It began for her in the dark, in the rain of a winter's night after he had gone. When she thought about the word 'gone', it began to ring in her mind like Tibetan bells and chants, vibrating and amplifying the emptiness, filling her mind with a non melodic, but nevertheless strangely unexpected and all encompassing swirl of harmony.
    A ghost of herself rose from the tangled bedsheet. She watched herself from afar in that halfway place between here and now, "Kuan Yin," she whispered, and was soothed.
    As a child, her Chinese grandmother had told her about Kuan Yin, the Goddess of Compassion, and that her name, when uttered as relinquishment or supplication at the last moment of hope, would bring salvation.
    She reentered the body on the bed gradually, as a drifting presence might do. Her body was young and permeable. She had been exploring this ability to be two places at once since childhood. Her out of body events were common place now, and not frightening as they once had been.
    In speaking the name of Kuan Yin she knew her life had changed irrevocably. She had reached the end of her strength. There was no way to save her self or him. There was nothing left, and she had turned her badge of courage in... surrendered to destiny.
    "Morgan!" She heard the sound in the distance as if she had been asleep.
    It was Dirk Vinneti. She heard the pebbles hit the side of the apartment building before she sat up. She stepped to the window barefooted, pulled back the curtain in time to see the back of his blue down jacket disappearing through the entrance. She threw a plaid flannel robe around her shoulders and slipped her right arm down the long sleeve before he was pounding at the door. As she slipped her other arm along the remaining sleeve and tied the too big robe around her waist, she realized her heart was pounding. She covered it with her left hand as if to calm her heart, and reached for the door knob.
    "Morgan!" He was shouting as she opened the door. He looked suddenly abashed when he saw her.
    "Morgan..." softer now, his voice reached for her. "Don't cry. Please don't cry." Her eyes were swollen, black hair unkempt, her long and beautifully shaped Hungarian nose was reddened.
    "Morgan, come with me."
    He was a student at UC Berkeley like she, and they were both graduating, both accepted to graduate school. But he was wavering, doubting his teachers. He claimed he was a misfit in academia. His life experience of 23 years was veering him off course, leading him away from the learning that had been his passion until now. It was 1978 and the world was no longer at war. But Dirk Vanetti was at war with himself, and she couldn't help him win.
    "Morgan, come with me..."
    His eyes were hollow and desperate. Those blue eyes would take him far, she knew that. There would be many women to love him after her. They would take him far from her, far from the place she knew he belonged. She was the only one who could love him the way he needed. But it was over. She had spoken the name and the miracle of Kuan Yin would guide her through the emptiness.
    "It's too late." she said. She was weeping again, tears covering her face. She closed the door and leaned against it, her body embracing the solidness of oak. For a moment on the other side of the door she heard him breathing, and then his slow steps down the hall. She rested there until the tears were done.
    She was not going anywhere. Her place was here, Sin this one room studio apartment, at the typewriter that lived on an old kitchen table standing by the window. She pulled aside the lace curtain and saw him get in the truck. It was packed with everything he owned. The sun caught a gleam of silver from the tiny figurine of Kuan Yin, hung above the dashboard in Dirk's truck. Morgan had strung it around the rear view mirror, on a piece of red knotted string, the night they met the Dalai Lama, the night they wound the fragile white scarves around each other's neck and shoulders, in a symbol of greeting and goodbye. It had seemed like a marriage to Morgan, a sacred moment forever in her heart.
    She let go of the curtain, and the worn lace swung back across the windowpane.