Long ago, long deceased.

He was a history teacher, with a history of depression, at a small northern boarding school. I was a 17-yo, with too many emotionally free ions and a pension for older men in position of authority as well as a sucker for the really needy. I am not sure I really like him, but he liked me and that was enough. My way of getting close to him, and his family, was to obsessively wash their dishes and clean the kitchen. I babysat his kids a few times but once he came back from the ski slopes because he and his wife had talked about whether the kids were safe with me. Did I say I had issues?

Anyway, I found reason after reason to spend time with him. I'd stay after. I'd court his confessions of severe depression. I'd walk all over kingdom come with him, holding hands until cars came upon us. He'd joke about sex for grades but I was too cowardly to call his bluff. Once, he was sick and I went up to lie down on his bed. He told me to leave because he didn't trust himself.

Yes, he was terribly depressed. When I served as his ski assistant for the downhilll teams, I used to sit in the front seat of the big stationwagon and plan our deaths at the hands of oncoming traffic. Was I serious? I doubt it. I remember his brother in law had moon boots and I got to walk around in them.

The final tableau had him taking me to Boston over spring break, with a stop over at my parents' house. They thought he was toasted mush, or something equally aberrant. Even I was repulsed by his depression. He dropped me off in a Boston suburb near the highschol where I was going to meet an old friend that I didn't even care about visiting. He asked if I wanted him to come with me. How would that work? I'd introduce him as who exactly to my middle school friend and her parents? I said I needed to learn to navigate on my own.

Two weeks later, spring break winding down, a girl a year ahead of me at school showed up at my house. She was all dressed up like a fake adult to come tell me the news. He had shot himself. I was confused. When I got back to school, I went to visit his wife. She was bathing their two children. She told me the grizzly details. I did acid at his memorial service. I was still alive. Once, I hung out after an english class to talk with a friend of his, an eccentric English teacher named Jeremy. He said he wished he could have gone along for the ride . . . just to see how he got his gun back and drove away from home to shoot himself.

What more is there to sy?

The friend he took to the prom

Her name was Megan. She's 15, from a girl's Catholic school, while Z is almost 18, and I had never met her and may never again. Yet, the picture of her, rather the two of them together, clicked by my cell phone, is beguiling. Megan has her hand on her hip, which I hear is a learned affectation, and has a smile that shows full teeth and a happy heart. Z doesn't look so bad himself, in his pink vested tux! He is looking in the other direction, but it doesn't matter. I have not a single clue as to their dynamic. Did he kiss her good night? You know, the things mothers cannot ask. But, I like this Megan. I like her spunk. I like that Z wore pink to match her dress. They are immortalized as my screensaver, larger than life, and enchanting me this fine morning.