In the north country it wasn’t like Florida where the weather, except in hurricane season, was bland. Our guys got to use their weather maps and projections and plots of fronts coming down from the north since Canada seemed to be at fault for almost all the bad weather we got. The temperature didn’t fall below seventy-five that night. My sheets felt like wet winding rags. I couldn’t get them off my legs when I turned. Kicking and peeling them from my skin brought me wide awake. Sorrow was in bed with me, his large, warm, furry body laid out alongside mine. I gave him a push and he rolled to the floor with a huge complaint. So like Jackson in the latter days of our marriage, it made me wonder again why I’d ever thought a mangled-fur, ugly dog was the answer to all my problems. I got out of bed at four a.m., got a cold diet Coke from the refrigerator, took a shower, and went to sit on the deck with my feet propped on the railing, praying I wasn’t sitting atop a tent worm cocoon.
