Chapter 6

It is the last day of November, and in a small house in Ledyard, surrounded by woods, a man approaching middle age wrestles with his future.

Bill Lefkewicz has gone to college. He's not the first one in his family to get there, but he's the first to make it all the way through.

He started at Three Rivers, finished and UConn, and he's worked in his field – accounting – for 12 years.

He has his own house, a small house, yes, but his own house, with payments he can make. He has a daughter, Eliza, whom he adores, but sees only on weekends. He had a wife, his high school sweetheart, but they split when Eliza was 3. She's 9 now. Bill still sees Barbara – it's Barbara Willis now – when he drops Eliza off, and their relationship is OK. He doesn't wish he were married to her, though for years after they split, he did.

So it is not love, and it is not work, and it is nothing he can put his finger on. Bill Lefkewicz should be happy, and he knows he should be happy. He has a good job, and a house. He has money in the bank, and a daughter who loves him. He has parents who are healthy, and live close enough, in Madison. He has a sister in Montville and and a brother in Clinton, and everyone is doing OK.

Bill Lefkewicz should be happy, but he is not.

The days are getting shorter, and it feels like they're taking his happiness with them, as though his sadness is somehow tied to the darkness. As it grows, day by day, his sadness grows, too.

And now, of course, it's the holidays, and every year, every year, the closer it gets to Christmas, the worse Bill feels. Every Christmas decoration – even his own – makes it a little worse. Every time he goes to the Stop & Shop and sees the Salvation Army person there, ringing the bell, he feels worse. Christmas carols romp in his head, taunting, and already, even this early, there's a small stack of unopened Christmas cards on the kitchen table.

It is the last day of November, and Bill Lefkowicz is unhappy.

Well, he thinks, I can be in here and be unhappy, or I can go out and do something and be unhappy. There's wood to split and stack, and leaves to rake, and even though the day has barely dawned, there is enough light to work, and so Bill pours himself a big mug of coffee and takes his axe and heads out into his little yard to split his winter's wood.