He thinks of home, of childhood. The barefoot freedom of soft earthen paths. The warm bark of a tree that somehow felt like his mother's skin. He thinks of the white house held safe in the arms of tall trees that whispered him to sleep at night. The stained glass window in the front door that reflected different worlds: yellow, red, green, blue. And a long, high-ceilinged hallway, alternating stripes of shadow and light. Summers were the days of clear streams whose sweet water curled around his fingers and toes. Long days of being chased through the whispering trees by gentle sun-scented winds. He remembers the way his mother smelled, safe, like baking bread. His father was the sweet smell of tobacco and the feel of a favorite book, worn by many readings, under his fingers.

He thinks of her. The first time he saw her standing like a young tree silhouetted against the sky. He remembers her hands. The laughter that drew them together. The comfortable silences that bound them forever. He remembers their first kiss and the way her name felt in his mouth. The way their hands fit together, like the grooves of two halves of a shell.

He tries to think but can't remember him. He remembers putting on his Sunday clothes and his Sunday face and sitting for eternities on the hard family pew, struggling to maintain a solemn Sunday expression. He remembers Christmas, the smell of evergreen.

He touches a dark place in his mind and he remembers that she is dead. He wonders if she has started to decompose, if her coffin has broken apart in the earth. Her wholeness lost, her body now just a sweet smelling disruption in the earth. He would like to hold her again.

He remembers the day their daughter, Hope, was born. The happiest day of his life. He remembers the clean sweet baby smell and her golden curly head, like a dimple of sunshine. Her first words, her first steps, her many questions. Daddy, if I climb that tree can I touch the sky? The way she buttoned up her eyes when she slept, two fingers in her mouth. Her trust in him, his faith in her.

He remembers the day he killed a man, his brother. The house dark, the muffled sounds that filled him with an icy numbness. The doorknob to his bedroom that seemed to sear his hand, the door itself that weighed a thousand tons. The anguish that darkly exploded inside him. And the heady rush of power he felt when he saw the dead man on the floor, his brother's blood on his hands. He remembers the whispered apologies, the sheets pulled up against her if they could protect her, and the way his pocketknife felt.