I've never really had James, not like I had my Albert. Albert was mine, body and soul. The only part of him I didn't have to myself was what he gave to Joshua, and I shared that. That's why it was so hard for me to believe that he'd leave me.

Oh, yes, I know he died. I know that it was that tiny bit of metal that killed him. He was trying to pull a stump. He wanted to expand the vegetable garden, and refused to just go around that deep rooted chunk of devil-be-damned wood. Goddamn him, he was as stubborn as the wood itself. Lord, I miss him.

He couldn't do it with just a shovel and levers and axes, not even with Ron and Jerry helping him, and he was determined. When he wanted to use the jeep to haul, they refused, trying to argue him out of it. Said it was too dangerous. He was hell bent. He wrapped a chain around the stump, hitched it to the jeep, and told me to drive. I never could refuse that man anything. This time it killed him.

He went behind it and worked the lever, trying to loosen it while I ground the gears. He got frustrated, said it was almost ready to go, and told me to punch it. I did, and the chain snapped. The jeep leapt forward, and I was half across the clearing before I could get to the brakes. I looked back with a smile, expecting to see the stump on the chain behind me, and Albert standing triumphant at the edge of a raw, torn up hole in the earth.

All that was behind me was a short length of chain. The stump was still in the ground, and Albert was lying beside it. I think they heard me scream down in Denver.

It brought everyone. Thank God Lally had enough sense to catch Joshua before he could get too close. He was toddling as fast as his chubby legs would take him, bawling at the top of his lungs. She had bruises for days from where he kicked her, trying to get down and run to his mommy and daddy, but she didn't let go.

I fell getting out of the jeep, and I crawled till I could get my feet under me. Then I ran back toward the three men, still screaming. Jerry tried to stop me before I got there. He was a big boy, even then in his mid-teens, but he wasn't any match for a crazy woman. I tore away from him and ran to where Ron was kneeling over my husband. For a second, I almost felt calm. I looked at him, and I didn't see anything wrong. He was laying there, dark eyes staring up at me with a surprised look. His mouth was a little open, like he was thinking about saying something. Then I saw the thick blood oozing from the half dollar sized hole almost hidden by his thick black hair, just over his left ear. I saw the white chips, and the pulpy grey matter. A link had popped loose from the snapping chain. In the infinitely cruel manner of all random events, it had hit the one living being within the reach of it's scope. It killed my Albert. It killed my soul.

But the horror wasn't quite complete, because as I watched, a small, jittery shiver passed through Albert's body. I screamed again, reaching for him, and this time it was Ron who grabbed me, and I couldn't get loose from him. I beat at him. I bit like a bitch dog. I kept screaming for him to let me go, to get Lally, get him down the mountain. He was alive, and we had to save him. Ron wouldn't let me go. He said, He's gone, Just. He was dead when I touched him. His body just doesn't know it yet, like when you strike off a snake's head.

I looked again, looking at his eyes, and I knew Ron was right. Albert just wasn't there anymore. He'd left his earthly clay on the ground and gone on. He'd left me. I'd killed him, and he'd left me.

I know now that wasn't really what it was. If anyone on earth had a hand in Albert's death, it was his own cussed, stubborn self for not being willing to give up on a bad, dangerous job. He never would have left me if he had any choice. I knew that, in my mind. But it hasn't stopped what I feel in my heart.

For a long time I stopped feeling, because it just hurt too much. We buried Albert a little further up the mountain, between some aspen trees. In the autumn the leaves spin over him like gold coins, then blanket him to keep him warm through the snows. In the spring wildflowers grow. I like to think that he's part of them now. Joshua brought me some of them once, a bunch of pink and purple. Said they were from him and daddy. I didn't cry. I didn't cry for over a year. I moved, I talked, I cared for my son, but I was just as dead as Albert. The only difference was I way lying in a cold, lonely bed instead of beneath warm mother earth.

I started coming back to life about a year after Albert's death. I'd gone down the mountain into town with Ron. I was ready to start teaching Joshua. It was a little bit early, but he's such a bright boy, and he wanted to learn. I got all the rules and guidelines from the school system that I would need for my tutoring to be officially acceptable, then I went shopping for books and supplies.

I was on the sidewalk with my load of books, waiting while Ron spoke with someone when a man with the prettiest eyes I've ever seen came up and spoke to my brother. They knew each other, or knew of each other, and Ron introduced me to him. James.

James wasn't like my Albert. I know that Albert, though he was beautiful to me, was considered a plain man. James, with his pointed chin and high, wide cheekbones, curly dark blonde hair and remarkable blue-green eyes, is almost pretty. I noticed that absently. It was as it had been with all things since Albert went away. I was aware, but it did not involve me.

But then he touched the pile of books in my arms. "You"re a teacher?"

"No. I'm teaching my boy. He's six, and I'm home schooling."

"I love kids. What's his name?"

"Joshua."

Those sea-and-sky eyes are gazing into mine. "Named for his daddy?"

"No, his daddy was named Albert." Then I spoke the words I had avoided for so long. "He's dead, last spring."

With those words, I felt the first crack in the blankness that enveloped me. He touched my arm, whispering, "God, I'm so sorry." The crack widened, and I really looked at him. Before we left, he asked if he might see me again the next time we come down the mountain, and I agreed.

It was almost a month till our next trip, and I found that during those weeks, I was thinking of him. How his hand had felt on my arm, how soft and sad his eyes had been when I spoke of Albert's passing. I wondered how it would have felt if, instead of just touching my arm, he had given me a comforting embrace. Albert believed in touching. He hugged a lot, he couldn't pass me without touching me somehow: hair, arms, cheek. We slept each night tangled together. Joshua had his own room from the start because, much as he loved his son, Albert was not going to restrain himself in love making. I wasn't aware of how hollow I felt till I met James. I look back now and almost hate myself. What a cliche: the horny widow.

We came down in the early morning, and Ron dropped me off at a diner. He would be back for me that afternoon, after he did whatever it was he came down to do. I didn't know. I never asked. James was waiting for me. He'd brought me a single rose. I kept smelling it and touching it to my face as we rode in his van. Albert used to give me flowers, handfuls of the tiny, star shaped blossoms that would appear in the clearing after a spring rain.

When the van stopped moving and I looked up, we were parked in front of a motel. I looked at James questioningly. He didn't speak, he just gazed back at me. No questions, no explanations, no arguments or wheedling or coaxing. He just waited. After a moment, I opened my door and got out.

In the room he still didn't speak. He kissed me with slow, devouring hunger. It wasnt Albert, but it was someone needing me, wanting me. The blankness split farther apart, and some of the world started to seep back through. He undressed me, stroking and kissing every inch he uncovered. Every inch.

He made love to me, still slow and patient. I was ashamed of my own responses to this man, this strange man. Albert had been my first lover, my only lover, and now this. Now here I was in an anonymous motel, on cheap sheets with another man rising and falling on me, moving in and out of my body, the body that had never known anyone but Albert.

I was feeling. For the first time in months, I actually felt something. Someone wanted me the same way Albert had, and I could fulfill that need. I could give again. I climaxed, and the world rushed back in.

Later, before we left, he had other needs. After some persuasion, I met them, too. I'd had Albert in my mouth a few times, when we were feeling particularly daring, or a little drunk. That wasn't so much a problem. I didn't like it when he sodomized me, though. It hurt, no matter how gentle he was. But he kept telling me how good I was, how brave, how sweet, how much pleasure I was giving him, how grateful he was. I endured. In the end, I even tried to make it better for him, pushing back to meet the last few agonizing thrusts. That pleased him.

Afterward he held me. I had almost forgotten how it felt to be held like that. I was back to the world now, awake and dear God, I thought so aware, and I didn't want to lose it. I was afraid that the numbness would return. He seemed to be holding it back for me, so I told him I loved him. I think it was true, in a way. You almost have to love someone if you think they saved you.

Before we left the motel he said he loved me, too. I was relieved. As old as I was, I still didn't realize how easy it is for some people to say that.

He came to me soon after that. He became my man, and I began to know him. I came to know he wasn't patient all the time. Lord, he isn't patient most of the time. I saw his reluctance toward hard labor, his casual concept of truth, the fact that he might tolerate children, but most certainly did not love them, and I learned about his temper.

He never hits me in public, and he seldom leaves a mark He hasn't been so discrete in his carnal pursuits, though. There aren't that many opportunities, living as we do, but he finds them. He always disappears when we go to town, and returns later smelling of another woman.

He got careless last summer at the barbecue. He thought he'd be safe in his van with that little Ashton girl, but her boyfriend went looking for her, and saw it rocking on it's shocks, and guessed. Her boyfriend dragged her out by her hair, half naked, and beat her bloody before they could stop him. Ron and Jerry caught James as he was zipping up his pants and started thrashing him. They only stopped because I threw myself over him, screaming at them. I'll never forget the looks on their faces: outrage mingled with grief, and near stupefied disbelief. I wouldn't let them hurt him.

He was contrite. He apologized. He begged me to forgive him, not to send him away. How could I do that? We had Jacob already, and I was near five months gone with Janelle. He claimed that was why it happened. This wasn't an easy pregnancy, not like my first two. I was trying to keep him satisfied with my mouth and hands, and he said he had needed more. He had given in to his weakness, but it wouldn't happen again. I took him back.

Why? Because I need him. He's what stands between me and the blankness. If I lose him the numbness might return, and I've decided that is the worst thing that can happen to me. Better pain than the blankness. And James can supply the pain