Extra Indians. Eric Gansworth

      Dear Mr. McMorsey:

      Enclosed please find directions, and the key to your cabin, “Moonlight Serenade,” and your receipt for two nights in November. It is the off-season for us, but we have had occasional winter requests from other stargazers like yourself. You should have a beautiful opportunity as astronomers say we are in the direct path for the Leonid showers this year. Please come prepared, as we do not have a regular caretaker in the off-season. You may leave a message at the office phone, but if you need anything urgently, we recommend you make arrangements with others before arrival. Enjoy your stay.

      —the Management,

      Kwitchurbeliakin Cabins,

      Detroit Lakes, MN

      Tommy Jack McMorsey

      People are always wishing on falling stars, trying to see them, lying out under the nighttime sky, scanning back and forth, just hoping to spot one, and usually the ones they catch are fleeting, almost out of sight, vague impressions in their peripheral vision. Then they speed-wish, going as fast as they can, the lines they have rehearsed all day, maybe wishes they’ve written on the steam in the bathroom mirror after their morning showers, or on napkins at lunch, ink bleeding their desires away into accidental coffee spills, but they still do it, and try to get it out before the star burns dead away and cancels their dreams on account of their too-slow brains.

      So they don’t win the Mega Millions, or they never get that man or that woman to truly love them, no matter how bad they might want it. After a while, maybe they only whisper that person’s name as they see the trail flaking off into space, believing that might make their wish quick enough. You know you’ve done it. Even if you claim you haven’t, I know you’ve done it. Maybe you wish Earl would quit his drinking on his own before he falls down a serious flight of stairs, or gets the cirrhosis on you and dies long before your lives together were supposed to be over. Or maybe it’s Roberta, and the way she looks directly at you and smiles that one just for you, over lunch, and you wish to lie naked next to her, even if only once in both of your lives, though she talks about “all those jerks in the personal ads, requesting discreet women when what they really mean is they want to cheat on their wives with you.”

      Yes, I have been there. The wife and I have been together for a very long time, more than a silver anniversary’s worth, but there’s a reason silver comes so late in that list. You can build up a lot of tarnish in twenty-five years. My daddy used to proclaim that about my momma, but he was only joking when he would say those things, and she would hit him with the flyswatter and get him another sweet tea from the kitchen, and he would kiss her hand as she passed it to him. Liza Jean Bean, though, was never the forgiving type, and she didn’t get any closer to being one when she took my hand and changed her name to Liza Jean McMorsey, either. I am not building up a reason for doing some of the things I’ve done. I have kept time with some others because they were there. Those women, they have good eyes, and they know when a man is living in a marriage that’s become legal only.

      I’m not for sure when it happened, or why it happened in the first place. Hell, I’m not even for sure how we wound up married, truth be told. I suppose we did it for the boy. Liza Jean and I were just about living together, anyway, so we decided to go ahead with it, both knowing we could always get a divorce if that was what came to be. It was the seventies and divorce was even