I had gone out to Branford expressly to pick up Matt’s portfolio from

freshman year so that he’d have it in time for sophomore review; my dad

and I were holding the rapidly disassembling sheaf of cardboard, duct tape

and drawings between us and struggling towards the car.

My dad never says things like this.

“I was reading a review of that new movie – “Stop Loss”, I think, about

young people coming back from the Iraq war – and the reviewer didn’t

really like it, but he described one scene, where I guess some woman

has left her fiancée right before the wedding, before he leaves for the war.

So he takes all the wedding presents, puts them on a tree stump in the

backyard, and shoots them to pieces.”

We hoisted the portfolio into the trunk just as its structural integrity was fatally

compromised.

He looked away. “I felt like that when my first wife left me.”

I nodded and got in the car.

Home on the range