I’ve never been a great sleeper, even after taking the doc’s advice and cutting out the naps and the booze and the late-night TV.

The truth is, I’ve come to enjoy being awake late. Alone in the dark at 2 in the morning, safe in a warm bed, I can think about things. Last night I was remembering my honeymoon in Hawaii, which was a long time ago, and out of nowhere an unrelated thought made me laugh out loud: how after the two worst events in my life, people I didn’t know, people I had never seen before, felt the need to tell me how lucky I was.

There was a time I would have said my divorce was one of those worst events, but I don’t see it that way anymore. We were so young. I think both of us were hoping she could fix me.

I told my sister Patty about my laugh-out-loud moment when she called this morning. I was never close with my sisters, probably because they are so much older than me, but I’ve been talking to Patty since the heart attack and it’s been nice.

Patty is the middle child, which is technically not possible because there were four of us kids, but we always thought of the twins as a single unit.

“Well, you were lucky,” she said. “You were dead on the floor and they had to shock you back to life.”

I was going to say she was missing the point, but she hadn’t finished.

“And even now, nearly 50 years on, there is nothing remotely humorous about the pharmacy robbery.”

The pharmacy robbery is how we all came to regard what happened because that’s how the newspaper headlines described it after the Colonel was killed and I should have been. That shorthand made it easier. Nobody had to dwell on the actual details, which was that one of the robbers put a gun to my head and pulled the trigger, and the gun jammed.

I guess that’s what made me laugh. There I was in the ICU with a broken heart, helpless, trying to deal with something you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy, and I was no better equipped for it as an adult than I had been at age 17. And just like after the pharmacy robbery, the nurses and hospital people kept coming around saying how fortunate I was to be alive.

“What I find puzzling,” Patty said, “is that you couldn’t wait to get back to work after coming home from the hospital, and next thing I know you have all but retired.”

I thought going back, staying busy, was what I needed. I should have known better. I can still remember how determined my parents were to “set things right,” as my mom liked to say. She thought cooking my favorite meals and pop having me work on the Mustang with him and me getting back to my AP classes could undo what had been done.

“So how is it with all that extra time?” Patty asked.

I told her I had been reading more, which is something I have always enjoyed. Lately I have developed an interest in the phenomenon of cycles, those events in nature and society that repeat over time and can have wide-ranging effects. Like how the phases of the moon influence the tides.

“And the crazy people in psych wards,” Patty said.

She still has that say-anything personality.

The fascinating thing to me, I explained, are patterns that are more difficult to see, and ones that take longer to repeat. I pointed out that there are very smart people who use economic cycles and other statistical patterns to predict wars.

“Tell me,” Patty asked, “where will we be when it’s World War III?”

I ignored her sarcasm and said that what interests me most about cycles concerns individuals. Not like someone’s circadian rhythms, but patterns that might take years or even decades to repeat. Don’t you think it’s logical such patterns exist?

“Are you suggesting,” she asked, “that one could construct some kind of model to calculate the future?” She sounded exactly like my mechanical engineer father, whose career footsteps she had followed in. “That there might be some kind of template people could overlay on their lives to try and make sense of the randomness of the human experience?”

I wasn’t suggesting anything, I said. I was just curious.

“Have you joined a cult, little brother?”

I assured her I had not.

“Then for heaven’s sake lay off the pseudo-science. Tell me about that Subaru woman you’ve been having coffee with.”

I was happy to change the subject and answered that Marcy and I were having lunch later today.

“She’s a teacher, right?”

Fifth grade, I said. So she can bring the conversation down to my level.

Patty chuckled. “Your development arrested a few years after that.”

I said that Marcy was easy to talk to, and after taking care of her cars for the past 20 years we already knew each other. There was none of that awkwardness that sometimes happens between friends who discover an attraction. It felt natural when she reached out after hearing about my health scare.

“Is that what we’re calling it now?”

Not that it matters, but I think my sister would approve of Marcy. Marcy has an opinion about everything and is not afraid to speak her mind. But she’s no busybody like some people I know, I said to Patty, giving it back a little. The fact is, there is something vulnerable about Marcy underneath all that personality.

“Divorced? Widowed?”

I’m not sure. She’s got a grown son who lives with her, but she has never talked about an ex-husband or the boy’s father. Everett could be adopted for all I know because he is Asian-looking and Marcy clearly isn’t. Either way, it’s none of my business unless she wants to talk about it.

“A grown son who lives at home,” Patty said. “What are we to make of that?”

~

We had arranged to meet at Kono’s at Pacific Beach. I would have picked her up, but the guys at the garage said that’s not how it works anymore.

“I love this place,” Marcy said. “I used to bring Everett here when he was young, before he got to the age where he wouldn’t be seen with me in public.”

I’m a big fan of all-day breakfast, I said, and I love hanging out by the pier, watching the people.

We were making small talk, but it was nice. We reminisced about the first vehicle Marcy brought to the shop, a 1994 Legacy, and how she kept going out in the morning and it wouldn’t start. None of the mechanics could figure out the problem, but eventually I did. It was a faulty brake system causing the ABS pump to run continuously, draining the battery. After that, Marcy wouldn’t let anyone but me work on her cars.

I would have been comfortable going on like that, or not talking at all, just sitting there across from her and us watching the surfers and hipsters and tourists stroll by on the boardwalk. But Marcy had a lot to say, and that suited me, too, because I would always rather listen than talk.

“I have to confess,” she said, “it has taken some getting used to, seeing you in regular clothes after all those years in your mechanic’s uniform.”

I miss the nametag, I told her.

More serious now, she said, “I want to thank you for talking to Everett about his next car. He loved that old Kia, and when he totaled it I think it really threw him.”

Thank goodness no one was hurt, I said.

“The accident seemed to make a lot of things bubble up for him,” Marcy said. “For me, too. These last few weeks have been difficult.”

I wasn’t sure what she meant, so I told her it was probably just a rough patch.

When Marcy started talking again, her voice was softer. “You have been so kind to never ask about Everett’s father,” she said. “That means a lot.”

She grew quiet, and I could tell she was being careful about what to say next.

“The fact is, his father and I were in love and planned to be married. But then I got pregnant, and it turns out he had never told his parents in Taiwan about me. I guess he knew they wouldn’t approve. They assumed after his education he would return home. No way they were going to let him stay in San Diego and marry an Anglo. To be honest, it wasn’t as simple as that. He wanted me to go to Taipei to live, then he was going to split time between here and there. In the end,” Marcy said, “he chose his culture over me. I’m not saying it wasn’t difficult for him, too, but when Everett got old enough to start asking where his daddy was, I told him that his father had abandoned us, which was true. I said we had each other and we shouldn’t think about it anymore.”

You were strong for your son, I said.

“But that’s where I went so horribly wrong.”

I didn’t understand.

“He did abandon us, but he also loved me. And he wanted to be a part of Everett’s life. I wouldn’t allow it. I was so angry. I told him, if you leave now, you leave forever. Everett has grown up thinking his father didn’t want him, and I encouraged that by my silence. Now I don’t have the heart to tell him the truth, even though I think deep down he knows. He knows that I betrayed him. I don’t want my son to hate me.”

She wiped her eyes, trying to hold herself together. I knew I there was nothing I could say, but I leaned forward and took her hands in both of my hands. That’s when her tears started, and that’s when something inside me cracked. For a minute I thought I was having another heart attack.

“I didn’t mean for any of this,” Marcy said, trying to smile. “Believe it or not, though, I am happy it did. We don’t know each other that well, but I feel that I can trust you.” She laughed. “You are probably going to run for the exit any minute.”

I was still holding her hands, and the physical connection between us was like a conduit. I could feel how exposed she was, how honest she was being. I could feel the heaviness of all that guilt, but also the relief of sharing it. It was the last thing I thought would happen, but I started telling her about the pharmacy robbery, details that had been in my head but had never been spoken aloud, other things I didn’t know I remembered, like the independence I felt making deliveries for the Colonel and having my own money, and how the Colonel, who I had known my entire life because he was our next-door neighbor and someone I looked up to, was the first to hear of my interest in medical school, and how hurt my parents were later when I decided not to go to college.

The words kept pouring out, and through it all, talkative Marcy said nothing. She just changed her hands around so that now she was holding on to me.

“The worst part,” I said, “was how I froze when the robbers rushed in. I should have done something to help the Colonel. I should have done something, but I couldn’t move. You spoke about trusting me,” I said. “What I learned that night was that I couldn’t trust myself.”

We talked for more than an hour, and except for a few times when Marcy needed a tissue, we never stopped holding hands. When we finally said goodbye in the parking lot, she hugged me tight, and I hugged her back. Then she kissed me on the cheek as tenderly as I have ever been kissed. “This has to be the craziest lunch I’ve ever had,” she said, “but I don’t regret one minute. I can’t wait to see you again.”

I felt the same way.

~

Lying in bed that night it occurred to me that I have never felt such a connection with another human being as I felt earlier with Marcy. And for whatever reason I was again reminded of my honeymoon in paradise, when I realized that my marriage would never last.

We had been on Oahu for three days. Everything was light and happy. It was another beautiful, cloudless morning as we boarded the boat that ferried us out to the USS Arizona floating memorial. I didn’t know much about the Pearl Harbor attack other than it had decimated the Pacific fleet and brought us into the war.

More than 1,100 crew members died when the Arizona sunk, many of them trapped below decks. The Japanese bombs caused such extensive damage there was no way to salvage the ship, so it was left at the bottom of the harbor. The memorial was built above it.

Sad enough knowing about all those lost souls beneath us, but then we learned about the black tears. The Arizona had taken on more than a million gallons of heavy fuel the day before the attack, and even now it continues to escape to the surface a few drops at a time. The ship endlessly weeping for its dead.

The idea of such perpetual grief staggered me. I could see with crushing clarity that I would never be free of the pharmacy robbery, that no matter how hard I tried or how hard my wife tried, I would forever be haunted by that night. What marriage could survive that?

I always played the what-if game: What if I had stayed home that night to finish my chemistry homework? What if I had left 10 minutes earlier with Mrs. Whitmore’s gout pills? What if the pharmacy robbery had simply never occurred and I would have lived the life everyone expected of me? I knew it was stupid, but I did it anyway.

I thought about Patty and how she had made fun of my interest in cycles. Maybe she has a point, but I can’t stop wondering, is it so wrong to want answers? Is it so foolish, this impulse to comprehend the incomprehensible, to make order out of random? Doesn’t there have to be some kind of pattern to it?

Late at night I am still visited by thoughts like these, but they don’t trouble me the way they once did. Being with Marcy has helped me understand that everyone has their own pharmacy robbery. Everyone pays a price to exist. The black tears weep for us all.