Sometimes... sometimes his chest hurt so much he wondered if it were a heart attack. Maybe the lung cancer from smokin' all them cigarettes, like they said on the news. Wasn't about t'quit now, though. Not now.

Then he would see Junior smilin' away with Kurt. Or was it Troy? Christ. Kurt, yeah? Kurt. And Jenny who was in a commun'ty college now, gettin' all the book learning he hadn't gotten. He would feel guilty, and sometimes almos' put out the cigarette. But mostly he'd go on smokin'.

Spent his whole life not caring quite as much about th'girls as he knew he ought to. Not enough. Never enough. He loved 'em, damn sure, but he was one selfish sonofabitch. Didn' mean to be, but still couldn't quite put out the damn cigarette. I'm comin', some day, bud, you jus' hold on.

Coming where? Jack Twist weren't in no heaven he ever heard about on Sunday. Hell, then. Wherever. Didn' matter.

It weren't the lung cancer after all, but one day the tightness was actually heart attack. He was old and spotted like a horse he'd had growin' up, named Foxy. She'd been a sweet thing. Had to shoot her hisself when her time come. Hadn't been more than twelve.

The rein, pulled so tight these thirty long years, weren't goin' nowhere. He felt it as he was dyin'. He could see Junior crying tears, and he wished she'd stop. Day before he'd died, he'd looked into her tearful eyes, "Don't you worry yurself about me, darlin', go on home and get some sleep." She muttered something about needing to take care of him. "No need t'worry. Where I'm goin's someone who'll take real good care of'n me, always." She muttered something about God's sweet care. A fragile laugh escaped Ennis's lips. "Won't be no God there, darlin', but I got somethin' better."

Junior took care of him just like he wanted, cremated with ashes on that mountain where he took his fishing trips. She may have been young and naive then, but she wasn't too stupid now, that's for sure. She cried her eyes out for her daddy, long and hard, but when his ashes fluttered away on the breeze, her tears dried up.

She thought about all the awkward family dinners, all the drunken nights he'd spent passed out on the couch, all the church picnics he'd refused to attend. Thought about him all alone in that little trailer. She wasn't blind. She saw that rosey glow that came to his cheeks when he got a post card, the nervous energy thrumming through the air when he left to fish here.

She'd noticed when the fishing trips had stopped. When he'd moved to a trailer and stopped dating, and stopping smiling often, his cheeks remained tawny and beaten, his energy likewise beaten, except for the vague feeling of some expectant waiting. Sometimes his eyes would get a little wetter than usual and he'd take a unhealthy long drag on a cigarette, and look anywhere but at her.

"You go find your friend, Daddy," she whispered to the departing ashes. Didn't make no difference to her whether he went to heaven or hell, as long as he didn't go alone, and as long as he went rosey-cheeked.