dozen words or so—one of them was now my name—but I’ve read that their understanding is much greater, and she knew what I was telling her. The little face wrinkled up, she held her arms out again, and tears filled those blue eyes that were the same shade as my mother’s and my dead sister’s.
“Go quick,” Con said, “or you’ll have to adopt her.”
So I went. Back to my rental car, back to Portland Jetport, back to Denver International, back to Nederland. But I kept thinking of those chubby outstretched arms, and those tear-filled Morton Blue eyes. She was just a year old, but she had wanted me to stay longer. That’s how you know you’re home, I think, no matter how far you’ve gone from it or how long you’ve been in some other place.
Home is where they want you to stay longer.
• • •
During March of 2014, after most of the ski-bunnies had left Vail, Aspen, Steamboat Springs, and our own Eldora Mountain—came news of a monster blizzard approaching. Our piece of the famed Polar Vortex had dropped four feet on Greeley already.
I hung in at Wolfjaw for most of the day, helping Hugh and Mookie batten down the studios and the big house. I stayed until the wind began to pick up and the first flurries started to scatter down from the leaden skies. Then Georgia came out, dressed in a barncoat, earmuffs, and a Wolfjaw Ranch gimme cap. She was in full scold-mode.
“You send those guys home,” she told Hugh. “Unless you want them stuck side o’ the road somewhere until June.”
“Like the Donner Party,” I said. “But I’d never eat Mookie. Too tough.”
“Go on, you two, scat,” Hugh said. “Just double-check the studio doors on your way down to the road.”
We did so, and checked the barn for good measure. I even took the time to dole out apple slices, although Bartleby, my favorite, had died three years ago. By the time I dropped Mookie off at his rooming house, it was snowing hard and the wind was blowing thirty or more. Downtown Nederland was deserted, the traffic lights swinging and drifts already piling up in the doorways of shops that had closed early for the day.
“Get home fast!” Mookie shouted to be heard over the wind. He had knotted his bandanna over his mouth and nose, making him look like an elderly outlaw.
I did as he said, the wind shouldering at my car like a bad-tempered bully the whole way. It pushed me even harder as I made my way up the walk, clutching my collar to my face, which was clean-shaven and unprepared for what Colorado winter felt like when it decided to get serious. I had to use both hands to yank the foyer door shut once I was inside.
I checked my mailbox and saw a single letter. I pulled it out, and one glance was enough to tell me who it was from. Jacobs’s handwriting had grown shaky and spidery, but was still recognizable. The only surprise was the return address: General Delivery, Motton, Maine. Not quite my hometown, but right next door. Too close for comfort, in my opinion.
I tapped the envelope against my palm and almost obeyed my first impulse, which was to rip it to pieces, open the door, and scatter the shreds to the wind. I still imagine doing that—every day, sometimes every hour—and wonder what might have changed if I’d done so. Instead, I turned it over. There, written in the same unsteady hand, was a single sentence: You will want to read this.
I didn’t, but tore it open, anyway. I pulled out a single sheet of paper wrapped around a smaller envelope. Written on the face of this second envelope was Read my letter before opening this one. So I did.
God help me, so I did.
March 4, 2014
Dear Jamie,
I have obtained both of your e-mail addresses, business and personal (as you know, I have my methods), but I am an old man now, with an old man’s ways, and believe that important personal business should be conducted by letter and, when possible, by hand. As you can see, “by hand” is still possible for me, although for how much longer I do not know. I had a minor stroke in the fall of 2012, and another one, rather more serious, last summer. I hope you will excuse the execrable state of my handwriting.
I have another reason for reaching out to you by letter. It’s all