kay, you want to know what I was doing while Harlan was away. Was I pining, miserable. Et Cetera. No. I thought we really had something. When you've really had something, it's okay if it ends. It's only when you're unsure and feel hopeful one day the other person will give you the love you need that you whine and cling. I felt blessed to have known him, that he'd already given me a tremendous gift, a flow, an exchange.

I decided to suspend judgment. To not call him a bastard, to not say I had made a mistake when I called him a warrior. To not try to figure out what I'd done wrong. Why he'd left. After all, I was married. That's one big glaring reason. I decided to say, "not enough information." He was a missing person I wasn't going to find. Because he didn't want to be found.

I used to like Lash La Rue and not understand the appeal of Hoppalong Cassidy. Now it's the reverse. They both say the same thing, I guess. "Look, Ma'am, I've got to head out and win the west." So I didn't feel I was being rejected. It was more of "a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do" kinda thing. And he jumped on his horse and rode away into the purple sunset. Only it was his bike. And yeah, he could have been dead but I didn't think so.

I had my job, arranging biking expeditions near Slickrock. It was fun and I had my hands full rescuing people who thought they knew what they were doing in 110 degree heat. Yeah, a canyon is fun to ride down. Hah. And painting. I like to go over to the Arches, set up an easel and try to capture those doorways to the sky. Come back dusty and tired, seeing afterimages of green, after all that red-orange landscape.

Harlan. So you want to know what happened in the car? Why did I decide to ride with him 400 plus miles and get married in the Cupid Chapel? (Red neon sign on the roof. And a flashing heart. That's all I remember about the place.) Another marriage when I didn't like the first marriage or marriage, period.

Harlan held up my hands, my worst feature, the one that tells you I'm really a hundred and five years old and said, "Your hands are what I first fell in love with, Gail, not your hat." "My hands?" My mouth fell open. And then as if in a split second he'd acknowledged the wrinkles, the crazing, and found that unimportant, he said, "Yes," with emphasis, "they're so delicate and you move them through the air all the time. Like a dancer." And that was it. I thought if he can love my worst feature, think what he can do with the better ones. It was like watching a skilled craftsman. Very engrossing and never tiring. Harlan, my own personal Cisco Desert oasis.