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11 Arborvitae. In early October I walked home from work at the end of the day, as I always did, wondering if he had arrived and how changed we might appear to one another. In memory he was compact and taut in build, not taller than I am, with a bit of a barrel chest and a strong abdomen, moving briskly with quick, springy strides, as if the tendons in his legs were too short, and then the loose plop of his feet at the end of each step. Our neighbor’s arborvitae, twenty-five feet tall and closely planted for privacy, divided our respective properties, and each evening as I strolled homeward along the sidewalk, its plates tilted and tossed by roots of trees, my view of our front yard was blocked by the tall barrier until I was practically home. It was not until I had crossed the property line that I saw Joel, who was hoisting a Henry Weinhard beer box from his bangedup , busted dull thing of a car. For a moment he did not see me. His features were as I remembered, angular, lips thin, nose strong, eyes alive—the face of a scholar who might pore over ancient maps in a dusky archive. His black beard and coarse hair had been swept by gray and still bristled with electricity in the late strong sun. The old silver maple between the sidewalk and the street was spreading its yellow leaves on his shoulder, which was draped in a thin, shabby flannel shirt. 12 Then he saw me, put down his box, smiled his self-conscious smile, and walked across the grass to me. I remember that because it looked unspeakably green. It was the turning time, that summit when the red of chrysanthemums and yellow of marigolds looks deepest, endless in depth, the green leaves of the peonies from the spring darkened into a rich maroon, the hydrangea, earlier white, pink, and blue, now burnished and rattled in the wind. Snapdragons in deep crimson and pale apple-blossom pink still bloomed among the blue reblooming delphiniums and the unabated burgundy of stonecrop. In a few days everything would change. The yellow marigolds would wizen, the hectic leaves of maple would crisp and brown and catch on windowsills, the trees nearly bare and colorless, the flowerbeds hollow. But not yet. His hug was warm and heartfelt, and mine was too. He had aged, was frail in a way I was not, not in frame and muscle, not in a debility of will. ...

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