“You don’t have to apologize,” Treston said. “I know where I work, I know what I do to make a living, and I know it’s not the most respectable place in Vegas. But frankly, Chad, if you don’t mind my saying so, I think you have a lot to learn about good manners.” Chad blinked. “What do you mean?” Treston reached for his wine glass, finished off what was left to wash down the last forkful of chewy escargot, and said, “All I’m saying is you haven’t stopped harping about that blond, and I have to tell you it’s getting a little tired now. Seriously, man. It’s a little insulting, too.” He leaned forward, looked into Chad’s eyes, and held his hand. “Look, I know how hard it is for selfish men like you to understand empathy. Lord knows I’ve been with enough of them.”

“What’s that?” he asked. “A picture of my mom,” I said, opening his ice-cold hand and putting the frame in it gently. “But Apron,” Chad said. “I can’t see.” “I know. But it’s not for now. It’s for when you get there, so you can find her.” Chad tapped his finger on my mom’s cheek. “Does she look like you?” I thought about it hard enough for Chad to take in another long breath. “A little bit,” I said. “Not quite as pretty?” “Well,” I said. “You’ll have to see for yourself.” Chad raised his eyebrows. “I’ll find her, Apron. I promise. If you promise me something, too.” I nodded, but then remembered he couldn’t see me. “What?” “Don’t stay sad. Remember our poem. What it means. Promise?”

“You know that saying about how you don’t know what you have until it’s gone? I already did know what I had, and now that she’s gone, I know even more.”

“Apron,” Chad said, sounding a little nervous. “I’ve been wondering. Do you think you and me would have been friends, if, you know, we were in seventh grade together?” I thought about it for a second. I thought about Rennie and Jenny Pratt making fun of Chad, his swishy way of walking down the halls, and Johnny Berman and Sherman Howl writing faggot on the top of his desk and picking him last for dodge ball. And I thought about how, if I ignored them all and decided to be friends with Chad anyway, he would have been my only one. “Yes,” I nodded. “We’d be friends.” “Yup,” Chad said smiling as far as his cracked lips would let him. “That’s what I think, too.”

“He’s just a good all-around horse. He aint a finished horse but I think he’ll make a cow horse. I’m pleased to hear it. Of course your preference is for one that’ll bow up like a bandsaw and run head first into the barn wall.John Grady smiled. Horse of my dreams, he said. It aint exactly like that.How is it then?I don’t know. I think it’s just somethin you like. Or don’t like. You can add up all of a horse’s good points on a sheet of paper and it still wont tell you whether you’ll like the horse or not.What about if you add up all his bad ones?I don’t know. I’d say you’d probably done made up your mind at that point.You think there’s horses so spoiled you cant do nothin with em?Yes I do. But probably not as many as you might think.Maybe not. You think a horse can understand what a man says?You mean like words?I don’t know. Like can he understand what he says.John Grady looked out the window. Water was beaded on the glass. Two bats were hunting in the barnlight. No, he said. I think he can understand what you mean.”

“You give a lot of great advice about what to do. Do you have any advice of what not to do?Don’t do what you know on a gut level to be the wrong thing to do. Don’t stay when you know you should go or go when you know you should stay. Don’t fight when you should hold steady or hold steady when you should fight. Don’t focus on the short-term fun instead of the long-term fall out. Don’t surrender all your joy for an idea you used to have about yourself that isn’t true anymore. Don’t seek joy at all costs. I know it’s hard to know what to do when you have a conflicting set of emotions and desires, but it’s not as hard as we pretend it is. Saying it’s hard is ultimately a justification to do whatever seems like the easiest thing to do—have the affair, stay at that horrible job, end a friendship over a slight, keep loving someone who treats you terribly. I don’t think there’s a single dumbass thing I’ve done in my adult life that I didn’t know was a dumbass thing to do while I was doing it. Even when I justified it to myself—as I did every damn time—the truest part of me knew I was doing the wrong thing. Always. As the years pass, I’m learning how to better trust my gut and not do the wrong thing, but every so often I get a harsh reminder that I’ve still got work to do.”