A perfectly rational friend of a friend took a wandering stroll along the charmingly patched roads in her neighborhood. She’d just heard some bad news.

Her mother, distraught and shrill as usual only more so, had just called and left a breathless, agonizing message on Lucy’s answering machine. The words, if indeed there were any in the verbal avalanche, smashed one into another until there emerged a nonsensical pileup of sobs and syllables.

Lucy, an auto mechanic by passion and by trade, had heard the phone ring from the garage, which she had converted into a shop of sorts. By the time she’d extracted herself from the engine compartment and wiped her hands on the ubiquitous red shop rag, her mother was already halfway through her debriefing.

She held off on picking up the receiver. Sometimes, you get the feeling that suddenly stopping something with loads of momentum — a thick stick in bicycle spokes, for example — might cause more harm than good. Once Mom’s three minutes were up, the phone beeped and automatically flushed the call.

Before Lucy could even take a deep breath — she planned to take several, in a row if possible — the phone rang again. On the orange LED screen, “Warning: Mother,” and a familiar phone number flashed at her impatiently. Lucy’s mom was known for her episodes, and sometimes Lucy just wanted to change the channel.

By and by, Lucy clenched deep muscles and mindfully lifted the receiver off the hook. She relished the sudden quiet as she slowly raised it to her ear.

Again, the shrill accounting, then a pause to gasp. Shockingly, her mom’s antics made sense.

Wendy, their fox terrier family dog for just under two decades, had died. Old age had destroyed the dog’s hearing, and two years ago its world began to dim until it couldn’t navigate any unfamiliar space without colliding with chairs, tables, walls and people. But Wendy soldiered on until last week, when she laid down in the mud room one morning and refused to get up.

Unable to help herself, Lucy hung the phone up just as her mother had started recollecting Wendy’s best moments and frequent misadventures. Lucy cried. The grief was stunning in its depth and power. She needed to move, pump blue blood through the engine for oxygen, calm herself down.

So she walked down streets she’s seen many times before. The familiar Victorian framing of one house, square yet elegant; the porticos and embellishments of others; the wide porches and raised yards. She checked them off the list in her head, minding each one in particular to keep her mind on anything other than the grief that threatened to crack her chest open like a walnut to expose the raw meat of her heart.

She rounded another familiar corner, passed her favorite Queen Anne in the world — she’d had endless arguments with her husband over which precise shade of the rainbow laid claim to the title of umber, and this house was at root a spartan but appropriate umber tone, set off with seafoam green accents — then stopped. Where she expected to see an old yellow bungalow with its riotously overgrown yard and slightly wayward chimney, there was fence. Tall fence, still reeking of the wood yard and covered in sawdust, its nails gleaming in the sunlight, that reached six feet in heighth.

A libertarian in most things residential, Lucy hated the fence. It was out of character for the neighborhood. It was too tall, a fact that its builders tried to hide with two feet of base board. And it was different. Right now, as Wendy’s cold body lay bent and squeezed in a cardboard box under the plum tree in her parents’ backyard, different hurt. She muttered in frustration, glared at the rather nice wrought-iron gate, then promptly let it fall from her mind as she approached a cluster of Pierson homes, built after the Second World War, a rash of generic utility in building that ruined suburbs throughout Humboldt County.

Indignant is better than broken. Soon enough, she felt better. The dog was suffering, after all, and canine heaven promised a dog-bed in the clouds, treats every day, and petting parties on the weekends.

But she didn’t forget. It was three days later that she dragged her beau away from his new Xbox for a walk to witness the newest neighborhood sacrilege.

She knew precisely where she was going. From the set of her chin and the tightrope her mouth had become, Beaux knew better than to ask too many questions. Soundlessly, he composed several “I feel like” sentences and did his best to eradicate “you always” from his vocabulary. He didn’t know for sure that their ridiculously brisk evening walk would culiminate in some kind of argument, but at this late stage in their marriage, and judging from the angry way her long strides were unfolding, it was best to be prepared.

They passed the Queen Anne and slowly at first, then all at once, the wind fell out of their sails. Sneaking a sidelong glance at his lovely, if mercurial, bride, Beaux had to stifle a laugh. As if some carpenter had knocked the pin out of the hinge of Lucy’s jaw, her mouth hung wide open.

She turned to him, snapped her mouth shut as if to stop something unthinkable from falling out, then shook her head. She looked back at the weed-weary bungalow, the green tentacles of its untamed foilage crowding onto the narrow, cracked sidewalk.

Beaux desperately wanted to tap her on the shoulder, direct her back home so he could commence the gleeful killing of other people’s avatars, but he restrained himself. This was uneven terrain, he knew.

Patience, young Jedi, he whispered to himself.

Finally, with resignation, she turned back to him and searched his face anxiously. He smiled nervously, then shrugged.

After a long moment, she smiled back. She had an arsenal of expressions he’d come to know, and this was one that said, “Everything’s fine. I’m fine. Don’t ask questions.”

So he didn’t. They started home at a more laggard pace, now holding hands and talking about nothing important, the way it was supposed to be. She leaned in to him, tired and strung tight with emotion.

I know what I saw, and it’s gone, she thought. No trace remains, and even in the unlikely scenario that a fence had been built and then inexplicably removed, there would have been some mark of its presence. Holes in the ground. Hedges cut or bent where the fence had recently stood. Something, right?

There was nothing.

She related the tale to my wife, who later — as always happens, ladies, just so you know — caught me up on the relevant gossip. Lucy later blamed the episode on the dying dog and her grief at its passing, but I’m not so sure.

Mystery lives.

###

Another example: One morning several months ago, my wife and I stopped by Ramone’s on Harrison Avenue in Eureka for breakfast and coffee. As we came in, my wife glanced at two gentlemen conversing quietly at a table near the door. Strangely, Amy saw what appeared to be a kind of yamulke on the man nearest her. Yet, it seemed to shine in some strange way, and looked as if were floating, just slightly, off the man’s head. A halo, of sorts.

Once her mind caught up to her eyes, she looked back. No hat. No gloriously glowing halo of heavan. Just a man. With male pattern baldness and accidental gray accents here and there, his mouth was overflowing with muffin as he conducted his otherwise inane conversation with the other perfectly normal man across from him.

Mystery is alive and well.

###

I’ve described my father’s death in this space before, but neglected to highlight one detail that sticks out even today. At around 10:15 a.m. on March 6, 1992, as I sat in the first class after morning break, an irresistable urge to be home suddenly caught hold of my Lizard Brain, buried deep beneath all the wrinkles where reasoning never ventured, and got me moving.

There was no reason. I hadn’t been working myself up to that decision, or toughing out a bad day until I couldn’t stand it. In fact, there really was no decision. Suddenly, as I sat in class listening to yet another outstanding history lesson from Mr. Chegwidden, I had to go.

Those were the very words I used in the office to explain my need to leave. I had already been out several days here and there because of my dad’s battle with cancer, so the office staff was privvy to my situation. Mercifully, they didn’t ask any questions. Working their way down the contact list, they finally reached my Aunt Joan, who was happy to pick me up.

We drove home without saying a word. I was floating, it felt like. The normal running dialogue in my head had gone quiet, like a bomb had gone off and stuffed my ears with ash and silence.

Once at the house, I climbed the porch steps and hesitated for a second before opening the door. I felt my aunt’s hand on my shoulder. As I reluctantly stepped into the empty, dim living room, the phone rang.

My mother, laying down in her bedroom to rest after another night spent at the hospital, said, “I got it.”

It was the hospital. Dad had died scant seconds before the call was made. My mother cried, as did I — both of us grieving the loss, and struggling with the guilt of being relieved by it.

The timing of my need to come home, the lack of rationale, the call that came as soon as I crossed the threshold?

Mystery yet lives. We often tell ourselves otherwise, that modernity has wiped all magic and mystery from the canvas of human experience. Yet a lot of us have stories like these, moments when rationale explanations break down and we’re confronted with something we can’t explain.

I like it that way.

###

James Faulk is a writer, cemetery worker and family man. He can be reached at faulk.james @yahoo.com.