when low clouds the shape of little hills unraveled into strings of dusty pearls scooted by gusts of northerly winds. The sun remained afraid to come out my son tossing stones its way to clock a raven sweeping its winged shadow across our faces, circling for crumbs of pumpkin bread falling from the corner of my son’s blue lips.

With each bold toss of a dimpled stone his cute grunt freezes in the air. His knuckles are grey. Cheeks are pink. Hold it this way, I show him, touching his wrist. His pulse pauses. I pause.

He looks at me with hope and strength, which I have none of. It’s too soon to change lanes, four months after three became two. We plod forward in the unremarkable field.

His red jacket flaps at its plaid hem He stomps his boots. The wind sweeps away his straight brown bangs from the front of his mother’s hazel eyes. A weeping willow bends at the field’s edge, whispering to the mice nibbling at her exposed roots.

In the din of the raven’s caw-cawing I hear the gurgle of Miller’s Creek ahead of us. On a canoe ride around its bend his mom and I once wound our way to places we’d never seen, found happier times we’d never before known.

Mustard-yellow sticks of straw break under foot. With a throaty oomph he heaves a carob-brown rock - his mightiest effort so far and breaks a hole in the sky. We can see Heaven.

His voice, loud as a church choir, shouts at the hole in the sky, “Hi, mom! Mom? Are you happy?” Again and again he cries out until low clouds the shape of little hills come to a stop over the hole in the sky.