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Getting further and further apart.
“Come on, Bry. Fight,” he choked out, dropping his head so that his forehead rested on Bryan’s arm.
And then he heard her voice.
Gram was singing to him in her soft, ethereal way—the familiar words he’d heard hundreds of times in his life, whenever he or Bryan was restless, or hurt, or sick.
Or drifting off to sleep.
He’s my treasure, he’s my joy
He’s my pleasure, he’s my boy.
If he ever went away, lonesome I would be
‘Cause he’s my angel, my baby.
Those words had soothed him so many times, but today they rolled off him like drops of rain down the window—fleeting and futile.
Da
Da
Bryan hanging over the fence of the dugout, shouting and cheering as Da
Da
Bryan and Da
Hanging out in the garage, talking into the night under the hood of car.
Trick-or-treating in their matching Batman costumes, because neither one of them wanted to be Robin.
Sharing their first beer in the alley behind the grocery store the summer before eighth grade.
Standing in the middle of the vacant building they’d just purchased, toasting with embarrassingly cheap champagne to the shop they envisioned within its walls.
And then, two little boys. One sitting on the steps outside his house and the other stopped on the sidewalk.
“Hey,” he said curiously. “Why are you sitting outside by yourself?”
The one on the steps shrugged. “‘Cause my mom’s not home.”
“Oh. Well, when will she come home?”
The boy scratched his knee. “Du
After a few seconds of silence, the other said, “Well…you wa
The boy on the steps looked up. “Um…okay.”
“Cool. I’m Bryan.”
“Da
“Do you have any video games?” he asked as Da
“Not a lot.”
“That’s okay. You can bring what you have next time. We can play every day.”
And for the first time since he woke up that morning, Da
“You saved me,” he whispered into the sheet, his forehead still pressed against Bryan’s arm. “You saved me, and I didn’t save you.”
I’m sorry.
I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry.
He gritted his teeth until he felt pain in his jaw, chanting the words like an incantation, until they lost all meaning and form and sounded odd in his ears, like indecipherable words from some foreign language.
“Time of death, one nineteen p.m.”
Da
Final.
Amanda was hugging Gram, rubbing her back gently as she said something in her ear, and Da
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Dr. Racine said. “Please, take as much time as you need.”
Da
“My angel boy,” she said gently. “You always had my heart, and you have it still. It’s how I’ll find you when it’s time for us to meet again.”
She turned then and gathered her things before walking carefully toward the door. As she passed Da
And still, he didn’t move.
He couldn’t. Not before he memorized all of Bryan’s facial expressions. Not before he committed the images to memory. Not before he was sure he could preserve the exactitude of each and every one. He couldn’t let them fade away this time.
Because now, there’d be no way to get them back.
Leah held on to Catherine’s arm as they walked her through the side yard toward her house with Da
Leah had checked the rearview mirror frequently throughout the drive, but this time Da
As soon as they parked in Catherine’s driveway though, he seemed to snap out of it. His expression was guarded, his voice detached, but he was moving and functioning as he took care of Catherine, helping her out of the car while whispering reassuring words to her.
They helped her into the house, and Da
Leah could remember that desperate desire for sleep, the need to disappear into a world that offered some type of reprieve from reality, or better yet, a world where—if you were lucky—you would have the good fortune of seeing the person you missed more than anything. She used to dream of her mother often when she was younger, to the point that sometimes she’d have her pajamas on before di
Da
He wasn’t going to deny her, no matter how much he disapproved.
They sat with her after she had taken the pill, and when she started to fade, Da
When he came out of her room a minute later, Leah looked up from where she was rinsing their teacups in the sink. His eyes found hers, holding them.
She turned off the water before drying her hands on the towel. “Hey,” she said softly.
He slid his hands in his pockets, leaning against the doorjamb of Catherine’s room. “Hey.”
Leah tossed the towel over the drain board. “Is she sleeping?”
He nodded.
She stepped out of the tiny kitchen, stopping just inside the living room, and the way he was looking at her made her feel like someone had punched a hole in her chest.
God, she remembered that hurt.
She remembered the feeling of being so lost, she thought she’d never find her way again. The feeling that things were always going to be this bad.
That she was going to spend the rest of her life trying to be whole again.
She wanted to tell him it wasn’t true. That eventually, the hurt lessens. That one day he’d be able to think of Bryan and smile instead of curling up in a ball to ward off the ache. That while he’d never get this piece of himself back again, he’d find other pieces to counteract the pain and make it manageable.