"Don’t you get lonely not seeing anyone?"

"Of course I do."

"So why do you stay?"

Mitchell shut off the chainsaw and rested the handle on his chair tire. He pushed the brim of his hat off his forehead. "I’d be lonely anywhere," he said, appreciating the quietness and the pungent smell of cut wood and the comfort in Andy’s demeanor. "When I was rehabing in the city I went to all kinds of places. Restaurants, clubs, you name it. Everywhere I went I had to ask someone to open the door so I could get in. Then I had to ask someone to open the door so I could get out. I felt like a beggar." He straightened his hat and reached for the start cord on the saw. "I don’t feel that here."

After an hour or two Mitchell prodded Andy away from the wood and conversations that were mostly an obligation they felt to affirm their acquaintance with small talk. They weren’t good at it. Solitude breeds a solitary nature.

When Andy had settled in and Mitchell was accustomed to his presence they went again in the truck to the grassy rise in the meadow. Andy helped Mitchell lower his weight from the driver’s seat to the rocker panel and then down to the running board and into his wheelchair. They piled the truck’s iron front bumper with food they had prepared then wrapped in paper. Jugs of spring water. Mitchell strapped on his grasping gloves and secured the stunt kite handles into his palms. He became a kid again, in a hurry to play as Andy waded into the bramble unwinding the hundred yards of string with the fiery orange kite held high above his head. Unable to wait for a signal Mitchell launched himself from an existence of survival into an immaculate blue altitude and struck himself on a sun-wide zenith. He looped the kite wildly and then in great lazy circles across the sky, rolling it over into a blurred dive, skimming the bottom wing through the wildflowers in front of Andy. Exuberant and laughing, Mitchell thought Andy may be the last soul he had a chance to know...

"Aren’t you hungry?"

Mitchell woke from remembering. Andy was on the opposite couch, eating like a wolf from a stainless steel pot. A bowl of cold pasta mixed with vegetables sat on the edge of the cooler. "I am," Mitchell nodded and hooked his thumb into the bowl, hoping he could lift it. "Funny how you never get used to it."