All of It

Sunday came too quickly, and now it was time to go back, but I stayed longer than usual, staying until the sun went down and after, staying until it was dark. Sherri and I watched the giant winter sunset in a treeless sky, cobalt and pink over a hilly field of yellow grasses, the temperature dropping with the sun until we were forced inside to get warm. We held onto one another without speaking, and then it was time to go. I said goodbye to her mother and her brothers. Then she walked me to the car.

"I'll call you on Wednesday," I said.

"Yes, Wednesday."

In the rearview mirror, I watched her watch me as I drove off down her street. She was still standing and waving when I turned the corner and was gone.

Driving back in the darkness, I did not see the changing land, did not see the developments growing thin, did not see the buildings growing older as though I was traveling back in time, back to some recent past. I could only feel the highway rise and fall, the hills becoming longer and steeper, headlights bobbing up and down. Sunday night. The hum of the tires, the whistling wind. North.

"Why're you so late?"

Mike was lying on the couch watching the NBC Sunday Night Mystery Movie. Tonight's show was Hec Ramsey.

"I left late."

"Man, I've been sick all weekend. I had the flu bad. I haven't left the trailer. I can't believe you're missing this."

Mike and I watched the Mystery Movie every Wednesday and Sunday nights. Our favorites were Columbo, Banacek, Hec Ramsey, and Tenafly. Lying on the couch, he looked at me like I had done something wrong.

"Really? I'm glad I wasn't here."

"I guess so," he said, then he started catching me up on what I'd missed so far. Richard Boone was pretty good in his role as a once tough sheriff who had turned to new scientific techniques to help him solve crimes at the end of the 19th century and the old cowboy west. I poured some milk and Mike moved his feet to make some room.

"You going to school tomorrow?" I asked.

"Yea, I feel a lot better."

And so we sat together in the pale light of the little color t.v. Mike's parents had given him, watching as Ramsey tried to convince another lawman that fingerprints would actually catch a thief. Old Hec knew that times were changing.

Mystery solved, we said goodnight and moved to our bedrooms at opposite ends of the trailer. It was a cold outside, and I could hear the heater in the hallway humming its electric reassurance. I pulled the blankets up over my shoulders and tight around my neck. The sheets began to warm, and soon I began to drift. I was here, I was there. It felt good. All of it.