Once I got off the phone I went out to the living room where Joanie was already watching TV and pretending not to have been listening in. I know she wasn't listening in on purpose but it wasn't that big of an apartment and she would have had to lock herself in the bathroom with the water running to not have picked up at least a little of what I was saying.

"Why congratulations?" she asked.

"Lou's pregnant again," I said.

"That is good," she said, "She doing alright?"

"She sounds happier than I've ever heard her."

I settled next to her and snuggled while we watched whatever was on. I don't even remember what it was but it didn't matter. I think it was some dumb comedy or variety thing and it was enough to take my mind off the day.

The next day was back to normal life. I was at the shop first thing, I opened up and got the coffee going for Al and then got to work. Al came strolling in half hour or so later with the Freep under his arm.

"Morning Jimmy," he said as he passed me.

"Good to see you Al," I responded.

That was it. No talk about the day before and I was grateful for that. I just didn't need to deal with it and it was behind me. I will say I lied when I told the folks I wouldn't be back. I did go a couple of times and I think once or twice it was because it seemed when they was dead and in the ground I could pretend they cared about anything I would say. A couple of times it just was a need to connect to something and I think maybe once it was to torture myself but I'll get to that.

On that day I wasn't thinking about ever going back to the graves or anything else like that. I was thinking about other things entirely.

Closing time came and Al looked about ready to head out.

"Mind some company while you listen to the game?" I asked.

"Don't you have to be running off to class or something?"

"I don't have class tonight," I told him.

"Some might say you don't have any no matter what night it is," he joked, "Come on over. It might be nice to have someone holler at the boys with me."

"I don't know why you even holler at them," I said as we walked toward his house. "You couldn't care less about the Tigers anyway."

"Aw you know," he said, I guess they've kind of grown on me."

We did just listen to the game for a while and that was nice for a change. I had been so into classes and then spending as much time as I could with Joanie that it seemed nearly forever since I had just sat and spent an easy evening with Al. I guess losing my folks right then made me realize I needed to get in some more of those evenings while Al was still around. He wasn't all that old I guess but then he was older than my own parents had been. Accidents could happen to anyone at all.

I did have reasons for wanting to sit and talk with him though. I had something I wanted to ask him about. Well, I wanted to ask someone and Al was the best person I could think of.

"How did you meet Lucille?" I asked him.

I watched his face and I could see him drift far away from that porch and Ernie's voice on the radio and where he finally landed, I wasn't sure but it was a ways back.

"Well, I was divorced and in a much smaller town," he began, "Which was something of a scandal in those days. In some towns I would imagine it still is but then I think if anyone had known Glenna they wouldn't have looked so unkindly at me. There are legitimate saints who couldn't have found patience for that woman. Anyway, I was working at the little post office in town there-I used to be a post master before being a small business owner-and I kept to myself."

He paused taking a long drink of beer and then sighed before he started in with the story again.

"As long as I just kept my head down and did my job no one seemed to care about my torrid past," he smiled wickedly at that past part. "That worked for a little while and then one Saturday afternoon I was in my front yard. I'm not much of a gardener but I've always liked having something nice around me to look at so I planted a few flowers. It wasn't much of a flower garden, I guess. I don't remember too much what I had growing except for the roses. My mama always liked roses, yellow ones, and so I made sure to put in a few rose bushes. Couple was yellow but I had a nice red one and a pink one too. Maybe one or two others. Well I was weeding out the rose area of my little flower garden and she came up to my little picket fence I had around my yard and commented how pretty the flowers were. I hadn't seen her there and when I looked up, I looked into the deepest brown eyes I had ever seen. You know what that's like?" he asked and then paused and said, "Yeah, I guess you do.

"Well, I wasn't sure what to do. I was never too shy around ladies and if it hadn't been for a couple of things then I wouldn't have been with her either. The first thing was that everyone in the town seemed to think I was just fine to hand them their mail but I sure wasn't fit to court their women and the other was that this particular lady was considerable younger than I was. Not young enough to be indecent or anything but younger and more innocent; it made me take pause I can tell you."

"And that was Lucille?" I asked.

He nodded, "Yeah, that lovely dark eyed woman with the light brown hair was my sweet Lucille."

"So you got over your being shy enough to talk to her I gather."

"Well," he said, "A pretty lady stops and talks to you and it's right rude not to answer her. We kept things very proper for a while and I would say we were just friends although that was never all I wanted and I got the feeling it wasn't all she wanted either. Eventually nature took its course like it often does and soon we were what you young people call dating now. I wasn't about to call it courting although that's what I wanted. That surprised me because after Glenna I had thought I'd never want to go down that road again. I hadn't sworn off of women exactly but I had sworn off of marriage."

I had to chuckle at that. Seems swearing off of much of anything where women were concerned wasn't ever going to quite work out for the men.

"I know you understand what I'm saying there," he went on, "Well, it wasn't long before I knew for sure I was in love with Lucille Brady so I went over to her daddy's hardware store and had a chat with the man. I think he would have rather that she find herself a man closer to her age who hadn't been married before but I had a steady job and treated her nice so he gave me permission to pop the question to her. I did and the rest is history."

A sad look crossed old Al's face right then and I knew he was thinking about the cruelty of life that would allow him that little happiness and then snatch it from him. I could see it every time he saw me and Joanie together or Buck and Carol or Ike and Annie. I used to see it when Kid and Lou was dating and it was there for Emma and Sam's wedding. He didn't begrudge those he loved their happiness but it made him think on how much he had loved Lucille. I can't even imagine what that would be like to find your true love and then have her snatched away so you could spend the rest of your life watching other people living what you had.

"How did you ask her?" I wondered.

"Ask her what?" he responded.

"How did you ask her to marry you?"

"Well, we had sort of a special place we liked to go for walks," he began allowing his mind once again to drift to those happy days when he had his Lucille safe in his arms. "It wasn't a private place or anything like that and I'm sure a lot of folks liked to walk down to this park and wander along the grassy paths. But when you're with someone you love I think every place you are feels like it belongs just to you. Anyhow we went for a walk one night and this was maybe a week or so after my talk with her daddy. It was a lovely night with lightning bugs everywhere and a gentle breeze, not enough to chill but enough to cause her to draw closer to me. The stars were twinkling and I thought to myself, 'Al, if you're looking for a perfect time to ask her, you won't find another quite this good.' I stopped walking and turned to face her. I knelt down in front of her on one knee and took her hands in mine. I told her I loved her and that I thought before I met her that I wouldn't ever find love. I told her I'd love her always if she'd give me the chance and then I asked her to be my wife. She said yes. I did love her always too. I still do."

There was silence between us for a while save for Ernie telling us how the foul ball was just caught by a nice young man from Pontiac and then detailing how someone had just got called out for excessive window shopping. Shortly after Ernie told us that a ball hit by Al Kaline was long gone, Al picked his head up.

"Why the sudden interest in my wife?"

"Just wondering is all," I said, "Never had that kind of talk with my own old man, I figured the way you talk about Lucille that you must have felt about her the way I feel about Joanie."

"What do you have up your sleeve, son?" he asked though the way he asked I was pretty sure he had more than an inkling.

"It's not what I have up my sleeve," I said, "It's what's in my pocket."

I reached into my jeans pocket and pulled out a little box and flipped it open. I had been saving little bits here and there since the trip north with her family that first summer. I know that was presumptuous of me but I also knew that even if things didn't work between me and Joanie the way I thought they would that I would get married someday. So, after two years of saving, I had been able to buy a pretty respectable diamond. More than anyone would have expected from me.

"Well, it's about time," was all Al said. It was enough though.

"Yeah, it is," I agreed, "It'll be a fairly long engagement though. Two years, I'd say."

"Don't see why you can't get married and her still finish school," he said.

"That's not the promise I made her," I told him, "And not the one she made herself either."

Al grunted. I know he had a point but I also knew Joanie and she had ideas about what certain things meant and I knew that if she was trying to be a wife while being a student she'd be putting pressure on herself that would lead places neither one of us wanted to go. Still, I finally did feel okay about trying to get a ring on her finger.

It wasn't like I could propose right then though. I still had to get her through the end of the semester. It was nearly upon us and I knew she was going to need me. I never seemed to have the same problems around finals she did. Of course I would have been happy enough pulling all C's anyway so maybe it really was just a lack of pressure on me. I think though there was something in Joanie that caused these things. She was just more anxious than other people.

I got back to my apartment to find the phone ringing.

"Hello."

"James," Joanie's voice said to me, "I was beginning to worry."

"I was at Al's listening to the game," I explained.

"I should have known and tried there," she said, "How is Al?"

"Same as always," I said, "How is the most beautiful girl in Ann Arbor this evening?"

"I don't know," she said, "Do you want me to call her and then call you back?"

"Let me rephrase," I said, "How is the most beautiful girl in my eyes this evening?"

She giggled, "Delightful. But my history final is going to be a bear and I might tear out all of my hair finishing the term paper for my literature class."

"You'd still be gorgeous."

"And you'd still be crazy."

I rolled my eyes at her but went along anyway. Sometimes there was just no arguing with that woman. I might have mentioned in the past that it's not very wise to argue with a lawyer's daughter.

"So what's got you in such a good mood today?" I asked.

"Aside from the sun and that beautiful sky today, you mean?"

It had been a really beautiful day that day and spring always had been Joanie's favorite season.

"Sure," I said, "Besides those things."

"I got to meet with the person I have to do this project for my Poli Sci class with," she said, "Well apart from the fact that I think this project is going to be absolutely amazing, I think I solved a problem for my dad too."

"Why's that?"

"Well," she explained, "Daddy's been saying he needed someone to help out, not necessarily another lawyer but a research assistant or something almost like a paralegal. Anyway, Noah, that's my project partner, he's a senior and he's pre-law. He'll be at U of M law next fall and he's looking for some sort of internship type thing to pad his resume and maybe make a few bucks to live on besides."

It was wrong I know but I felt a stab of jealousy right then and I wouldn't have let it nag me if I'd been with her and not talking on the phone.

"So tell me about this Noah," I said trying to sound nonchalant and I think failing miserably but Joanie didn't seem to notice."

"Actually," she said, "If you're not too swamped at the shop, you can meet him yourself. He needs his car looked at if he's going to start making the drive most days all the way to Bloomfield Hills. You don't have a bunch of cars waiting already do you?"

"No I don't," I said and I did feel sort of better because if there was any reason at all to be jealous, she wouldn't bring him right to me.

"Great," she said and I swear I could hear her smiling through the phone. "We'll see you tomorrow then."

"We?" I asked.

"Yes, we," she said, "Do you think I would pass up a chance to see my wonderful boyfriend?"

"I love you Joanie," I said.

"I love you too."

The next day I was working away but making sure to keep things sort of clear for when Joanie and this Noah would show up. I expected to see her pulling up with some guy in a nice car who came from her circle. Silly to assume and I know all the things they say about what happens when you assume but a name like Noah and I figured he'd be Jewish. So when a car pulled up that had obviously seen better days and barely lived to tell the tale, I was really surprised when Joanie bounded out of the passenger side and then even more surprised to see a Negro man step out of the driver's side. I walked over to Joanie and hugged her and then looked over to this new person.

"James," Joanie began the introductions, "This is Noah Dixon. Noah, this is my boyfriend, James Hickok."

I stuck out my hand and told him it was nice to meet him. He looked at me a little unsure but then accepted my hand.

"I have to say," he said, "I'm glad to meet you too. Joanie sure talks an awful lot about you."

"And you still wanted to meet me?" I asked only half joking. I know Joanie wouldn't tell anything too bad about me but still there were things she didn't consider bad that other people might.

He laughed and the way he did told me that I had nothing to worry about. She had obviously made me out to be perfect. I never saw myself the way she did but it felt good to know that someone saw me as some sort of superhero.

"Well," I said gesturing at his car. "Let me take a look and see if I can make sure this thing will hold on for a while longer."

Okay...so I finally think I am back on track with this and I feel so relieved to figure out where Noah fits into the equation. It was important to bring him into the story but I wasn't sure where he came from or how he entered their little circle of friends.

We have been through the due process of the schools and I think our theme song for the week is "I fought the law and the law won" Not the result we anticipated and there are things that still upset me but not every part of the fallout of this is bad. I think I am hitting a depression and I don't know if it is just a temporary reaction to this or if the questions in my head are legit. There are some good things happening and I am trying to focus on those but then I wonder about my overall skill as a mother. I wonder if I was wrong to push certain things that I did and at the times I did. I wonder if I have done a disservice to my son in some of the things I have tried to do for him. I could list a hundred things I wish people knew about autism but there is only one thing to know about being the parent of someone with autism and that is guilt. Did I cause it somehow? Have I done enough, am I doing enough? Am I neglecting my other child(ren) for this one? Am I pushing too hard/not hard enough? Guilt. It's crushing sometimes. I look at the baby pictures and I wonder if I am or even if I can come close to fulfilling the promises I made that sweet little baby.

So, hopefully back into the swing of things soon. 1962 is going by so much faster than 60 and 61 did. but if you know your history then you know big things are coming. Tell me what you think.-J