The thought embarrasses Jerrod now, and he tucks it into a mental corner lest his father somehow sense the depth of his shame.

He remembers that sudden flight from Houston to Roswell by private jet and the run to the military hospital at Holloman Air Force Base, but mostly he recalls the utter shock of having his father rush through a door to hug him and apologize. How could that happen, he’d wondered. The man wearing his father’s face seemed totally changed, offering his love, and no defense against the anger Jerrod had displayed for so long, and no longer felt.

The last orange streaks of slow-yielding sunlight flaring over the ridge line of the mountains to the west are gradually giving way to a stunning canopy of stars in a moonless sky, and Kip wonders if he ever really noticed such subtle gradations of color before his space flight. He glances at Jerrod, finishing the meal they cooked together, reveling in the easy way they’re now communicating.

There will be a few chores before bear-proofing the campsite and stoking up the fire, and he’s looking forward to lighting up post-coffee cigars, a habit Jerrod hasn’t yet quite embraced.

Jerrod is quiet as he puts down his plate and studies his father’s face.

“Dad, what we talked about last night? The truth is, at first, when I got to Houston, I was too scared to read everything you wrote. But about day three, I read everything. Even the embarrassing stuff.”

“The things about you, you mean?”

“Naw. That… I think I needed to see that, Dad, to have any idea how much you were hurting. You know, to understand how much I was nursing a blind anger.”

“Then, what was embarrassing?”

“The girl stuff about your dates in high school. Eeyyouu!” He laughs, holding his nose. “That was way more stuff than we needed to know! And the names! Good grief! Talk about the ultimate kiss and tell!”

Kip is shaking his head and laughing ruefully. “I never thought anyone in your lifetime would see those names.”

“I hope you apologized to those poor women.”

“I’ve apologized to everyone.” Kip leans forward and puts a hand on his son’s shoulder. “Including that Russian crew that was coming up to get me. I didn’t know I nearly hit them blasting out of orbit. They went on the rest of their mission to the space station, but I think they had to shovel out their cockpit, so to speak.”

“I heard.”

“But, son, as for the other things I was saying to you and about you, I guess I would have never said it at all—never admitted it to myself—if I hadn’t thought I was dying.”

“I’m glad you did,” Jerrod replies, intent on changing the subject. “By the way, I heard first-love Linda even forgave you in public.”

“Yeah. On Oprah. Embarrassing is the right word. I never would have mentioned her name… but we’ve talked and she’s okay with it.”

“One other thing I’ve been meaning to say to you, Dad. I mean, I think you know it, but I need to just say it.”

“Go ahead.”

“I want you to be happy. You should be dating. And I don’t care if the divorce from Sharon is final or not.”

“It will be, in a month.”

“Well, I just wanted you to know. Dad, I’ve buried Mom. At last.”

Kip studies his son’s eyes and Jerrod can see he’s stunned that another taboo subject has been softly opened. Kip’s hesitation is lengthy and Jerrod wonders how his father will respond. But there’s no squaring of his father’s shoulders, no edge-of-the-seat prelecture stance. What would have once been a small incendiary bomb—an invitation to be enraged by what he’d always considered his father’s infidelity to his mother’s memory by even dating Sharon—is now defused.

“So… should I accept one of those marriage proposals I’m getting daily from desperate women all over the globe?”

Jerrod laughs. “Yeah, at random, Dad. That would be real smart. Man, I can’t believe those women.”

“It’s embarrassing, son. I can’t even read them, some are so lurid. And the pictures they send…”

“Who’s answering them for you?”

“Diana Ross, I think. Or a secretary.”

“By the way, she likes you a lot.”

“Who?”

“You know who. And I think she’s cool, too. I like the way she treated me in the first weeks after you got back.”

Kip nods. He’s thinking about the awkward visit from Diana a few hours after his landing, when he wasn’t even sure he’d come back to the same planet. The trip from obscure contest winner to perhaps the most famous living human on Earth scared the hell out of him, and it had been calming to hear her voice down the corridor and see her swing in the door and look so relieved, actually hugging him and hanging on. Kip marked it off to raw emotion and the intensity of the moment, but in the months since, she’s become the scheduler for the media demands for his time, and their phone calls and meetings have grown constant.

The call of a nightbird snags their attention. The windsong through the pine needles rises as Jerrod looks at him quizzically.

“You were suffocating with Sharon, weren’t you, Dad?”

“I was suffocating myself, son. Denying what I felt. Following my father’s script. Life with her the way I was living it was like losing the last oxygen in orbit. At least up there I knew what was happening. In Tucson it was a slower death.”

“You going to write that book? Have they finalized the contract?”

“I have to. No, wrong answer. I wantto. That and the fact that I need the money, now that I’ve quit selling pharmaceuticals.”

“So, what are you planning after that?”

“The same thing I want you to do, son. Something I didn’t know how to do. I’m planning to appreciate every minute of this life.”

For some reason he can’t explain, Kip closes his cell phone and finds a phone booth instead. Maybe it’s too many old movies featuring the grand old railway station, or maybe just a need to touch something corporeal, something connected by actual wires. Never mind the fact that his voice in digits is probably bouncing through satellites to reach her phone in California.

“So, what are you up to?”

Diana’s laugh is like music, especially when she’s feigning stress.

“Drowning, I am, in the process of setting up the next Internet contest.”

“How many this time?”

“Four winners.”

“And let me guess, this time ASA is guaranteeing at least four days of stark terror for each one while the world watches?”

“Well… I did take one of your ideas.”

“Which is?”

“They get their own laptop while on orbit and can type directly into their own Web site during the flight. Of course, we just can’t guarantee a two-billion-strong audience like you got…”

“Lucky me.”

“Is the disguise working, by the way?”

“You mean the baseball cap and mirrored dark glasses you FedExed? No. I tried them in Denver two days ago. Four people came over immediately to say they really liked my new look.”

There is a moment of silence.

“You said in your text message you had something serious and professional to ask me?” Diana says.

“I do. But first I want to know when I’m going to see you again.”

“I could e-mail you a picture.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I get a lot of offers, too, Mr. Dawson, thanks to everything you wrote about me.”

She pauses. “How about this evening?”

“Diana, I’m in New York.”

“I know. So am I.”

“ Really? Where?”

“Turn around.”

The grin on her face as Kip realizes she’s standing right behind him is infectious, and he pulls her to him for a hug that becomes a tentative kiss.

“How did you…”

“I followed you from the publisher’s office. You know, jumped in a taxi and had fun saying, ‘Follow that cab!’”

“This is great.”

“But…” she says, holding him back. “I need to know what that important professional question is you were so hot for me to answer.”