He hung his shirt up on the clothesline before he left. He told me he was going fishing, and I said okay, and gave a bucket with sandwiches wrapped in gingham cloth, and lemonade in a mason jar, and even two chocolate chip cookies. He had the bucket and his pole,and I saw him meet our neighbor down the road, watched them shake hands.

And then I went inside, and knitted another pair of baby booties, and refolded the stacks of little clothes in the dresser. Any day now.

But our neighbor came back later that day alone, and distraught. He said that they had sat on the railroad overpass, but the train had come, The neighbor managed to get underneath, but he didn't. He fell. The neighbor said he'd fallen flat and been swept down river before he could get down, and surely he was dead.

"I am so sorry, ma'am. So, sorry," he said, hat in hand.

I called him a fool and asked him why he thought to go on the bridge, and he had no answer.

But that shirt stayed on the clothesline. It stayed for two more weeks. Two more months. I brought wash out, and brought it in, but I left that red flannel shirt there. And then the baby came. And I took the shirt in, shook it out, and wrapped our son in it. It was as close to an embrace from his father he was likely to ever get.