Cris was looking out the window now, at the old oak tree. He had often lain in his bed in this room looking at the gnarled, twisted limbs and leaves of the ancient oak, turning them into fanciful designs: a dog's head, a map of Alaska. Now he saw nothing but an old tree.

Richard didn't know what to do for his son. Cris's pain was so obvious and so potentially destructive that his father was both angered and paralyzed by it, as if any false move might send Cris crashing down into a cavern of emptiness from which he would not return.

Richard kept hoping Laura would find a way to help. She and Cris had dated since high school. She knew him better than anyone, but Richard had noticed that she seemed to look at her husband now with something close to hatred. Cris's drinking was getting steadily worse. His son, whom he had pushed to greatness, who had been a hero, first on the football field and then the battlefield, had now chosen the coward's way out. He had chosen self-doubt, self-pity, and alcohol.

"Cris, pleaseCome downstairs."

Cris looked up at his father and finally nodded.

As it turned out, it would have been better had he stayed in his room. Cris got drunk, and while the combo played "Memories," he fell into the pool.

When they fished him out, his drenched uniform clung to him. It was easy to see he had lost quite a bit of weight.

Again upstairs in his room, Cris sat on his bed and cried. His father looked at him from the door, not sure what to do. "Son, you've got to get ahold of yourself. Kennidi's gone. She wouldn't want this. You've got to make a new start," Richard said.

When Cris looked up at him, Richard saw such hopelessness in his son's vacant stare that he was momentarily stunned by it.