepherded us home. Thewords came out of mymouth with the certaintyof litany, though I wasonly half sure of what Imeant and unaware that Ithought it until I spokealoud.The dead protect us.I feel this now with analmost fierce relief.Caroline’s dying had

forced me into courageunder fire; now I had herinside me as a silentsentinel.Andwhetheroneattributes this attachmenttomemoryortoGod,itisa consolation unlike any Ihaveknown.Thouartwithme. “They take it all,” Ihadcriedon thephone toLouisethatnight,knockeddown by despair. Turnsout they don’t take

everythingafterall.

I LEARNED SOMETHING in theaftermathof theattackonClementine that confusedand alarmed me at thetime. After so much fearandviolence,herewasmydog, safe and alive, andyet I worried about herwith such maternalvengeance that it seemed

to eclipsemygrief for thedead. I was ashamed bytheinconsolablequalityofmy anxiety; Clemmie wasalive, and Caroline wasgone, and yetmy anguishnow was about the onewhohadbeensaved.ThenI realized something elsethey don’t tell you in theinstruction books formourning: that we onlyfret about the living. I

mightwellgrieveCarolinefor all my days, but Iwasn’t worried about heranymore.Years after she was

gone, I found theinscriptions Caroline hadwrittentomeintwoofherbooks—the first written afew months into ourfriendship, the secondonetwo years later. We knew

from the beginning, Ithink, that this friendshipwas different, that wewould work to make itimmune to theerosionsoftime. “For my dearestGail,” she had written atthe beginning of Pack ofTwo, “withmore love andgratitude than I havewords to express. Yourpresence—in theworld, inthe woods, in this book—

has altered the verytexture of my life. Here’stoallwehaveshared,andtomanymoreyears,manymore miles with ourbeautifulgirls.”Caroline’s boat hasrowed some two thousandmiles since I moved itupriver on that calm dayin2002.Iamfifteenyearsolder now than Caroline

would ever be; the rowsare slower, but when Ifalter at the beginning ofeach season I close myeyes and visualize theprecisionofherstrokeandstraighten out my own.She is stillmy coach.Oneafternoon when I hadcome in from a five-milerow, as I was putting theboatintoitsbay,Isaidoutloudtoher,“Youwouldbe

so proud of me.” I meantbecause I had kept onrowing: Endurance wasone of the traits we eachadmiredintheother.ButIknow now that I meantsomething larger than therowing, something thatparallels the miles loggedthrough fatigue anddiscouragement andinclement weather.Caroline would be so

proud ofme—proud of us—becauseIkepther,too.

13.

CLEMENTINEWASWITHMEFORFOUR

MOREYEARS.Iusedtolienextto her on the Persian rugin the dining room andwrapmyarms aroundherand say, “Let’s see if youcan make it to thirteen.Canwedothat?”Andshewould sigh her deep-

chested sigh and roll overonherback.Ihadbroughther home in 1995, whenshe was eight weeks old,on June 3,whichwasmyfather’s eighty-firstbirthday. I thought at thetime that after he died, Iwould have this dualanniversary to soften thesadnessofthelossofhim.Then Caroline died atmidnight on the third of

June, seven years later,and so the date had awrenchingsignificance.Thatfirstyearofraising

a puppy, just beforeCaroline and I becamefriends, I had takenClementine to CastleIsland, a beach walk onBostonHarbor,onawindyday in March. We werewalking across a long

causeway when the windpicked up, and I saw herhesitate; she looked up atme for a directional cue,then plowed ahead. Thefirst year or so with anydog is a steep relationalcurve—you are eachfinding outwho the otheris, and who you will betogether. I knew at thatmoment, when we lockedeyesandshestartedtaking

me forward, that we hadbecome a team and thatshe knew it, too, andwould go anywhere Iasked.In the ensuing decade,

she had been integral tothe most soul-stretching,joyfulyearsofmylife,andwitness to some of thesaddest. She led me intothewoodswiththeclosest

womanfriendIwouldeverhave, and she was therewaitingeachnightwhen Icame home from thehospital where Carolinewas dying. She was thesentry at the end of everytrip Imade back to Texasto care for my agingmother and father. Afterthey were both gone,buried next to each otherin the Texas sun, I flew

back to Cambridge andClementine nipped mynosewhenIwalkedinthefront door, a gentle,herding nip, and thenleaned against me andhardly left my side fordays.Olddogs canbe a regalsight. Their exuberancesettles over the years intoa seasoned nobility, their

routinesbecomeas lockedinto yours as the quietestand kindest of marriages.By the time she turnedeleven, Clementine hadstarted to lose her coat, acondition that can happeninolder femaleSamoyeds,and so she was a far cryfrom the majestic whiteimageofherearlieryears.Once a model for thebreed,nowshelookedlike

the velveteen rabbit,disheveledandpatchyandloved into raggedness.Sometimes thoughtlesspeopleonthestreetwouldsay,“Ooh,what happenedto your dog?” with morerubbernecking curiositythangenuineconcern,andIwould say, just toannoythem, “I think she looks alittle like KatharineHepburn; don’t you?” She

alwayslookedthesametome.Thelastfewyears,ourdailywalksgotslowerandshorter. Sometimes wewouldmake it only as faras the Virginia Woolfbench,agraniteseatinthewoods of Fresh Pond thatoverlooks the pond’s edgeand has on it an Orlandoquote, and Clementinewouldlieunderthebenchwhile I lay upon it,

watching the toweringpine trees and the skyoverhead.Orshewouldliein the front yard next tome while I plantedflowers, seeming contenttosurvey theworldratherthantrytorunit.In spring of 2008, she

started coughing with abronchitis that wouldn’tget better, and I knewwe

were in that passage ofaged dogs where aconstellation of symptomspresages the finaloutcome. I couldn’t bearthe idea that she mightleave me on June 3, andthatnightIgotdownnextto her on the floor andwrapped my arms aroundher and said, “Well, wemade it, honey, didn’twe?”Twonightslater,she

started going downhillfast. I got enough Valiuminhertoeaseherdistress,and when I walked intoAngell Memorial Hospitalat one-thirty in themorning, it was with thedry-mouthedcertaintythatI would be going homewith her leash and collarbut not with her. I had aclose friend who was aveterinarian, who had

known Clementine sinceshewas a puppy, and shehadinsistedthatIcallherin themiddle of thenightwhen the time came. SoAmywastherewaitingformeinthehospitalparkinglot, ready to navigate thestark terrainof euthanasiaand anonymous clinicians,and she was there on thefloor beside us when welet her go. I was crying

morethanIwanted,afraidof upsetting Clementine,but she stayed calm, withher paw on my arm. “Gofind Caroline,” I said toher,andwhenshediedshereached her front legs uptowardmeandrolledoverintomyarms,whereIfeelquite sure she will stayforever.

I DIDN’T WANT to leave herthere. They tagged thebody and we loaded herintoAmy’svansothatshecould take her to becremated in a couple ofhourswhen theveterinarypractice opened thatmorning.Wesatinthevanoutside the hospital’sbright, welcoming lightsfor a long time, talkingand sometimes crying,

Clementine’s body in thebackanoddcomfort.Iwasstaring into that too-familiar space of a worldfresh with the initialdisbelief of grief. It wasnearly five a.m. when Iwalked back into myinfernally quiet house,sadder thantearscanevertell,knowingthatIwasinthe corridor of somethingfarlargerthanIandthatI

just had to stand it andstay where I was. I wentinto thebedroomand sawthephotographofCarolineon my dresser, and Ilooked at her across thatgreat divide and said,“Catch.”

“CARLO DIED,” EMILY DICKINSON

WROTEHER FRIEND andmentor

about the death of herbeloved Newfoundland.“Would you instruct menow?” To say I could notbearthisfinaldepartureisuseless commentary,because bear I did andbear we do; to say I didnot believe that I could isperhapsmoretothepoint.Caroline and I had talkedfor years about theunthinkable notion of

losing Lucille andClementine; it seemed agraceful flukeof time thatwewouldprobablyenduretheirdeathstogether.Clementine’s favoritedenning spot in thebackyard was under anenormousyew, a shrub soovergrown that a wildrosebush next to it haswound its way through

and above the yew’sbranches. In spring, fromthe second-floor porch, itlooks as if the yew hasborne white blossoms—amagical hybrid of thornsand flowers andevergreens.ParlortricksorGod,Iknownowtherearevisions like thiseverywhere.Maybe this isthe point: to embrace thecore sadness of life

without toppling headlonginto it,orassuming itwilldefineyourdays.The realtrick is to let life,withallits ordinary missteps andregrets, be consistentlymore mysterious andalluringthanitsend.Early in Clementine’s

life, when Caroline and Ihad forged the beginningdepthsofourbond,I took

a house for a few weeksone summer in thewoodsof Truro on Cape Cod.Caroline and Lucille weremeeting us there the nextday.TheeveningIarrived,thecaretakers in the largehouse on the groundscame by to tell me theywere looking after theelderly woman inside—inher late nineties andfailing day by day. I was

not to be alarmed, theysaid,ifIheardcarscomingand going; they were onshifts of twenty-four-hournursingcare.An hour later, at dusk,after I had unpacked thecar with Clemmie by myside, one of the nursescamebackandknockedonmy door. “Mrs. Cwondered if you could

stop by,” she said shyly.“She wants to see the bigwhite dog.” Clemmie hadgrown up around aneighbor in a wheelchair,so I wasn’t concernedabout her being gentle,and when we went insidethehouse,shewalkedovertoMrs.C’swheelchairandplaced herself next to herhand. The woman’sclouded eyes lit up, and

she smiled as she ran herhandthroughClementine’sruff.“Ilikeabigdog,”shesaid by way ofintroduction; she spokewithun-hesitantauthority,as though we had justpicked up a long-runningconversation in which heropinion mattered greatly.However frail the rest ofher was, all her strengthwas inhervoice. “When I

was growing up, I hadAlsatians,” she told me,her voice warm withmemory. “They used torun through the woodshereandterrifyeveryone.”She smiledas she toldmethis story, and for amomentIcouldseeherasagirl,fearlessinthewildsof midcentury Truro,protected by her shepherddogsandrunningfree.

I’ve always thoughttherewouldbeworsefatesthan to be that woman,bowed but undaunted byeverythingphysicalinlife,her memories andimperious presenceoutshining the waninglight of aging. A womanstillabletosummontohersideacreature thatnearlyoutweighed her; still ableto say, with glad

conviction, “I like a bigdog.”Ilikeabigdog,too.

“THEHEARTBREAKSOPEN,”AFRIEND

SAID TO ME uponClementine’sdeath.Iknownow that we never getover great losses; weabsorb them, and theycarve us into different,often kinder, creatures.

SometimesIthinkthatthepain is what yields thesolution. Grief andmemory create their ownnarrative: This is theshining truth at the heartof Freud and Neruda andeverywar story ever told.The death mandates andgives rise to the story forthe same reason thatancienttribesusedtoburyflowers with their dead.

We tell the story to getthem back, to capture thetraces of footfalls throughthesnow.After Caroline died, Imade a list of things Iwanted to accomplishbefore my life was over:write a book, go to Paris,find a great love, fit in asmanydogsas I could.Oh,and find God, I said to a

friend, the postscript thatmight change the worldentire.Notaverylonglist,but everything on itseemedessential. I set outto achieve these thingsboth systematically andunconsciously, aware thatthe map of one’s life ismade up of luck andcircumstance anddetermination. I hadalways told Caroline that

when I lost Clementine, IplannedtogotoParis,crymy heart out for sixmonths, then come homeandgetapuppy.Paris is still on the list.

The spring of Clemmie’sdecline was exhaustingand heartbreaking, and Iwas no more fit to travelabroadwhenshewasgonethan I was to bike to the

moon. Instead I spent thesummer in theshadowsofsorrow and anxiety,wondering how I wouldnavigatetheworldwithouther in it. The very fact ofmefeltdiminished.Ilaidtheflowerspeople

brought me on herdenning spot by the yew,and when they hadyellowed I piled more on

top, so that there was apallet of dried flowerswhere she had lain. I satontheporchandtalkedtoher, as I had talked toCaroline after she wasgone and to Clemmiethroughout her life. Ifoundoutfromlisteningtomemoryand silence that Ididn’t much care, at leastthen,aboutgoingtoParis.That what I wanted was

the breath in the houseand the warmth anddemands of someone whoneeded me. “It’s yourlove,” my old friend Petehad said to me yearsbefore, when I was tryingto leave a lousyrelationship. “You get tokeep that.” My love:precious,lonelygift.I spent an hour one

afternoon on the phonewith a breeder of Bordercollies, a stranger whounderstood my distressand stayed in touch withme for months afterward,toward no other end thankindness. Peter, who hadhelped save Clementinethatcolddayyearsbefore,knew what I had lost butcouldn’texpressit,somostdays, after he and Shiloh,

his young Belgianshepherd, had had theirrun, he would open myback door and holler,“Dog!”Inshewouldcome,my auxiliary shepherd forthemorning,whohadlongsince added me to herpack and who probablysensed Clemmie’sdeparture before she wasgone. Shiloh would liedown beside me for an

hour while I wrote, asfocused and calm as avisitingnurse.

THE OLD NAVAJO WEAVERS usedto insert an unmatchedthread into each of theirrugs, a contrasting colorthat runs to the outsideedge. You can spot anauthentic rug by thisintentional flaw, which is

called a spirit line, meantto release the energytrappedinsidetherugandpave theway for the nextcreation.Everystoryinlifeworthholdingontohastohaveaspirit line. You can callthis hope or tomorrow orthe“andthen”ofnarrativeitself, but without it—without that bright,

dissonant fact of theunknown, of what wecannot control—consciousness andeverything with it wouldtumble inward andimplode. The universeinsiststhatwhatisfixedisalsofinite.

ON A BRIGHT, HOT day at theendofsummer, Igotona

plane not to Paris but toBaltimore, on a missionmore circuitous and lessglamorous than a trip tothe Louvre. I rented a carat the Baltimore airportand started driving fromMaryland across ruralPennsylvania, on my wayto meet a breeder ofSamoyeds whose dogs Ihad seen a decade before.Thatpartofthestatehasa

rustic,southernfeel,fullofback roads and green,rolling hills, with barnstars on half the houses. Ihad been up since dawnand was alone and halflost, wondering what inthe hell I was doing on alonely stretch ofPennsylvaniawhenImighthavebeen in Italy, say,orMontana, or the south ofFrance. I passed a small

highway marker, asdiscreet as a street sign,that read MASON DIXON LINE,and my heart fluttered inresponse.Justbeyondthemarker,on the other side of theroad, was a seedy-lookingliquor store with a purpleneon sign. I traveled a lotwhen I was a drinker—alcohol gaveme the high-

octane courage to goanywhere—andwhereverIlanded, the first thing Idid, had to do, was findthe nearest liquor store. Ialways pretended itwas amission of desire, but itfelt likeaprisonsentence.When I drove past thestore in Pennsylvania, itsparkinglothalffullofcarsin the early afternoon, Ihada flashofwhat ithad

been like to have to dothat, to locate the placethatwarehousedmybottleofhope.But the store with its

flashinglight—LIQUOR—alsoremindedmeofsomethingelsefromyearsbeforethatnearly made me laughaloud. When I wasgrowing up in Texas,whenever a fellow was

goingtotheliquorstoreorstepping out to the car tohaveasnort,thecolloquialexpressionwas“I’vegottosee a man about a dog.”Now here I was, somanymiles and decades later,sober and heartsore andstill alive, and I reallydidhavetoseesomeoneabouta dog. She was part of alitterthathadbeenborninJune, and though I hadn’t

laid eyes on her, I hadalreadynamedher:Tula,awonderful old southernname I’d always loved. Ihad searched out thename’soriginsandloveditevenmore.Tulawas fromtheSanskrit for “balance,”or from “tulayati,”meaning“toliftup.”Thecloudsranonaheadof me and I crossed into

Gettysburg,aplaceofsuchsacred ground andmemory that it threw myown life into thepanoramic mist where itbelonged. I drove into themilitaryparkandontotheold battlegrounds, and Istopped at the cemeterylong enough to pay myrespects. Then I got backin the car and kept ongoing.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

MY EDITOR, KATE MEDINA,

UNDERSTOOD THE VISION of thisbook from its conception;my thanks are on everypage. Louise Erdrich,darkling sister, wasinvaluable as both writerandfriend.Myagent,LaneZachary, offered her usual

blend of enthusiasm andBuddhist calm. AndreaCohen, poet and jokester,remindedmealwaysoftheseriousnessofhumor.The emotional stayingpowerIneededtotellthisstory came from manysources. For their graceand kindness, within thestory itself and to meafterward,mygreatthanks

and love toMarkMorelli,Sandra Shea, RebeccaKnapp,andDavidHerzog.My home fires were

tended by an exceptionalgroupoffriends:PeterandPatWright,KathyandLeoDe Natale, Avery Rimer,Rick Weissbourd, PeterJames, Marjorie Gatchell,Eliza Gagnon, LouisaWilliams,andtheSaturday

night gang. Amy Kantorand Beth Shepherd tookcareofmeineveryway.Iknow it would makeCaroline happy that thislist is so long and full.Finally, my love andgratitude to Dick Chasin,whoknewthedepthofmygriefaswellasthejourneythroughit.

ABOUTTHEAUTHOR

GAIL CALDWELL was awardedthe Pulitzer Prize forDistinguished Criticism in2001. She is the formerchief book critic of TheBoston Globe and theauthor of A Strong WestWind. She lives inCambridge,Massachusetts.

DiscussionQuestionsfor

Let’sTaketheLongWay

Home

Discussion Questions forLet’s Take the Long WayHomebyGailCaldwell

1.Thebook’ssubtitleis

“AMemoirofFriendship.”Whyitisnotsimply“AMemoir,”andwhatdoesthissayaboutthebookasawhole?Whosestory,atheart,wouldyousaythisis?

2.Caldwellwrites,“FindingCarolinewaslikeplacingapersonaladforanimaginary

friend,thenhavinghershowupatyourdoorfunnierandbetterthanyouhadconceived.”Shegoesontodescribetheir“tattingcenter,”andthesecretcodesthattiedtheirlivestogether.Towhatdegreedoyouthinkthestrengthofafriendshipdependson

beingabletodisappearintoanimaginaryworldtogether,todevelopasecretcodethatonlythefriendsunderstand?HowdoyouseethisplayingoutinLet’sTaketheLongWayHome?Whataboutinyourownlife?

3.GailandCarolinehaveagreatdealincommon,buttheyalsohaveverydifferentpersonalities.Thereisadarkeredgetotheirfriendship,too:Caldwellcallsita“swampland,”“theworldofenvyandrivalryandself-doubt,”thecompetitiveness

betweenthetwowomenintheirwriting,onthewater,andinlife.Inwhatwaysaretheysimilar,andinwhatwaysdifferent?Doyouthinktheseelementsstrengthenorweakentheirbond?

4.BothGailandCarolinehave

relationshipswithmen,andyetthecoreoftheirfriendshipseemstocontainasingularintimacyofthekindthatexistsbetweenwomen.Doesthatbondcalltomindfriendshipsorrelationshipsinyourownlife?

5.Inasceneonthe

HarvardUniversitysportsfields,Caldwellsays,“Weusedtolaughthatpeoplewithcommonsenseorwithoutdogsweresomewhereinawarmrestaurant,ortraveling,orotherwiselivingthesortoflifethatallofusthink,fromtimetotime,thatweoughttobe

livingoratleastdesiring.”OneofthethingsGailandCarolinediscussinthecourseoftheirfriendshipiswhethertheyare“livingtheirlivescorrectly”—whethertheyaretakingfulladvantageofthetimetheyhave.Doyouthinkthereisa“correct”wayto

live,andifso,whatdoyouthinkshoulddictatethepriorities?Isitrealistictotrytoavoidwastingtime,oristhatnecessaryto“correctliving”?DoyouthinkLet’sTaketheLongWayHomeoffersanykindofanswertothisquestion?

6.“Whattheynevertellyouaboutgriefisthatmissingsomeoneisthesimplepart.”WhatdoyouthinkCaldwellmeansbythis?

7.InwhatwaysdoesClementine’sarrivalchangeGail’slife,onbothapracticalandanemotionallevel?Shecomparesdog

ownershiptohavingchildren,butmakesthepointthat“thismysterious,intelligentanimalIhadbroughtintomylifeseemedtomenotastand-in,butablessing.”

8.Astheauthorisstrugglingtoovercomeheralcoholism,shehas

twoconversationsthathelpchangethewaysheseestheworldandherexperiences.Inone,atherapisttellsherthat“If…Icouldkeeponlyonethingaboutyou,itwouldbeyourtoo-muchness.”Later,heralcoholismcounselor,Rich,says,“Don’tyouknow?Theflawisthethingwe

love.”Doyouagree?Canyouthinkofexamples,inthebookorinyourownlife,thatproveordisprovetheseideas?

9.Let’sTaketheLongWayHomedoesn’thaveamemoir’straditional,chronologicalnarrativestructure.

Howdoyouthinkthiscontributestotheeffectandemotionalimpactofthebookoverall?Doesitreflectthenatureofthefriendshipitself?CouldCaldwellhavetoldherstoryanyotherway?

10.DoyouseeGail,asacharacter,changein

thecourseofthebook—havingdiscovered,andthenlost,bothCarolineandClementine?Whatwouldyousayshehasgained?

11.Caldwelltellsamovinganecdoteaboutusingthe“alpharoll”whilesheistraining

Clementine.Itisatechniquemeanttoestablishthedogowner’sauthority,butitdoesn’tworkatallonthemischievouspuppy;asshecontinuestotryandfail,Caldwellsuddenlyseesaparallelbetweenherownchildhoodrelationshipwithher

fatherandsensesthatthewholeapproachiswrong.“Fromthatmomenton,everythingchangedbetweenus.WhereverIdanced,shefollowed.”Whatlessonsmightwealllearnfromthisstory?

12.Lossisatthecenterofthebook—we

knowfromthefirstseveralpagesthatCarolinewilldie—andCaldwellwritesaboutthenewworldwithoutCarolineinit,wheresheexperiencedrageanddespairand“theviolenceoftimeitself.”Doesherdescriptionofgriefmirroranyofyour

ownexperiences?

13.CarolineandGailhaveaprivategameinwhichtheyassignadogbreedtoeachpersontheyknow.Forfun,whatkindofdogwouldyoube?Whataboutyourbestfriend?Yourworstenemy?

Visitwww.LetsTaketheLongWayHome.comtoshareyourthoughtsaboutthisbook,watchaspecialvideo,andviewphotosofGailand

Caroline.

You’vereadaboutGailandCaroline’sfriendshipinLet’sTaketheLong

WayHome.

NowreadCarolineKnapp’srevealingmemoir,Drinking.

AlsoavailablefromTheRandomHousePublishingGroup:

AStrongWestWindbyGailCaldwell

PackofTwobyCarolineKnapp

Thisisaworkofnonfiction,howeverthenamesofsomeindividualsinvolvedhavebeenchangedinordertodisguisetheir

identities.Anyresultingresemblancetopersonslivingordeadisentirelycoincidentaland

unintentional.

Copyright©2010byGailCaldwell

Allrightsreserved.PublishedintheUnitedStatesby

RandomHouse,animprintofTheRandomHousePublishingGroup,adivisionofRandomHouse,Inc.,

NewYork.

RANDOMHOUSEandcolophonareregisteredtrademarksofRandom

House,Inc.

LIBRARYOFCONGRESSCATALOGING-IN-

PUBLICATIONDATA

Caldwell,Gail.Let’stakethelongwayhome:amemoiroffriendship/Gail

Caldwell.p.cm.

eISBN:978-1-58836-989-51.Knapp,Caroline,1959–2002—Friendsandassociates.2.Caldwell,Gail—Friendsandassociates.3.Journalists—UnitedStates—Biography.4.Critics—UnitedStates—Biography.I.Title.PN4874.K575C352010070.92—dc22[B]2009029384

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