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Prologue

The sky above the mountains was stained with the last pastels of a
mediocre sunset.

Headlights approached from the east.

Cruz climbed from the raw dirt to the bucket, jumped from the
bucket up to the ground, killed the diesel, and prepared to meet
the maintenance supervisor halfway between the fresh grave and the
truck.

The work was running late.

The Ford rolled to a stop on the crushed granite with its brights
aimed directly at the grave. Ramirez stepped down from the pickup's
cab and marched toward the hole. Crazy shadows bent every which way
as the beams from the truck and the wash from the floods above the
excavator competed to obliterate the creeping darkness.

One at a time, Ramirez rubbed the tops of his cowboy boots on the
calves of his jeans. Not content with the results, he polished the
leather on one boot a second time before he tucked his right hand
into the pocket of his down vest, turned his head, and spit.
Ramirez kept his boots shinier than a new quarter. If he was
outside he almost always spit before he spoke a word.

"Should've been done an hour ago. Two things," he said to Cruz,
holding up his left hand like a peace sign. "Don't like one-man
crews." He folded down his index finger, leaving his middle finger
pointing skyward in unintended profanity. "Don't like digging in
the dark. Alonso knows that. People get hurt. I'm
two-hundred-twelve straight days nobody hurt. Tomorrow's
two-thirteen. Understand?"

Cruz's eyes were focused on the ground in front of Ramirez. "All
done diggin', Mr. R. --- had to pull a couple big rocks. That
slowed us, but I'm just about to get the placer set and the drapes
hung. Alonso said it's an early internment, wants everything ready
before I go. I know that's the way you like it too."

Ramirez was oblivious to being played. Alonso joked that the man
wouldn't spot an ass-kiss unless the suck-up used Crazy Glue for
lipstick.

The boss looked around --- the trailer with the folding chairs
wasn't near the grave. "What about chairs?"

"Alonso'll bring 'em out in the morning --- said nobody wants to
sit on a chair covered with dew."

"Doo?" Ramirez asked. "Why the heck would there be any doo on the
chairs?"

Cruz coughed to disguise a laugh. "Sitting out at night? That kind
of dew?"

Ramirez spit again. He pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket and
angled it so that it was illuminated by the Ford's headlights. "I
want forty-eight. I want a center aisle, and I want 'em in place by
eight-fifteen. Not eight-twenty." He stuffed the paper back into
his jeans and gestured toward the fresh rectangular scar in the
sweep of bluegrass. The lawn was just beginning to green up for
spring. "Right there. Between there and the path. Sun at their
backs."

"No problem, Mr. R."

The shiny chrome components of the equipment that would manage the
weight of the casket as it was lowered into the grave were already
lined up square beside the hole. Ramirez knew his grave digger's
job was almost done. He spit again, shooting saliva four feet to
his left through the fat gap in his front teeth.

"Eight-fifteen. I mean it. Gonna be cold. Some wind maybe. Where
the heck is Alonso anyway?" he asked.

Alonso had worked maintenance at the cemetery for eighteen years.
He operated the compact excavator at gravesites. His most important
job, though, was keeping the short-timers in the corral, which
saved Ramirez a lot of work and even more aggravation. Alonso used
up most of the accumulated goodwill trying to keep an eye on his
adopted teenage daughter. He used what was left to create some
cover to for the younger members of the crew, kids like Cruz who
tended to be less diligent than their mentor.

Cruz said, "Toothache. Dentist."

Getting Alonso to take off early had promised to be the trickiest
part of what Cruz was doing. The plan had been to fake an emergency
call from Alonso's daughter's school. It seemed that happened at
least once a week, anyway. The abscess was a gift.

"No moving that equipment," Ramirez said. "We both know you're not
ready for that." He laughed at the thought of Cruz driving the
little excavator.

"Soon as I'm done squaring it off I'll lift the bucket and set the
frame. We have that other plot to dig --- the double by the lake? I
promised Alonso I'd get the installer on this one and get the
drapes done tonight. He'll move the digger over there early and
we'll start on that double as soon as the mourners are gone."

Ramirez didn't reply.

The boss's silence caused Cruz's anxiety to rustle. "Alonso wasn't
sure you wanted a canopy up for the family. Sun'll be low when the
service starts. No weather coming, but we've had that wind the past
couple of mornings." Cruz thought Ramirez was leaning forward,
examining the grave. "If you want a canopy, Mr. R., just say the
word. I'll throw it on the trailer and bring it out with the
chairs."

Ramirez took his hands from his pockets. He spit. "Almost
done?"

"Five minutes. Clean up the hole a little. Line up the placer,
check the rollers, tighten the straps. Drape it just the way you
like."

Ramirez spit again. "Want a hand?"

Ramirez didn't much like labor. He viewed himself as a supervisor,
even if the only one he supervised was Alonso, who didn't need any
watching. Alonso did all the real herding of the crew of kids who
cut the grass, plowed the snow, placed the headstones, and did the
shovel work on the deep caverns in the bluegrass. Had Cruz asked
for actual help Ramirez would have pretended that his pager went
off and he had someplace important to be.

Like his "office" in the equipment shed.

"No, Mr. R. I'm cool. Square corners, level base, perfect
depth."

Ramirez took two steps toward the grave. Two more and he'd be able
to see the bottom of the hole without any trouble, and he'd be able
to make his own judgment about how level that base was and how
square those corners were. "You like the Hepburn?"

Ramirez was asking about the new casket placer they'd been using
since the beginning of the month. The contraption cost a fortune.
He liked to show it off whenever he could like he was displaying a
new car on his driveway to make his neighbor envious.

Cruz nodded, "Sets up much faster than the old one, Mr. R. Much
smoother, too. The bearings on the rollers on that old one were ---
"

The boss didn't like the word "shit" so he completed the sentence
himself. "I know. Shouldn't be no squealing around funerals. Finish
up then."

The lights danced again as Ramirez walked back toward the truck. He
stopped for a moment in a position that left his shadow covering
the black rectangle of the grave. "I get wind you moved that
digger, I'll fire your ass. Understand?"

"Mark it right where it's at. That's where it'll be in the morning.
All I'm going to do is lift the bucket."

Ramirez pulled himself into his truck. Behind him the profile of
the Front Range marked a jagged break between the darkening sky and
the frantic lights of Boulder at rush hour.

Cruz knelt down and tested the rollers, just for show. The new
equipment was working fine.

The taillights of Ramirez's Ford disappeared down the access
road.

Only one more thing to finish before installing the Hepburn and
hanging the drapes. Cruz hopped onto the bucket, dropped back down
into the grave, and said, "Bingo."

One

I thought I spotted a rosy glimmer in the water sluicing through
the fountain.

My next patient was sitting calmly ten feet away, covered in
blood.

I thought, I don't need this.

Diane Estevez, my long time partner and friend, had recently
decided to renovate the waiting room of the old house that held our
clinical psychology offices. She thought the time had come for the
parlor's evolution into a transitional space, like the quiet stone
and bamboo anterooms she loved to visit prior to being welcomed
into a favorite spa.

The focus of Diane's designing enthusiasm had a simple purpose ---
it was the spot where our patients hung out before their
psychotherapy appointments. To me, a simple purpose called for a
simple room.

Diane once shared that naive vision. But no longer --- the changes
she envisioned were far from mundane. When she began to
conceptualize her project the room was furnished with the
pedestrian crap we'd bought from office-supply catalogs when we'd
first hung our practice shingles. Her case for transformation was
simple: "We're not dentists and we shouldn't have a dentist's
waiting room."

I'd replied that I thought the room was fine, but my argument was
pro-forma. In the best of times I lacked the will to stand up to a
determined Diane.

Diane was determined. It wasn't the best of times. Not even
close.

#

Is that . . . blood? I thought. I just don't need this.

Diane and I had co-owned the little Victorian house for
a long time. The building was on the edge of the once-sleepy,
once-light industrial side of downtown Boulder, the few blocks
closest to the foothills, a neighborhood that after a couple of
decades of determined gentrification had earned the moniker the
"West End."

The natural light in the waiting room came from a pair of
north-facing double-hung windows. The dusty mini-blinds came down
and bronze curtain rods as thick as my wrist replaced them. Soon
the indirect sunlight was being filtered through silk panels that
were the color of the worms that had spun the threads. Diane had a
name for the hue that I forgot within seconds of hearing it. New
lamps --- two table, one floor --- provided just enough
illumination to allow reading. The shades on the lamps were made
from nubby linen in a color that was a second cousin to the one
she'd chosen for the drapes.

"Organicity," Diane had explained for my benefit. "It's
crucial."

No, I hadn't asked.

As resolute as Diane was to transform, that's how committed I was
to stay out of her way.

Paint? Of course. Not one color, but four --- two for the walls,
one each for the trim and ceiling. The new furniture --- four
chairs, two tables --- reflected Diane's interpretation of
"serene." Two chairs were upholstered and contemporary. Two were
black leather/black wood sling-y things, and contemporary. The rug
was woven from wool from special sheep somewhere --- I thought
she'd said South America but I hadn't really been paying attention
and the sheep may have been shorn of their coats in Wales or Russia
or one of the nearby 'stans, maybe Kazakhstan. The rug ---
indifferent stripes of muted purples in piles of various heights
--- was placed so that it cut diagonally across the ebony stain
Diane had chosen for the old fir floor. She'd put the rug in place
one morning while I was in a session with a patient; I came out to
greet my next appointment to all its angularity and hushed
purple-ness.

"Need to break the symmetry, Alan. We can't have too much balance,"
Diane explained to me over our lunch break.

Neither symmetry nor its absence had ever caused me angst. But I
said, "Of course." The alternative would have been to ask "Why
not?" Diane's answer to my unstated question likely would have
troubled me. I feared that I would have had to set my feet and
steel myself for the words "feng shui."

I didn't want to have to do that. I really didn't.

As a lure to join her for the waiting room picnic she'd picked up
take-out from Global Chili-Chilly on Broadway. The bait had worked.
My role, I suspected, was to applaud as she admired the purple and
the stripes. My mouth was on fire but the curry was good so I
didn't mind the heat. Truth was, I didn't really mind the rug
either.

She'd also reached a fresh perspective about the magazines we
provided. The titles should be, in her words, "Neutrals. We need to
see our clients where they are --- we don't want their reading to
take them anywhere they aren't."

We don't? We didn't. Despite an almost irresistible
temptation I didn't question her vision of neutrality even when she
added O to the list of magazines on the table. I could
tell that she wasn't thrilled that I wanted to keep the
subscription to The New Yorker. She merely shook her head
and sighed when I admitted that I'd just signed up for another year
of Sports Illustrated.

I treated patients who liked to read it, I explained. My rationale,
especially in the context of our discussion, sounded lame. She
didn't bother to inform me that the Swimsuit Edition would
never, ever find its way into our neutral space.

Diane didn't specify a fountain as the design of the room evolved,
but when she announced that the room lacked a focal point I knew
that running water was a coming attraction. I could feel it the way
I can taste a thunderstorm a quarter hour before the first
lightning bolt fractures the clarity of a July afternoon.

The water feature was the final piece to arrive. Diane had it
custom-made by a water artist who had a studio on a llama ranch a
couple of miles east of Niwot. I could tell that all of the details
--- the ranch, Niwot, the llamas --- were important to her. I
didn't ask for particulars. Again, I didn't really want to
know.

The fountain had been installed the previous weekend.

The red tint in the water? I couldn't make sense of it. I
really don't need this, I thought again.

The sculpture was a clever thing of black soapstone and heavily
patina-ed copper that sent water coursing through a series of six-
and eight-inch bamboo rods in a manner that I found phallic. Diane
was blind to any prurient facet of her gem so I kept the critique
to myself. Since the fountain's presence was a fait accompli I
comforted myself that the scale was right, even if the volume of
all the gushing water was a little too class-five-rapid-ish for the
size of the room.

I told her the fountain was "nice." I could tell that she'd been
hoping for something more effusive.

My share of the renovation was absurd. I wrote a check.

Why had I acquiesced when Diane had suggested that our waiting room
was overdue for transformation? Why had I agreed to let her do
whatever she wanted? Diane had suffered through a brutal couple of
years --- the waiting room project was important to her. I knew its
purpose had much more to do with her emotional health than with any
design imperatives. For her the room represented a new
beginning.

And basically I didn't give a shit.

Less than half a year before I'd watched a patient of mine killed
on the six o'clock news. That event had shaken me to my core.

I knew that my reaction to his death --- emotional withdrawal
mostly, my downhill slide lubricated with too much ETOH --- was
upsetting the equilibrium in my marriage. Controlling my decline
felt beyond me. The timing wasn't ideal. My wife's MS, always a
worry, was in a precarious phase. She and I each needed caretaking.
Neither of us was in great shape to give it.

That's why I was way too weary to quarrel about remodeling with a
friend I adored. The design of the waiting room wasn't likely to
climb high on my ladder-of-life concerns. Dental? Psychological?
Didn't matter.

I drew a solitary line in the sand at Diane's request for piped in
yoga music. She didn't call it yoga music; she'd said something
about needing the sound of humility in the space. I knew what kinds
of tunes she wanted. She was talking Enya.

Uh uh.

She didn't argue when I vetoed the background drones. Her silence
didn't indicate abdication. She planned to wait me out. If I was
serious about wanting to keep Enya at bay I would need to be
vigilant.

I doubted that I had the energy to keep my flanks defended.

Diane knew me well. Well enough to know that about me.

I was slow, but I got there.

Holy shit, he's covered in blood.

The pink hue and the slimy red worms of coagulating plasma that
were streaking through the water in the fountain had befuddled me
at first --- naively, I didn't immediately consider either sign to
be alarming. My initial, fleeting impression was that Diane had
introduced yet another new design concept into our waiting room
ambiance and I was too far out of the current consciousness loop to
recognize it for what it was.

Only seconds before I opened the door and spotted the fouled
fountain I'd been walking down the hall from my office to retrieve
my next appointment, a young man named Kol Cruz whom I'd seen only
twice before. As I turned my attention from the perplexing fountain
and its pink water I spotted Kol sitting on one of Diane's new
chairs opposite the water feature. Despite the profusion of blood
--- the glimmering mess covered his hands, arms, and face as well
as the front of his shirt, his fleece vest, and his trousers from
the knees up --- he seemed reasonably serene.

The waiting room was having the effect that Diane so cherished ---
for Kol her design intervention seemed to be having an anxialytic
impact equivalent to high dose beta-blockers or IV Valium.

"I tried to wash up," Kol said without looking at me. Although he
sometimes glanced toward my face his gaze never settled higher than
my mouth.

On closer examination, the rosy mess on his delicate hands and arms
did appear to be diluted. I was still thinking I don't need
this, but I was also reflexively preparing to try to do
something useful, even --- well --- therapeutic.

I reminded myself of a lesson from my distant internship training
in a psychiatric ER: The single most important thing to do during
an emergency is to take one's own pulse. After that? In the current
circumstances I had no idea. I didn't know whether Kol needed a
seventy-two hour hold, an ambulance, stitches, or a big roll of
Brawny.

"Are you still bleeding?"

"No," he said.

Okay. "Is that . . . your blood?" The alternative was
worrisome.

"Yes."

I was somewhat mollified. I put on a serious, concerned expression
and said, "Kol? Are you all right? Don't you think you need to . .
. maybe see a doctor? That's a lot of blood."

He said, "You are a doctor, Dr. Gregory."

Kol had me there.

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