I vowed to embarrass Quentin Riconni if he died in my arms that day, there on that Georgia mountaintop under a cold winter sky. "Powells don't grieve the way ordinary people do," I whispered in a voice that shook against the wind curling over the high mountain glen. A hard night was coming; the frost would kill every vulnerable living thing, including him.

"I'll spend the rest of my life telling everyone I meet who you were and why I love you and why I was never the same after you died. And I'll make you sound a lot better than you were, stronger and kinder than you ever had any intention of being. People will say you must have charmed me with big talk and good looks. I'll have to tell them you didn't talk that much or look that good. Do you really want me to lie?"

His eyes remained closed and his lips slightly parted, his breath now making only a faint mist in the frigid air. It had been at least an hour since he'd answered any of my questions. I lay beside him, trying to keep him warm. Light flickered on his face from a fire I'd built. In the towns and homes, the farms and resorts in the valleys below us, fireplaces sent decorative warmth into the air. But here, high up where only the hardiest souls could survive, fire meant life, and only promises spoken out loud could keep the darkest fears away.

"Arthur believes in you," I said. "Now you have to believe in him. You taught him to be a man, and he's not going to let you down." The sky had ripened into cold purples and golds over the forested rim of the Appalachians. The gray-blue dusk of a fading sunset drew the last minutes of Quentin's life below the horizon. I was praying for just one small miracle. My brother, Arthur, had gone for help hours ago.

I pressed my hand tighter to the spot low on one side of Quentin's rib cage, where the bullet had torn through him. If we'd only gotten here an hour earlier, the rescuers would say. A minute earlier. A second earlier. It was always the small pieces of time that ruined people. I knew that help would come eventually, but by then it would be too late. He'd never survive the long trip back down the mountain. I touched his lips, searching for even the faintest trace of breath, but couldn't find it.

He was leaving with the sunset.

Some choices are made for us before we're born. Some traditions are set in hard patterns we're expected to follow, their seams welded, their strengths and weaknesses hammered into place. We don't cast our own shadows until we know who we love and where we belong. Only then do we understand.

Sometimes you've got to break the mold that's been made for you, or die trying.