They got up very early Saturday and they took the wax crayon drawings and the laboriously written letters and he wrote his own short note - ``I miss you baby please come home soon,'' and they folded all the papers and put them in one envelope, but they didn't fit good so he put Ruby's picture and letter in a separate envelope and his letter with Bruce's in another. Then they got out in the road and hitch hiked to town. They rode in the back of an empty pick up and Bruce and Ruby kept standing up and waving their arms and laughing. He thought it was kind of fun himself.
When they got to town they mailed the letters and felt pretty good about it. The mail didn't go out until Monday, but that was OK.
He went in the grocery and got a six pack of malt liquor and drank a couple while the kids played on the school yard swings. Then they set out for home.
``Shouldn't we get groceries?'' asked Ruby.
``We got stuff at home.'' Some Pepsis, a few cans of food. ``Auntie will be by tomorrow. She always brings stuff.''
It was getting hot. They sat by the side of the road and rested for a while. It was seventeen miles home. He drank another malt liquor and the kids played a game with the ants and their long freeways in the sand.
He loved the hot sun, his peaceful children, but when he thought of his wife the knife in the gut pain returned and he did not know if thinking of her caused the pain or whether the pain caused him to think of his wife. Was the pain anger or jealousy or love or sorrow? Or was it pancreatitis as the doctor said?
After half an hour they continued on and eventually got a ride home. The kids flopped on the cool cement floor and watched cartoons while he heated a can of beans.
In the afternoon they packed water bottles in their book bags and set off to visit the Special Rock.
It was a long trek through the sage brush to the Special Rock. The kids knew the story. Long ago, before their father was born, the Russians had landed a dog on the moon, and the dog was trapped up there, and the dog had shot a piece of moon rock back to the earth as a cry for help and the rock had made a great crater where it landed in the sage brush and the kids' grandmother had found the rock and she knew it was a sign.
``The dog must be dead by now,'' said Ruby.
He smiled at his young daughter who had not yet learned to avoid reality.
``Pretend he isn't,'' he said.