"Father Chee?"

"Yes, Amber?"

"Why are dogs more humane than humans?"

"I don't know."

CHAPTER 24.

Right about the same time my mom's name starts showing up in the news, Private Jackson begins sending me one haiku a day in the mail.

He doesn't write a letter stating that he is sorry for my loss, nor does he ask how I am doing or any of that other c.r.a.p that doesn't help. He just sends poems. And his haikus are not aimed at inspiring me or making me feel better or helping me deal with the loss. With words, he simply takes snapshots of simple things for me-like a leaf, a bottle cap, a snowflake, a bird in flight, an ant, a single breath-and when I read these haikus I sorta trip out on the image that is never good or bad, happy or sad, exciting or boring.

These images just are.

I begin to really look forward to reading PJ's haikus, and going to check the mail is the only time I leave my new bedroom other than to use the bathroom.

Covering the four walls with Private Jackson's haikus-one page a day-I slowly make my room into a coc.o.o.n of poetry.

Here is the first one he sends me: I WAKE AND SIT UP.

SQUIRRELS SCRATCHING FROM INSIDE.

MY WALLS ARE ALIVE.

At first, I read it-like a million times, wondering if Private Jackson was trying to communicate with me through metaphor.

I puzzled out all sorts of interpretations too.

Maybe it was a metaphor for the madness-or the chaos I was feeling as of late, which is sorta hidden in my chest and mind, but real?

I had been in my new room for days now.

Maybe it was a metaphor for the madness of the man who killed my mother?

Maybe PJ was telling me that I needed to wake up and see that things were still alive and moving around me, even though my mom was gone and I felt so all alone?

Maybe he meant something else, and I was just too dumb to understand?

But then I remembered what Private Jackson stood for, what he was all about-all of the Zen stuff.

I instantly understood that PJ woke up in the middle of the night and heard squirrels in his bedroom walls, so he took a mental snapshot of the moment and wrote me a haiku.

Nothing more.

The moment just was-free of the emotions and judgments or any of the other illusionary things we humans feel the need to attach to everything we encounter.

Reading Private Jackson's haikus after my mother's murder-I totally got why he had been writing haikus all this time, ever since 'Nam, training his mind to allow things to exist without all of the complicated emotional baggage.

Everything simply is-always and forever.

THE FALLEN LEAF FLIES.

LIKE A YOUNG ICARUS AND.

THEN DISINTEGRATES.

I totally get haikus now. True.

And Private Jackson is my favorite writer.

CHAPTER 25.

"Father Chee?"

"Yes, Amber?"

"Why does G.o.d allow horrible things to happen to good people?"

"I don't know."

CHAPTER 26.

One day-on Donna's iPod-I listen to Dinosaur Jr.'s "Puke and Cry" a million times in a row. I just set it to repeat the one song over and over again, and then I listen for several hours-tripping out.

I pretend that the lead singer-J Mascis-is singing me the song over and over again from Donna's living room downstairs. Mascis-who has long silver hair, because he is old now-keeps on singing, "Come on down. Come on down. Come on down," like he really wants me to come down from my little coc.o.o.n of haikus and misery.

I don't come down, but I like pretending there is an obscure rock star who wants me to.

The battery finally runs out, and when I take the headphones off, my ears are ringing, J Mascis is gone, and Donna is calling to me, asking me if I want some soup.

CHAPTER 27.

"Father Chee?"

"Yes, Amber?"

"When will it stop hurting so badly?"

"I don't know."

CHAPTER 28.

GRa.s.s TEA BOILED AND DRUNK.

MY DOG ROLLS THROUGH TOMORROW'S CUP-THERE'S ENDLESS TEA

CHAPTER 29.

After a month or so, Old Man Linder pays me a visit on behalf of the entire Methodist Home.

Donna comes into my room and says that I have to come down to see Old Man Linder because he can't walk up steps. Donna's murder trial ended a week or so ago and she has taken some time off from work to care for me, which I told her not to do. She dotes on me now, even though I hardly talk to her.

"I only go down once a day to check the mail," I tell Donna. "Tell Old Man Linder he'll have to come up here if he wants to talk to me."

"The man has tubes running up his nose and is attached to an oxygen-"

"Yeah, I know him," I say, like a total cat.

"He can't walk stairs. He said it could kill him, but he really wants to talk to you, Amber. I don't think he leaves the home much. Please just come down. He's an old man and I think it might be good for you to-"

"No," I say. "Tell him he can come back tomorrow around one fifteen when I'll be checking the mail. That's when I will next come downstairs."

"Amber, what's happening to you?" Donna says in this really dramatic fashion that p.i.s.ses me off.

When I don't answer, she leaves.

Ten minutes later, Donna returns and hands me a cup of hot cocoa and a Snickers bar, and then shakes her head at me before exiting my poetry coc.o.o.n.

I hear Old Man Linder breathing really hard on the steps.

One footstep, clunk, heavy breathing.

One footstep, clunk, heavy breathing.

One footstep, clunk, heavy breathing.

His oxygen tank makes an awful clunk each time he sets it on a higher step.

"Mr. Linder," Donna says, "perhaps-you really shouldn't-"

"Don't tell me what I can and can't do! I'm old enough to be your grandfather, thank you very much!" Old Man Linder says, and then sucks in an awful breath like he has been underwater for the last two hours or something.

He and Donna fight about whether he should be walking up the steps for another few minutes before I yell, "Donna, your making him yell isn't helping!"

And then I only hear footsteps, clunking, and heavy breathing.

When Old Man Linder reaches the top of the stairs, he looks like he might fall backward and die. His face is completely white, which makes me feel like a total cat, so I walk into the hallway, grab his arm, and escort him into my room.

When he squeezes my shoulder football coachastyle, I know that he is going to be okay-that he probably won't die in my room.

He points to the Snickers and cocoa on my dresser. "Compliments of Door Woman Lucy."

I nod.

"How you holdin' up?" he asks me, and then sits down on the wooden chair that goes with the desk Donna bought for me.

I shrug.