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he walked a mile toward town to a little service station he remembered from the night before that also sold a few groceries. He bought milk, cheese, bread, and tomatoes. That afternoon, before it was time for them to come home, he left the rent money in cash on the table and went back into his own room. Late that night, before going to bed, he opened his notebook and on a clean page he wrote,
Nothing
.
    He adjusted his schedule to theirs. Mornings he’d stay in the room until he heard Sol in the kitchen making coffee and getting his breakfast. Then he would hear Sol calling Bonnie to get up and then they’d have breakfast, but they wouldn’t talk much. Then Sol would go out to the garage and start the pickup, back out, and drive away. In a little while, Bonnie’s ride would pull up in front of the house, a horn would toot, and Bonnie would say, every time, I’m coming.
    It was then that Myers would go out to the kitchen, put on water for coffee, and eat a bowl of cereal. But he didn’t havemuch of an appetite. The cereal and coffee would keep him for most of the day, until the afternoon, when he’d eat something else, a sandwich, before they arrived home, and then he’d stay out of the kitchen for the rest of the time when they might be in there or in the living room watching TV. He didn’t want any conversation.
    She’d go into the kitchen for a snack the first thing after she got in from work. Then she’d turn on the TV and wait until Sol came in, and then she’d get up and fix something for the two of them to eat. They might talk on the telephone to friends, or else go sit outside in the backyard between the garage and Myers’s bedroom window and talk about their day and drink iced tea until it was time to go inside and turn on the TV. Once he heard Bonnie say to someone on the telephone, How’d she expect me to pay any attention to Elvis Presley’s weight when my own weight was out of control at the time?
    They’d said he was welcome anytime to sit in the living room with them and watch TV. He’d thanked them but said, No, television hurt his eyes.
    They were curious about him. Especially Bonnie, who’d asked him one day when she came home early and surprised him in the kitchen, if he’d been married and if he had any kids. Myers nodded. Bonnie looked at him and waited for him to go on, but he didn’t.
    Sol was curious too. What kind of work do you do? he wanted to know. I’m just curious. This is a small town and I know people. I grade lumber at the mill myself. Only need one good arm to do that. But sometimes there are openings. I could put in a word, maybe. What’s your regular line of work?
    Do you play any instruments? Bonnie asked. Sol has a guitar, she said.
    I don’t know how to play it, Sol said. I wish I did.
    Myers kept to his room, where he was writing a letter to his wife. It was a long letter and, he felt, an important one. Perhaps the most important letter he’d ever written in his life. In theletter he was attempting to tell his wife that he was sorry for everything that had happened and that he hoped someday she would forgive him.
I would get down on my knees and ask forgiveness if that would help
.
    After Sol and Bonnie both left, he sat in the living room with his feet on the coffee table and drank instant coffee while he read the newspaper from the evening before. Once in a while his hands trembled and the newspaper began rattling in the empty house. Now and then the telephone rang, but he never made a move to answer it. It wasn’t for him, because nobody knew he was here.
    Through his window at the rear of the house he could see up the valley to a series of steep mountain peaks whose tops were covered with snow, even though it was August. Lower down on the mountains, timber covered the slopes and the sides of the valley. The river coursed down the valley, frothing and boiling over rocks and under granite embankments until it burst out of its confines at the mouth of the valley,