This story is part of the October 29 edition of Good Weekend.See all 20 stories.
He was driving through farmland when, for the first time in 40 years, Dean began crying. Howling.
Credit: Jim Pavlidis
Was it the inclination of the road, he’d wonder later, or suggestions made by the falling light.
Perhaps it was the mournful mien of those hillside cows, or Phoebe Bridgers on the radio.
Whatever it was, such were his heaving sobs, he had to pull over.
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And there on the gravelly shoulder, it was as if decades of buried emotions rushed out of him in wet, viscous gobs.
When it finally stopped, he chuckled bemusedly, exhaled heavily, and put the car into gear.
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