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CHAPTER ONE

“When did the dream change?”

“About six months ago. And it wasn’t the dream that changed. The dream has never changed. It was the aftermath that was different.”

“Do you still get the headaches?”

“Yes, but not until later. First comes the anger. No, not anger, rage. First, I feel rage. And I’m pumped. Really pumped. Like before a big game back when I played lacrosse. I have to work myself into exhaustion.”

“How?”

“I have punching bags in my basement. A heavy bag I bought for myself, and a speed bag my wife gave me for Christmas one year to improve my hand-eye coordination. It was sort of a joke. She says I’ve become clumsy in my old age. She might have a point, I wasn’t much good on the speed bag before. But now, in the aftermath of my dream, my hand-eye coordination is terrific, better than when I was in my athletic prime. I can hit the speed bag as easily and accurately as I hit the heavy bag. I put on my gloves and work out on both bags until my arms have no more strength.”

“What happens after you wear yourself out on the punching bags?”

“Once the adrenaline rush has passed, the anger fades, along with my improved hand-eye coordination. I’m back to being my mild-mannered, clumsy old self. That’s when the headaches come. Horrible headaches. Blinding. I take prescription pain killers. More than prescribed, I’m afraid. They help but not much. Usually, by mid-morning the headache goes away. Then the sadness sets in.”

“Describe the sadness.”

“A terrible sense of loss. Like when my parents were killed in a car crash. There’s also incredible loneliness, as if all of my family and friends were suddenly gone, as if everyone were gone. I feel like I’m the only person on the planet. Come to think of it, maybe everyone else is still here. Maybe I’m the one who has gone, off to someplace where there’ no light, only darkness.”

“How long does this depression last?”

“It varies. Sometimes just a couple of days, sometimes a week, sometimes longer.”

“Then you feel okay?”

“Yes. Until the next time.”

“Do you ever become suicidal?”

“I suppose I thought about it when I was much younger. But not now. Never. Don’t get me wrong. The depression is awful, incredibly awful. But I deal with it. Lots of people with far worse problems than mine manage to cope — quadriplegics, paraplegics, the blind, the deaf. You can get used to anything.”

“You’re a brave individual.”

“Not at all. Suicide just can’t be a consideration.”

“And why is that?

“I’m a father.”

* * *

“Watch out, Dad!”

The warning cry came a split second too late. Simon Thomas was yanked from his thoughts in time to see his size-14 gray New Balance tennis shoe step dead-center on the large yellow kite, crunching its fragile crosspiece and spine, collapsing its keel, and tearing the fierce black war bird painted on its sheet.

With a yelp of surprise and chagrin, Simon jumped back and stared down at the damage he had wrought. The kite was a stunt- delta. A serious kite for a serious flyer. The owner was going to be angry. Seriously angry. There would be a confrontation. Simon felt his insides turn clammy. He hated confrontations. Always had. Wiping his brow, he looked up and around as if to gather his bearings. He was standing on the rump of one of the grassy knolls that dimpled the lip of César Chávez Park at the Berkeley marina. He was facing west toward the San Francisco Bay. Directly across the water, which was green, ruffled and lightly capped, arose gloomy little Alcatraz Island with its abandoned blockhouse and still-functioning lighthouse. Beyond Alcatraz was the Golden Gate Bridge, absent of its customary backdrop of smoke-colored fog.

No fog!

The thought struck and stuck. No smoke-colored, air-chilling fog! That explained why it was so unusually warm for so late in the afternoon. A quick check of the smartwatch Jan had given him on his last birthday told him the day was Saturday; the date was June 6, 2015; the temperature was 74 degrees; and — almost as an afterthought — the time was 3:43 pm. Not only was there no air-chilling fog on the horizon, there was also no cool, moist ocean breeze blowing in through the Golden Gateway.

The grassy knolls in César Chávez Park were first rate wind-catchers which made them a kite-flyers delight, and which was why Simon was there with his twin daughters, Louise and Elizabeth. The winds that the knolls usually caught came in off the water. After having been buffeted by strong gusts for almost an hour non-stop, Simon for the very first time realized that the wind was one of the hot dry kinds that occasionally swept in from the arid valley east of the Berkeley hills. It was the Bay Area equivalent of the Santa Ana wind that plagued Los Angeles and, like its southern California counterpart, it was notorious for the weirdness it carried.

Simon’s satisfaction at having solved the mystery of how he could have been so lost in thought as to have stepped on someone’s kite was cut short by the angry voice of the someone who owned the kite.

“Jesusfuckingchrist!” snarled a young man, no more than 20, who came running up to Simon, out-of-breath and sweating. He was wearing a Cal Bear tee-shirt just like Simon’s and was lugging another kite with him, an even larger stunt-delta with a huge keel and an even fiercer bird of prey painted on its sheet. “Why don’t you watch where the fuck you’re walking?” the young man growled as he carefully put down the kite he was carrying then knelt beside the one that Simon had destroyed.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” Simon apologized.

The young man shook his head sadly. For a moment, Simon feared the young man was going to cry but then his anger returned and he rose with fire in his eyes and fists clenched. He looked ready to start a fistfight until he took note that Simon’s six-foot-four height bested his own by a good five inches, and that Simon’s 225-plus pounds were not only at least 50 pounds more than his, but that a portion of those 225-plus pounds were packed into impressively muscular arms and the rest were distributed in that special way that spells “athlete.” Although in Simon’s case, at the age of 43, he was pretty much of a former athlete.

The young man was still angry but considerably less pugnacious. “You should pay me for it.”

“Of course, of course,” Simon agreed. To have done something so stupid was embarrassing and Simon wanted only to end this matter swiftly. Money would be no object. “How much to replace the kite? I have about $65 in cash. If that’s not enough, give me your email address and whatever on-line payment service you use and I’ll ask my wife to send it. I’m somewhat bad at that electronic transfer stuff but she’s quite proficient. My name’s Simon by the way.”

“Sixty-five will cover it,” the young man said, eyeing Louise, the daughter who had sounded the too-late warning to Simon and who was kneeling and examining the destroyed kite herself. A head motion and her sister Elizabeth joined her. Together they held the kite in their hands, felt the material then exchanged knowing nods.

“He’s full of shit, Dad,” Louise pronounced.

“Language, sweetheart,” Simon admonished.

“No way this kite cost $65,” Louise continued, ignoring Simon. “Frodo (she glared up at the kite’s owner) probably bought it at Target.”

“Did not!” retorted the young man, turned instantly even younger by Louise’s accusation. “I bought it at Kit and Caboodle. It’s the Renegade Model.”

“More like the Loser Model,” said Louise, standing up. She was as tall as the kite’s owner and looked far more eager for fisticuffs than he. “You know why it was on the ground don’t you? He couldn’t get it up.”

Elizabeth giggled.

“That’s enough, Louise!” Simon interjected, in his most stern fatherly voice. “The kite is ruined and I was responsible. This gentleman must now endure the inconvenience of replacing it. His loss of time and property, not to mention the deprivation of enjoyment on this fine afternoon, deserves compensation. If he sets that compensation at $65, I won’t trouble him further by quibbling.”

“In other words, Luigi, butt out!” said Elizabeth.

“Shut up, Lizardbreath,” responded Louise as she whipped out her cell phone and took a photo of the downed kite.

“Shut up yourself, Luigi.”

The twins walked away arguing, headed back to their own kites. Simon quickly paid the young man who could not seem to take his eyes off the twins. Specifically, he could not take his eyes off their halter tops and their cutoffs or perhaps even more specifically, off their gluteus maximus muscles.

“They’ve just turned 15 and if you go anywhere near them I will throw you into the Bay,” said Simon quietly. The young man glanced...