He holds up the picture again, finger still semi-lifting the wedding ring. "I mean she fell into the lake by our cabin, and I couldn't get her out in time. She sunk far down. I couldn't dive that deep."

Tom's strangely calm during this--not still, never still, but despite the subject matter, he's no where near as manic as he can be.

"Art is a very powerful thing," he says softly, "have you ever stopped to think about it? Anything you can write, any stories you tell, well, they're real, aren't they? It's all real in some form of another. And sometimes," he leans forward, looking James right in the eye.

"Sometimes, if you're very careful, if the water lets you, if you have a knack for it, if you're truly an artist, you can make and unmake."