were wet through when he boarded the Greyhound for Boston. Three rows
back, he found an empty seat by a window and looked out at the
glistening street. He saw a painting, full of light.

Waiting for Happiness

Spring comes late in Maine. Snow changes to rain; branch tips redden;
you can see your breath. Not a whole lot different than winter until
the daffodils, crab apples, and forsythia bloom. The sun skips off the
water, impossibly bright, impossibly blue. You can almost almost hear
the cracking of seeds, buried and forgotten.

Charlie Garrett was as hardnosed as most. He kept going, did what he
had to. "Ninety percent of success is showing up," Woody Allen said.
Charlie repeated that in dire times--before medical checkups or visits
to his brother, Orson.

Orson knew a lot about success and never hesitated to pass it on. "What
you need, Charlie, is a Cessna. You aren't supposed to spin them, but
you can. That'll clear your head, Charlie, straight down, counting as a
barn comes around--one time, two times, three times--correct and pull
out nice and easy." Orson dipped his knees, lowering his flattened
palm. Or a catboat: "A solid little Marshall, Charlie. Putter around,
take some cutie coasting. You're in sailor heaven, man, all those
islands."

"I know some cuties," Miranda had said.

"Last cutie took my silver garlic press. Well, she didn't take it; she
borrowed it and never returned it."

"Call her up and get it back," Orson said.

"That's what she wants you to do." Miranda was the best thing about
Orson.

"I got another one."

"Where the hell did you find a silver garlic press?" Orson was
impressed.

"It's aluminum, I think, or a composite material."

"Oh."

It was always like that; motion was Orson's answer to everything.
Charlie stretched and checked his watch. The ten o'clock ferry from
Peaks Island was edging to the dock. Soon a few dozen passengers would
walk off the ramp, carrying shopping bags, slipping day packs over one
or both shoulders, holding dogs on leashes. Margery, short and polite,
would be toward the end of the line, one hand on the railing, blinking
as she looked up at the city buildings and around for him.

They were similar physically and recognized each other as related, not
lovers, not brother and sister, but distant cousins perhaps or members
of a tribe--the patient, the witness bearers. "There you are," she
said. Charlie stood and they patted one another's shou