Read On the Divinity of Second Chances for Free Online

easier to step on. I made these moccasins out of elk because elk hide is so much thicker than deer. It offers more protection.
    Now, climbing the trees in the winter when the bark is frosty is a tricky proposition. For this, I go ahead and use old spikes. I ripped off the leather strap and the spiked boots from a logger’s pickup down south of here quite a ways. I left him a pair of moccasins, though. Technically, I think it’s still stealing because he didn’t agree to the bargain, but I like to think it helped karmically. Sure, on one hand, it could be argued I really didn’t owe him anything. After all, he takes and never leaves any offering. Ultimately, though, it’s not my job to make judgments about his karma—only mine. Justifying wrong actions just gets a person in greater trouble. I wouldn’t have done it at all, but I just can’t afford an accident this far away from civilization.
    I put Jade’s moccasin project down and take a small pan off the shelf. Then I take the jar next to the cornmeal off the shelf and pour some instant rice out of it. I have stored food in jars ever since that unfortunate squirrel infestation. I pour water from another jar into the pan with the instant rice and put it on the little camping stove. I turn the knob, strike a match, and wait. I go outside and climb to a storage shack I built just a little higher than my house, where I store any meat I may have gotten my hands on. Today, grouse. Grouse and rice. Yum.
    My house is a luxurious four-by-six structure built about fifty feet up in an old ponderosa pine out of broken branches and thatched grass. From below, it looks like a nest. Over the years, I brought up a lot of newspaper to staple to the walls for insulation. Below-zero temps in the Idaho Rockies are brutal. In addition, the newspaper doubles for interesting wallpaper I can read in my spare time.
    I hear the screech of a hawk and peer out my window to watch a pair circle. Hawks mate for life, you know.
    I don’t suppose I’ll ever mate for life. Well, that’s what you get when you kill someone, even if you really didn’t mean to. I could be in prison right now married to some guy named Rocko or something like that. Somehow this seems to have more integrity. If I were in prison, I’d have to get meaner just to survive, and I don’t see how that serves society. I don’t see how contributing to the dark energy out there helps anyone. Out here, I live in peace. I feed myself. I’m not a burden on taxpayers. I go to town now and then, where Jade helps me replenish my rations. And I go visit Lightning Bob occasionally, but I don’t talk to him. Jade is the only one I let myself talk to. I don’t know if that’s cheating on my punishment or not, but I figure even inmates are allowed visitors.
    My third tree house is in my parents’ yard about five stories up in an ancient fir behind their house. I watch them sometimes, just to check up on them, but I never make contact. I never make contact with Olive either. Olive and I have never really been close. I don’t know why. Maybe our age difference. Maybe just who we are. She’s always been the good one, the one with perfect grades, the Junior Regionals ski race champion, the one who could do no wrong, definitely Dad’s favorite. Unlike Olive, I never liked math much. I think I was a big disappointment to Dad. I’m pretty sure he hoped his only son would follow in his footsteps. I suppose I should have gotten over that by now, but I don’t know—Olive is still perfect and I’m a bigger disappointment than anyone ever imagined. It’s not Olive’s fault. I know that.
    I decide to go to town early this year. I don’t know why. It just feels like it’s time. I can swing by Lightning Bob’s, play a little cribbage, and swap poems on the way.

Anna on Forrest
(May 19)
    On my way from the back porch to the bathroom every morning, I stop and look at our family portrait, the one taken the Christmas before Forrest left